The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II | Page 6

can see that most of my
straits in life have been owing to my having accepted the miserable and
delusive advantage of an official position under my government. I was
not indolent, and asked for an appointment not to escape work, but to
be put in the way of work which I wanted to do; and when I was
disappointed in the appointment to Venice I should have set to work at
home. But my position was a difficult one. The arts were for the war
times suspended; I could not get into the army, my mother in an
extreme old age was a pensioner at my brother Charles's house, and my
sister-in-law refused to allow me to remain in my brother's house. I had,
at an earlier date, in obedience to my brother's urgings and in deference
to the Sabbatarian scruples, refused all offers to go into business, as he
regarded me as his heir, and had formally and at more than one juncture
assured me that my future was provided for and that I need have no
anxiety as to money.
My brother had urged my acceptance of the post at Rome, and all the
disasters of my subsequent life came from that error. My temperament
and the habit of my life had always prevented me from anticipating
trouble, and I never hesitated to go ahead in what lay before me,
trusting to the chapter of accidents to get through, incessant activity
keeping anxiety away. I have never flinched from a duty, if I saw it,
have never done an injustice to man or woman, intentionally, and at
more than one moment of my career have accepted the worse horn of a

dilemma rather than permit a wrong to happen to another; and if I have
been erratic and unstable it has not been from selfish or perverse
motives. I have always been what most people would call visionary,
and material objects of endeavor have not had the value they ought to
have had in my eyes. As I look back upon a career which has brought
me into contact with many people and many interests not my own, I
can honestly say that I have not been actuated in any important
transaction by my own interest to the disadvantage of that of other
people, though I have probably often insisted too much on my own way
of seeing things in undue disregard of the views of others. Confronted
with opportunities of enriching myself illicitly, I can honestly say that
they never offered the least temptation, for I have never cared enough
about money or what it brings to do anything solely for it; and, if I have
been honest, it has not been from the excellence of my principles, but
because I was born so.
But if I could have conceived what this Cretan venture was to bring me
to, I should have taken the steamer to America rather than to the Levant.
The few days we remained in Florence, then still crowded by the
advent of the court, with its satellites and accompaniments, gave me an
opportunity to know well one of the noblest of my countrymen of that
period of our history, Mr. George P. Marsh. It is difficult even now,
after the lapse of many years since I last saw him, to do justice to the
man as I came, then and in later years, to know him and compare him
with other Americans in public life. As a representative of our country
abroad, no one, not even Lowell, has stood for it so nobly and
unselfishly; Charles Francis Adams alone rivaling him in the
seriousness with which he gave himself to the Republic. Lowell was
not less patriotic, but he loved society and England; Marsh in those
days of trial loved nothing but his country, and with an intensity that
was ill-requited as it was immeasurable. He took a great interest in our
little Russie, whom he pronounced the most remarkable child for
beauty and intelligence he had ever seen, and his interest followed us in
the tragedy of our Cretan life.
We sailed by the Austrian Lloyds' steamer to Corfu, with a bill of
health in perfect order, but on arrival at Corfu were ordered into

quarantine, because six months before cholera had made a brief
appearance at Ancona. Our consul, Mr. Woodley, came off to the
steamer to see me, for the American flag was flying from the masthead,
as is customary in the Levant when a consul is on board, and he
proposed to hire a little yacht for us to make the quarantine in, as
otherwise we should have to go to a desert island at the head of the bay,
where the only shelter was an ancient and dilapidated lazaretto