The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II | Page 6

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 overrun by rats, and where we should have to pass two weeks dependent on the enterprise of the Corfiotes for our subsistence. The yacht was accepted, and came to an anchor off the marina, two or three hundred yards from the quay, and we transshipped at once, as the steamer continued her voyage.