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