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.