Time has shown that Tricoupi was the only party leader in Greece who saw affairs justly.  Had his counsel prevailed, the nation would have found in 1881 what they discovered only in 1897, that they needed training and concentration to hold their own, and that the path of conquest of their ancient estate was set with obstacles which only Spartan discipline and endurance could clear away.  As it has happened, the lesson has been learned only after all the competing elements have had theirs and are on the way to the primacy in the Balkans which the Greeks thought the heritage of their race, but of which they can now hold no hope.  The protection of the powers has been fatal, for the future of the Levant belongs to the Slav in spite of all the intelligence, activity, and personal morality in which the Greeks excel all their rivals.  An English statesman who had to deal with Tricoupi in regard to official matters said to me once that he found him apparently open and business-like, but that when they came to the transaction of matters at issue he proved to be as slippery and dishonest as any of his countrymen.  But Tricoupi was a Greek, and evasion, diplomatic duplicity, and the usual devices of the weak brought to terms by the strong, are ingrained with the race.  He felt the truth, viz., that all the powers, while professing to protect them, were really oppressing them by their protection, and that the negotiations in which they posed as friends were really hostile measures which he was, in duty to his nation, bound to fight by all the means in his reach; and in this case the means were those of the weak, deprived of liberty of action as much as if they were held down by the troops of the powers.

In all these considerations Tricoupi stands as much the type and impersonation of the modern Greek in his best phase, and the Hellenic cause lost in his early death the largest exponent of the characteristics of the race I have ever known, but, as fate had it, lost him only when his abilities could only serve to mitigate disaster and accentuate failure.  Had he been alive, I am convinced that the disaster of 1897 would not have taken place, and, if a conflict was, through the ignorant impetuosity of the masses, unavoidable, it would have resulted more creditably to the Greek army, not in victory indeed, for this was under the circumstances not to be hoped for, but in a defeat which was not irretrievable.

The campaign finished, I returned to Florence, where, during the lull in Eastern matters, I found my only public occupation in the contest with regard to the restoration of ancient buildings in Italy.  Those who can remember the aspect of the Ducal Palace and St. Mark’s in those years, shored up to prevent large portions of them from falling in crumbling ruin into the Piazza, and can see that now at least the general aspect of the perfect building is preserved, and in the case of the Ducal Palace even the details of the most important decorative elements restored