and period of residence in Iceland. There he made his
first great error in our relations, for while I was a servant in his
house and office my mind and will were his, but when I became a
delegate they became my own, in charge for the people who elected me.

"It would be a long story to tell you of all that occurred in the
three years thereafter; how I saw many a doubtful scheme hatched
under my eyes without having the power or right to protest while I
kept the shelter of the Governor's roof; how I left his house and
separated from him; how I pursued my way apart from him, supported by
good men who gathered about me; how he slandered and maligned and
injured me through my father, whom all had known, and my mother, of
whom I myself had told him; how in the end he prompted the Danish
Government to propose to Althing a new constitution for Iceland,
curtailing her ancient liberties and violating her time-honored
customs, and how I led the opposition to this unworthy project and
defeated it. The end of all is that within these two months Iceland
has risen against the rule of Denmark as administered by Jorgen
Jorgensen, driving him away, and that I, who little thought to sit in
his place even in the days when he himself was plotting to put me
there, and would have fled from the danger of pushing from his stool
the man whose bread I had eaten, am at this moment president of a new
Icelandic republic.

"It will seem to you a strange climax that I am where I am after so
short a life here, coming as a youth and a stranger only four years
ago, without a livelihood and with little money (though more I might
perhaps have had), on a vague errand, scarcely able to speak the
language of the people, and understanding it merely from the
uncertain memories of childhood. And if above the pleasures of a true
patriotism--for I am an Icelander, too, proud of the old country and
its all but thousand years--there is a secret joy in my cup of
fortune, the sweetest part of it is that there are those--there is
one--in dear little Ellan Vannin who will, I truly think, rejoice
with me and be glad. But I am too closely beset by the anxieties that
have come with my success to give much thought to its vanities. Thus
in this first lull after the storm of our revolution, I have to be
busy with many active preparations. Jorgen Jorgensen has gone to
Copenhagen, where he will surely incite the Danish Government to
reprisals, though a powerful State might w