lendid casket.
In his letter of thanks,(59) after remonstrating against its too great
material value, he said:--
I know not well how to accept it, yet I am still less able to
decline it, when I read the touching lines of the accompanying
address, in itself an ample token, in which you have so closely
associated my name with the history and destinies of your country.
I am not vain enough to think that I have deserved any of the
numerous acknowledgments which I have received, especially from
Greeks, on completing half a century of parliamentary life. Your
over-estimate of my deeds ought rather to humble than to inflate
me. But to have laboured within the measure of justice for the
Greece of the future, is one of my happiest political
recollections, and to have been trained in a partial knowledge of
the Greece of the past has largely contributed to whatever slender
faculties I possess for serving my own country or my kind. I
earnestly thank you for your indulgent judgment and for your too
costly gifts, and I have the honour to remain, etc.
What was deeper to him than statues or caskets was found in letters from
comparative newcomers into the political arena thanking him not only for
his long roll of public service, but much more for the example and
encouragement that his life gave to younger men endeavouring to do
something for the public good. To one of these he wrote (Dec. 15):--
I thank you most sincerely for your kind and friendly letter. As
regards the prospective part of it, I can assure you that I should
be slow to plead the mere title to retirement which long labour is
supposed to earn. But I have always watched, and worked according
to what I felt to be the measure of my own mental force. A monitor
from within tells me that though I may still be equal to some
portions of my duties, or as little unequal as heretofore, there
are others which I cannot face. I fear therefore I must keep in
view an issue which cannot be evaded.
III
As it happened, this volume of testimony to the affection, gratitude, and
admiration thus ready to go out to him from so many quarters coincided in
point of time with one or two extreme vexations in the conduct of his
daily business as head of the government. Some of them were aggravated by
the loss of a man whom he regarded as one of his two or three most
important friends.
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