s. But he had mainly distinguished
himself as a rebel against authority. And it was in the temper of a
rebel that he came to Athens. Obstacles, however, external as well as
internal, made a subversive enterprise impossible. With the quick
adaptability of his nature, he turned into a guardian of established
institutions: the foe of revolution and friend of reform. Supported by
the Crown, he was able to lift his voice for a "Revisionist" above the
angry sea of a multitude clamouring for a "Constituent Assembly."

All that was healthy in the political world rallied to the new man; and
the new man did not disappoint the faith placed in him. Through the
next two years he stood in every eye as the embodiment of constructive
statesmanship. His Government had strength enough in the country to
dispense with "graft." The result was a thorough overhauling of the
State machinery. Self-distrust founded on past failures vanished.
Greece seemed like an invalid healed and ready to face the future. It
was a miraculous change for a nation whose political life hitherto had
exhibited two traits seldom found combined: the levity of childhood and
the indolence of age.

For this miracle the chief credit undoubtedly belonged {4} to M.
Venizelos. He had brought to the task a brain better endowed than any
associated with it. His initiative was indefatigable; his decision
quick. Unlike most of his countrymen, he did not content himself with
ideas without works. His subtlety in thinking did not serve him as a
substitute for action. To these talents he added an eloquence of the
kind which, to a Greek multitude, is irresistible, and a certain gift
which does not always go with high intelligence, but, when it does, is
worth all the arts of the most profound politician and accomplished
orator put together. He understood, as it were instinctively, the
character of every man he met, and dealt with him accordingly. This
tact, coupled with a smile full of sweetness and apparent frankness,
gave to his vivid personality a charm which only those could appraise
who experienced it.

Abroad the progress of M. Venizelos excited almost as much interest as
it did in Greece. The Greeks are extraordinarily sensitive to foreign
opinion: a single good word in a Western newspaper raises a politician
in public esteem more than a whole volume of home-made panegyric. M.
Venizelos had not neglected this branch of his business; and from the
outset ever