material. My engagement introduced an unexpected complication and 

 made me unwilling to leave home. But, most happily, my wife that 

 was to be has always put the faithful performance of duty above every 

 other consideration and the only question she asked was: "Do you think 

 you ought to go?" My determination was strengthened by all the 

 friends whom I consulted. In a letter of April 25 I wrote: "The plot 

 is thickening. I mentioned the idea of going to Heidelberg to Dr. Guyot, 

 for the first time, this afternoon. He is enthusiastically in favour of 

 it and again approached me this evening to urge it upon me. Dr. 

 McCosh is also in favour of it and so, you see, it begins to look very 

 much like going." Osborn and his father and Sloane were among those 

 who urged me to go and, for a time, Osborn intended to go with me, 

 but found it inadvisable at the last moment, for family reasons. 



Before I sailed, on June 11, I had a very charming week-end at 

 Garrison, where Miss Post and I were invited by Mrs. Osborn. Mr. 

 Osborn was then building the tower on the mountain-top which was 

 afterwards enlarged and made his country home. Since his mother's 

 death, Henry F. himself lived in it. Mr. Osborn had a visitor, whom 

 he was showing about and to whom he introduced me. This was a 

 youngish, very taciturn man, whom I thought very handsome, but I 

 did not think of him again for years. He was a Mr. John Rockefeller, 

 of Cleveland, and, after he had left, Mr. Osborn told me that he was a 

 man of remarkable ability and would be heard from later, a prediction 

 which needs no commentary. 



I finally got away in the S. S. Alsatia, a small, dirty, excessively un- 

 comfortable and slow old tub, which, however, had two great advan- 

 tages, she was cheap and she went direcdy to London. The voyage, 

 which lasted a fortnight, was smooth, as is generally the case in June, 

 and we landed at the Victoria Dock in London. 



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