made the existence of egg-laying mammals seem far more interesting 

 and significant than it had in 1844. 



I returned home to find the Blaine-Cleveland contest for the Presi- 

 dency in full blast and the mud-slinging in which both sides indulged 

 was sickening. From the first, I felt that it would be impossible for me 

 to vote for Blaine and, with a great wrench, I broke away from the 

 Republican party in which I had grown up and became one of that 

 hated band of "Mugwumps," which the Republican organs so venom- 

 ously berated. To my Mother and Uncle it was a great grief to see me 

 turn renegade; they believed that Democratic success meant the loss 

 of everything that had been gained by the Civil War and that I was a 

 traitor to "these honoured dead." Even after the election, there was a 

 long period of suspense and uncertainty, in which the waves of politi- 

 cal passion ran very high, because the vote of New York State, on which 

 the whole election turned, was so very close. 



I remember three such periods of intense anger and excitement: the 

 impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, the disputed election of 

 President Hayes in 1876, and the long uncertainty over the result in 

 1884. So long as matters were uncertain, the excitement continued and 

 I heard many threats of civil war, but when the decision was made by 

 the properly constituted authorities, the excitement died away and 

 every one accepted the result. 



On December 16 our first child, Charles Hodge II, was born and 

 this opened a new chapter in life for us. With the birth of his first child 

 a man enters a new world, the existence of which had been unknown, 

 or but imperfectly divined. The new interests, understandings and 

 sympathies cannot well be described, or even enumerated, but nothing 

 in hfe is more real. [Alas! Alas! this dearly loved child was destined 

 to die before us: March 21, 1926.] 



The first half of 1885, closing the academic year, was marked by a 

 very interesting palaeontological discovery. The Rev. A. A. Haines, 

 Dr. Guyot's brother-in-law who lived in northern New Jersey, heard 

 that a farmer living at Mt. Hermon, near Blairstown, had excavated 

 some very curious bones from the shell-marl underneath a peat-bog. 

 Being in the neighbourhood, Mr. Haines went to see the fossils, though 

 he made no pretense of understanding bones, and, on the chance of 

 their being valuable, offered fifty dollars for them. The owner, who 

 had tried in vain to sell them, was glad to accept the offer and ship 

 the skeleton to Princeton. As soon as it was unpacked, I saw that, 



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