418 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT -VIII 



ing a blazing fire was lighted on the hearth; every day I 

 devoted myself to university work and to study for my lec 

 tures. Happily, my subject interested me deeply. It was 

 1 1 The Age of Discovery ; and, surrounded with my books, 

 I worked on, forgetful, for the time, of the December 

 storms howling about the house, and of the still more fear 

 ful storms beating against the university. Three new lec 

 tures having been thus added to my course on the Renais 

 sance period, I delivered them to my class ; and, just as I 

 was finishing the last of them, a messenger came to tell me 

 that Mr. Cornell was dying. Dismissing my students, I 

 hurried to his house, but was just too late ; a few minutes 

 before my arrival his eyes had closed in death. But his 

 work was done nobly done. As I gazed upon his dead 

 face on that 9th of December, 1874, I remember well 

 that my first feeling was that he was happily out of the 

 struggle ; and that, wherever he might be, I could wish to 

 be still with him. But there was no time for unavailing 

 regrets. We laid him reverently and affectionately to 

 rest, in the midst of the scenes so dear to him, within the 

 sound of the university chimes he so loved to hear, and 

 pressed on with the work. 



A few years later came another calamity, not, like the 

 others, touching the foundations and threatening the ex 

 istence of the university, yet hardly less crushing at the 

 time ; indeed, with two exceptions, it was the most depress 

 ing I have ever encountered. At the establishment of the 

 university in Ithaca, one of the charter trustees who 

 showed himself especially munificent to the new enterprise 

 was Mr. John McGraw. One morning, while I was in the 

 midst of the large collection of books sent by me from 

 Europe, endeavoring to bring them into some order be 

 fore the opening day, his daughter, Miss Jenny McGraw, 

 came in, and I had the pleasure of showing her some of 

 our more interesting treasures. She was a woman of kind 

 and thoughtful nature, had traveled in her own country 

 and abroad to good purpose, and was evidently deeply 

 interested. Next day her father met me and said : t Well, 



