214 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-XVIII 



My two winters at Alassio after leaving Berlin, though 

 filled with deferred work, were restful. During a visit 

 to America in 1903, I joined my class at Yale in celebrat 

 ing its fiftieth anniversary, giving there a public address 

 entitled &quot;A Patriotic Investment.&quot; The main purpose 

 of this address was to promote the establishment of Pro 

 fessorships of Comparative Legislation in our leading 

 universities. I could not think then, and cannot think 

 now, of any endowment likely to be more speedily and 

 happily fruitful in good to the whole country. In the 

 spring of 1904 I returned to my old house on the grounds 

 of Cornell University, and there, with my family, old as 

 sociates, and new friends about me, have devoted myself 

 to various matters long delayed, and especially to writ 

 ing sundry articles in the Atlantic Monthly, the i Cen 

 tury Magazine, and various other periodicals, and to the 

 discharge of my duties as a Trustee of Cornell and as a 

 Eegent of the Smithsonian Institution and a Trustee of 

 the Carnegie Institution at Washington. It is, of course, 

 the last of my life, but I count myself happy in living to 

 see so much of good accomplished and so much promise of 

 good in every worthy field of human effort throughout 

 our country and indeed throughout the world. 



Following are the letters referred to in this chapter. 



FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



WHITE HOUSE, 



WASHINGTON. 



OYSTER BAY, NEW YORK, 



August 5, 1902. 

 MY DEAR AMBASSADOR WHITE : 



It is with real regret that I accept your resignation, for I 

 speak what is merely a self-evident truth when I say that we 

 shall have to look with some apprehension to what your suc 

 cessor does, whoever that successor may be, lest he fall short of 

 the standard you have set. 



It is a very great thing for a man to be able to feel, as you 

 will feel when on your seventieth birthday you prepare to leave 



