CHAPTER LIV 



EGYPT, GREECE, AND TURKEY 1888-1889 



WHILE under the influence of the greatest sorrow 

 that has ever darkened my life, there came to me 

 a calamity of a less painful sort, yet one of the most 

 trying that I have ever known. A long course of mis 

 taken university policy, which I had done my best to 

 change, and the consequences of which I had especially 

 exerted myself to avert, at last bore its evil fruit. On the 

 13th of June, 1888, I was present at the session of the 

 Court of Appeals at Saratoga, and there heard the ar 

 gument in the suit brought to prevent the institution 

 from taking nearly two millions of dollars bequeathed by 

 Mrs. Willard Fiske. I had looked forward to the de 

 velopment of the great library for which it provided 

 as the culminating event in my administration, and, in 

 deed, as the beginning of a better era in American schol 

 arship. Never in the history of the United States had 

 so splendid a bequest been made for such a purpose. But 

 as I heard the argument I was satisfied that our cause 

 was lost, and simply from the want of effective cham 

 pions; that this great opportunity for the institution 

 which I loved better than my life had passed from us 

 during my lifetime, at least ; and then it was that I deter 

 mined to break from my surroundings for a time, and 

 to seek new scenes which might do something to change 

 the current of my thoughts. 



At the end of June, taking with me my nephew, a bright 

 and active college youth, I sailed for Glasgow, and, re- 



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