164 POLITICAL LIFE -VIII 



when I am gone this portrait of Prudence Crandall is to 

 go to Andrew White for Cornell University, where my 

 anti-slavery books already are.' 7 As I left him, both of 

 us were in the most cheerful mood, he appearing better 

 than during some weeks previous. Next morning I 

 learned that he had died during the night. The portrait 

 of Miss Crandall now hangs in the Cornell University 

 Library. 



My summer was given up partly to recreation mingled 

 with duties of various sorts, including an address in honor 

 of President Woolsey at the Alumni dinner at Yale and 

 another at the laying of the corner stone of Syracuse 

 University. 



Noteworthy at this period was a dinner with Long- 

 fellow at Cambridge, and I recall vividly his showing me 

 various places in the Craigie house connected with inter- 

 esting passages in the life of Washington when he occu- 

 pied it. 



Early in the autumn, while thus engrossed in every- 

 thing but political matters, I received a letter from my 

 friend Mr. A. B. Cornell, a most energetic and efficient 

 man in State and national politics, a devoted supporter 

 of General Grant and Senator Conkling, and afterward 

 governor of the State of New York, asking me if I would 

 go to the approaching State convention and accept its 

 presidency. I wrote him in return expressing my reluc- 

 tance, dwelling upon the duties pressing upon me in con- 

 nection with the university, and asking to be excused. In 

 return came a very earnest letter insisting on the impor- 

 tance of the convention in keeping the Republican party 

 together, and in preventing its being split into factions 

 before the approaching presidential election. I had, on 

 all occasions, and especially at various social gatherings 

 at which political leaders were present, in New York and 

 elsewhere, urged the importance of throwing aside all 

 factious spirit and harmonizing the party in view of the 

 coming election, and to this Mr. Cornell referred very 

 earnestly. As a consequence I wrote him that if the dele- 



