ROCKS, STORMS, AND PERIL- 1868 -1874 421 



principal heir and the university, and finally took the 

 steamer for Europe in order to meet him and see if some 

 arrangement could be made. But personal bitterness had 

 entered too largely into the contest, and my efforts were 

 in vain. Though our legal advisers insisted that the uni- 

 versity was sure of winning the case, we lost it in every 

 court first in the Supreme Court of the State, then in the 

 Court of Appeals, and finally in the Supreme Court of the 

 United States. To me all this was most distressing. The 

 creation of such a library would have been the culmina- 

 tion of my work; I could then have sung my Nunc 

 dimittis. But the calamity was not without its compensa- 

 tions. When the worst was known, Mr. Henry W. Sage, 

 a lifelong friend of Mr. McGraw and of Mrs. Fiske, came 

 to my house, evidently with the desire to console me. He 

 said: " Don't allow this matter to prey upon you; Jenny 

 shall have her library; it shall yet be built and well en- 

 dowed. " He was true to his promise. On the final de- 

 cision against us, he added to his previous large gifts to the 

 university a new donation of over six hundred thousand 

 dollars, half of which went to the erection of the present 

 library building, and the other half to an endowment fund. 

 Professor Fiske also joined munificently in enlarging the 

 library, adding various gifts which his practised eye 

 showed him were needed, and, among these, two collec- 

 tions, one upon Dante and one in Romance literature, each 

 the best of its kind in the United States. Mr. William 

 Sage also added the noted library in German literature 

 of Professor Zarncke of Leipsic ; and various others con- 

 tributed collections, larger or smaller, so that the library 

 has become, as a whole, one of the best in the country. As 

 I visit it, there often come back vividly to me remem- 

 brances of my college days, when I was wont to enter the 

 Yale library and stand amazed in the midst of the sixty 

 thousand volumes which had been brought together dur- 

 ing one hundred and fifty years. They filled me with awe. 

 But Cornell University has now, within forty years from 

 its foundation, accumulated very nearly three hundred 



