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[401]

In my whole connection with it, I feel as if I had been as much actuated by a sense of duty to improve the institution, and serve the community, as men in public places commonly are. So, I doubt not, are those who have the management of the College, and pursue the opposite course. I do not know that it could be in the hands of abler men, or men more disinterested; certainly not of men for whom I have a greater regard or respect. We differ, however, very largely, both as to what the College can be, and what it ought to be. We therefore separate, as men who go different roads, though proposing the same end, each persuaded the one he prefers is the best, the pleasantest, and the shortest.


Ten weeks later he writes again to Mr. Daveis:—

Boston, March 19, 1835.
my dear Charles,—I write in haste, to give you notice of a plan which has been settled a couple of days, and by which I embark with all my household gods for Europe, early in June, to be absent three years, or perhaps four. The immediate cause is Anna's health. We had been talking for many months of the possibility of going two or three years hence; but, as Anna said yesterday, it always seemed so remote and uncertain, that she had never for a moment regarded it as a reality. But all winter she has failed. . . . . We were, therefore, arranging everything to go to the South, and the West, and anywhere for four or five months. . . . .

There was nothing against it [the European tour] but one or two unfulfilled plans of my own, and the wish to have the children a little older, that they might more profit by it. Such things yielded at once to the state of Anna's health, especially as it has failed considerably during the last three weeks. We go to live in different places in Europe, in the quietest and most domestic way,. . . . but to go through as vigorous a course of improvement as we can, by an industrious use of the advantages we may be able to enjoy.


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