"I should be grieved if, on making the trial, you should not find yourself pleasantly situated here. I verily believe that you would find a disposition on the part of the people of the village, including all the college Faculty, to render your situation comfortable and pleasant. "We shall watch every mail and ask every friend, till we learn the decision, or rather what we may expect the decision to be. With great respect, "Your obedient servant, "R. D. M."[34] [34] Professor R. D. Mussey. * * * * * What is here stated as to President Brown, was also true of President Appleton of Bowdoin College. Each had desired that Dr. Dana should be his successor. No stronger proof could be given of the confidence felt in him, than these concurrent last wishes of two such men. Each had brought to the office he held not merely intellectual preëminence, but a dignity and elevation of character, and a singleness of purpose, rarely equaled; and to each the future welfare of the institution over which he presided was an object of the deepest solicitude. Dr. Dana's letter of acceptance is as follows: * * * * * "To the Rev. and Honorable Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College, "Gentlemen:--I have received, with deep sensibility, not unmingled with surprise, the notice of the appointment with which you have honored me, to the presidency of the institution under your care. "The consideration of a subject of such magnitude has been attended with no small degree of perplexity and distress. "The character and objects of Dartmouth College; its intimate connection with the great interests of the Church and of human society; the important services it has long rendered to both; its recent arduous struggle for existence, with the attending embarrassments, and auspicious issue; the claims it possesses on the community, and especially on its own sons; the unanimity of your suffrages in the present case; these with other affecting circumstances have been carefully considered, and I trust duly appreciated. "Considerations of a different kind have likewise presented. My long and intimate connection with a most beloved and affectionate people--a connection rendered interesting not only by its duties and delights but by its very solicitudes and afflictions--a diffidence of my powers to meet the expectations of the Trustees, and the demands of the college; the exchange, at my age, of a sphere whose duties, though arduous and exhausting, are yet familiar, for another in which new duties, new responsibilities, new anxieties arise; in which likewise success is uncertain, and failure would be distressing--these considerations, with a variety of others scarcely possible to be detailed have at times come over me with an almost appalling influence. "In these circumstances I have not dared trust my feelings, nor even my judgment, with the decision of the case.