advancement and diffusion of knowledge and
understanding among the people of the United States by aiding
technical schools, institutions of higher learning, libraries,
scientific research, hero funds, useful publications and by such other
agencies and means as shall from time to time be found appropriate
therefor."

The Carnegie benefactions, all told, amount to something over
$350,000,000--surely a huge sum to have been brought together and then
distributed by one man.]

Thus, Pittencrieff Glen is the most soul-satisfying public gift I ever
made, or ever can make. It is poetic justice that the grandson of
Thomas Morrison, radical leader in his day, nephew of Bailie Morrison,
his son and successor, and above all son of my sainted father and my
most heroic mother, should arise and dispossess the lairds, should
become the agent for conveying the Glen and Park to the people of
Dunfermline forever. It is a true romance, which no air-castle can
quite equal or fiction conceive. The hand of destiny seems to hover
over it, and I hear something whispering: "Not altogether in vain have
you lived--not altogether in vain." This is the crowning mercy of my
career! I set it apart from all my other public gifts. Truly the
whirligig of time brings in some strange revenges.

It is now thirteen years since I ceased to accumulate wealth and began
to distribute it. I could never have succeeded in either had I stopped
with having enough to retire upon, but nothing to retire to. But there
was the habit and the love of reading, writing and speaking upon
occasion, and also the acquaintance and friendship of educated men
which I had made before I gave up business. For some years after
retiring I could not force myself to visit the works. This, alas,
would recall so many who had gone before. Scarcely one of my early
friends would remain to give me the hand-clasp of the days of old.
Only one or two of these old men would call me "Andy."

Do not let it be thought, however, that my younger partners were
forgotten, or that they have not played a very important part in
sustaining me in the effort of reconciling myself to the new
conditions. Far otherwise! The most soothing influence of all was
their prompt organization of the Carnegie Veteran Association, to
expire only when the last member dies. Our yearly dinner together, in
our own home in New York, is a source of the greatest pleasure,--so
great that it lasts from one year to the other. Som