upon Chancellor Kent, who strongly impressed the youth, in spite of his surprise "to hear a person so distinguished . . . use such an expression as 'them air things,' and others of the same sort.”

...

With his eyes restored and with a valuable widening of horizons, the boy returned to Cambridge in time to finish the freshman year with his class, but unhappily too late to receive the "Detur" he had hoped to win. To the end of his days he liked to recall an incident which showed President Quincy's sympathetic kindness. It is recorded as follows in Norton's "Reminiscences of Old Cambridge." Of the loss of the Detur, -"that is, one of the books given out in the autumn to such students as have done well during their first year," he wrote: "It was a disappointment, for the Detur, in its handsome binding, bearing the College seal, is a coveted prize. On the morning after the Deturs had been given out, the freshman who served the President as his messenger came to my room with word that the President wished to see me at his office. Even to the most exemplary of students, such a summons is not altogether welcome, for 'use every one after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?' I went accordingly, with some trembling, knocked, entered, and was received with the President's usual slightly gruff salutation, 'Well, Sir, what's your name?' Then, as he looked up and saw who it was, 'Ah, yes, Norton. Well, I sent for you, Norton, because I was sorry that under the rules I could not present you yesterday with a Detur. It was not your fault, and so, as a token of my personal approbation, I have got a book for you which may perhaps take the place of the Detur'; and he

handed me a prettily bound copy of Campbell's 'Poems' in which he had written his name and my own with a few pleasant words of approval. I have received many gifts in my long life, but hardly one which aroused a stronger sense of personal gratitude to the giver, or which has afforded me more pleasure."

a con

Already the young student was showing an attribute developed in his later life to a marked degree the capacity for friendship. Nor was this confined to his contemporaries. Letters from Longfellow, stant visitor at Shady Hill, with pockets often holding gifts for the younger members of the household, from President Quincy, and from other friends of his parents, contain not simply the pleasant expressions of inherited friendship, but bear evidence of a relation between the young man and elder men which was even less usual then than it would be to-day.

Of this portion of Norton's early life no account would be complete without some mention of the social intercourse that animated those years at Shady Hill. With parents who kept their house hospitably open to relatives and friends, with two attractive older sisters just launched in Boston society, with a large family connection, and many cousins - Ticknors, Guilds, Eliots, and others - all vivaciously inclined toward the friendly gaieties of their circle and period,— gaieties that led from Cambridge to Boston, Brookline, Jamaica Plain, and beyond,-the boy's life had a delightful background. Among the friends who were constantly at Shady Hill while Norton was in college, and afterward, special mention must be made of Mrs.

Cleveland, the stepdaughter of Bishop Doane, of New Jersey. The Nortons had come to know her about 1837, and through life she remained the closest and dearest of friends, loved for qualities of heart and mind as liberal as they were delightful and rare in their combination. Left a widow while still young, she made annual visits, sometimes of several months, with her only daughter, at Shady Hill, where her four brothers, William, the Bishop of Albany, whose death has occurred almost as these words are written, George, the late Monsignore Doane, Charles and Edward, each possessing unusual qualities and gifts which endeared them to their friends, — were also familiars. It was, however, not in that circle more than in others that Sarah Cleveland was the beloved friend. To Charles Norton, and in time to his children, she stood through many years in a rare relationship of affectionate sympathy.

But for one characteristic of the young student which clung to him through life, the pleasant domestic distractions suggested by what has been said would have wrought havoc with his college work and the other serious concerns to which he was already devoting himself. This characteristic, an unflagging spirit of industry, played its part in his making the college record implied in membership in Phi Beta Kappa, and, perhaps as much as any other trait of his nature, ensured the fruitfulness of all the succeeding periods of his life.

Yet when he graduated in 1846, the important work at Harvard, upon which he was to enter nearly thirty years later, lay unrevealed to him in either youthful inclination or intention.

CHAPTER II

INDIA AND EUROPE

(1846-1851)

At the time of Norton's graduation at Harvard, the foreign commerce of Boston was still a dominant element in the life of the community. For a young man who did not immediately prepare himself for one of the recognized professions, nothing was more natural than to enter upon a mercantile career and this is what Norton did. He entered the counting-house of the East India merchants, Bullard and Lee, and by methodical work gained a knowledge of practical affairs which stood him in good stead throughout his life.

His interests in these early days, however, were not restricted to mercantile affairs. In a brief autobiographical paper dictated in the last year of his life, some matters of broader concern which soon enlisted his service are touched upon. "I think it was between '46 and '49, while I was still in the countinghouse," he said, "that I got permission from the city government of Cambridge to use the schoolhouse, then standing on Garden Street, for a night school for men and boys. It was the first night school opened in Cambridge, and, so far as I know, the first of the kind in Massachusetts. I had many excellent volunteer assistants, among them John Holmes (the brother of the poet), Child, and Sidney Coolidge, a fellow of

heroic quality (devoted to the memory of Napoleon) and who years after, at the beginning of the Civil War, obtained a commission from the United States and shortly after died in battle, as he would have wished. He was the noblest character of the old-fashioned heroic type that I have ever known. At this time he was working in the Observatory as an assistant. I think we kept the school two evenings in the week and maintained it for two winters at least. If I remember correctly, there was an average attendance of about twenty men and boys. One of the boys was a charming little Irish fellow, bright, intelligent, sympathetic, by the name of Pat McCarty. He was a tender of cows, who picked up a precarious livelihood on the edges of the highway along the open fields that then bordered a considerable part of what is now Kirkland Street towards the Somerville line. Pat made the best use of his opportunities and in the course of time got into the Law School. I then lost sight of him for perhaps forty years, when he was recalled to my memory by a newspaper letter from Providence on the occasion of his election as a mayor of that city; in this letter it was stated that he attributed his start in life to our old evening school.

"During my years in the counting-house a casual acquaintance with Frank Parkman developed into a friendship which lasted through life. He was then printing in the 'Knickerbocker Magazine,' if I remember rightly, his first book, "The Oregon Trail,' and when it was to be published as a volume he asked me to revise the numbers, and many an evening, when