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It is a tradition in the city of
Cambridge, Massachusetts, that
Howells used to exult, on arriving from his Western birthplace, in having at length met for the first time, in
Charles Eliot Norton, the only man he had ever seen who had been cultivated up to the highest point of which he was capable.
To this the verdict of all
Cambridge readily assented.
What the neighbors could not at that time foresee was that the man thus praised would ever live to be an octogenarian, or that in doing so he would share those attractions of constantly increasing mildness and courtesy which are so often justly claimed for advancing years.
There was in him, at an earlier period, a certain amount of visible self-will, and a certain impatience with those who dissented from him,--he would not have been his father's son had it been otherwise.
But these qualities diminished, and he grew serener and more patient with others as the years went on. Happy is he who has lived long enough to say with
Goethe, “It is only necessary to grow old to become more indulgent.
I see no fault committed which I have not committed myself.”
