years, tapped me on the shoulder, and said: "DeWitt, I see you are
looking out at the scenes of your boyhood."

"Oh, yes," I replied, "I was looking out at the old place where my
mother lived and died."

I pass over the boyhood days and the country school. The first real
breath of life is in young manhood, when, with the strength of the
unknown, he dares to choose a career. I first studied for the law, at
the New York University.

New York in 1850 was a small place compared to the New York of to-day,
but it had all the effervescence and glitter of the entire country even
then. I shall never forget the excitement when on September 1st, 1850,
Jenny Lind landed from the steamer "Atlantic." Not merely because of her
reputation as a singer, but because of her fame for generosity and
kindness were the people aroused to welcome her. The first $10,000 she
earned in America she devoted to charity, and in all the cities of
America she poured forth her benefactions. Castle Garden was then the
great concert hall of New York, and I shall never forget the night of
her first appearance. I was a college boy, and Jenny Lind was the first
great singer I ever heard. There were certain cadences in her voice that
overwhelmed the audience with emotion. I remember a clergyman sitting
near me who was so overcome that he was obliged to leave the auditorium.
The school of suffering and sorrow had done as much for her voice as the
Academy of Stockholm.

The woman who had her in charge when a child used to lock her in a room
when she went off to the daily work. There by the hour Jenny would sit
at the window, her only amusement singing, while she stroked her cat on