The best known man in New York, in one sense, and the least known in
others, is Horace Greeley. If there is a man, woman, or child in all
this broad land who has not heard of him, let that person apply to Barnum
for an engagement as a natural curiosity. And yet how few know the man
as he really is. The most absurd stories are told of him, and the
likeness most familiar to the public is a ridiculous caricature.
He was born in Amherst, New Hampshire, on the 3d of February, 1811, and
is consequently 61 years old. His parents were poor, and Horace received
but a very plain education at the common schools of the vicinity. The
natural talent of the boy made up for this, however, for he read
everything he could lay his hands on. He was a rapid reader, too, and
had the faculty of retaining the information thus acquired. He was kept
too busy at work on his father's sterile farm to be able to read during
the day, and he was too poor to afford to use candles at night, and so
his early studies were carried on by the light of pine knots. He served
a severe apprenticeship at the printing business, commencing it at a very
early age, and finding employment first on one country paper, and then on
another, working at his trade, and occasionally writing for the journals
he put in type.
In 1831 he came to New York, convinced that the great city offered him a
better opportunity for success than any other place, and resolved to win
that success. He was very boyish in appearance, frail, delicate-looking,
but hopeful and resolved. For ten years he worked hard in the various
offices of the city, sometimes setting type and sometimes writing
editorials. Sometimes he published his own journal, but generally found
this a "losing business." Failure did not discourage him, and he kept
on, acquiring greater experience and becoming better known every year.
He has himself told so well the story of his early struggles to so large
an audience that I need not repeat it here.
In 1841, ten years from the time he wandered along Nassau street, without
money or friends, and with all his worldly possessions tied up in a
handkerchief, he began the publication of the _New York Tribune_, having
succeeded in obtaining the necessary capital. It was a venture, and a
bold one, but it proved a great success. He chose the name of the
journal himself, and became its responsible editor. Though others have
assisted him in his efforts, the success of the paper is his work. He
has made it a great power in the land, and he is naturally proud of his
work. Those who know him best say that the title dearest to his heart is
that of "Founder of the New York Tribune."
Mr. Greeley's career has been one of incessant labor. His friends say he
was never known to rest as other men do. When he goes to his farm in
Westchester County for recreation, he rests by chopping wood and digging
ditches. His editorial labors make up a daily average of about two
columns of the _Tribune_, and he contributes the equivalent of about six
_Tribune_ columns per week to other journals. He writes from fifteen to
twenty-five letters per day; he has published several large works; he
goes thoroughly through his exchanges every day, and keeps himself well
posted in the current literature of the times; he speaks or lectures
about five or six times a month, and makes monthly visits to Albany and
Washington, to see what is going on behind the scenes in the capitals of
the State and Nation. He is constantly receiving people who come on
business or from curiosity, and yet he never seems tired, though he is
not always even-tempered.
He is somewhat peculiar in his personal appearance. Most people in
thinking of him picture to themselves a slouchy looking man, with a white
hat, a white overcoat, with one leg of his breeches caught over the top
of his boot, his whole dress shabby and not overclean, and his pockets
stuffed full of newspapers, and many have imagined that he "gets himself
up" so, in order to attract attention on the streets. The true Horace
Greeley, however, though careless as to outward appearances, is
immaculately neat in his dress. No one ever saw him with dirty linen or
soiled clothes except in muddy weather, when, in New York, even a Brummel
must be content to be splashed with mud. Mr. Greeley's usual dress is a
black frock coat, a white vest, and a pair of black pantaloons which come
down to the ankle. His black cravat alone betrays his carelessness, and
that only when it slips off the collar, and works its way around to the
side. Mr. Greeley is five feet ten inches in height, and is stout in
proportion. He is partly bald, and his hair is white. He has a light,
pinkish complexion, and his eyes are blue, small, and sunken. His mouth
is well-shaped, and his features are regular. His beard is worn around
the throat and under the chin, and is perfectly white. His hands are
small and soft; but his feet and legs are awkward and clumsy, and this
gives to him a peculiar shuffling motion in walking. He is abstracted in
manner, and when accosted suddenly replies abruptly, and as some think
rudely.
One of his acquaintances thus describes him in his editorial office:
"We walk through the little gate in the counter, turn within the open
doorway on our left, climb a short, narrow flight of stairs, and find
ourselves in a small room, ten by fifteen, furnished with a green carpet,
a bed lounge, an open book-rack, a high desk, a writing-desk, three
arm-chairs, a short-legged table, and a small marble sink.
"Mr. Greeley's back is toward us. He is seated at his desk. His head is
bent over his writing, and his round shoulders are quite prominent. He
is scribbling rapidly. A quire of foolscap, occupying the only clear
space on his desk, is melting rapidly beneath his pen. The desk itself
is a heap of confusion. Here is Mr. Greeley's straw hat; there is his
handkerchief. In front of him is a peck of newspaper clippings, not
neatly rolled up, but loosely sprawled over the desk. At his left a
rickety pair of scissors catches a hurried nap, and at his right a
paste-pot and a half-broken box of wafers appear to have had a
rough-and-tumble fight. An odd-looking paper-holder is just ready to
tumble on the floor. An old-fashioned sand-box, looking like a
dilapidated hour-glass, is half-hidden under a slashed copy of _The New
York World_. Mr. Greeley still sticks to wafers and sand, instead of
using mucilage and blotting-paper. A small drawer, filled with postage
stamps and bright steel pens, has crawled out on the desk. Packages of
folded missives are tucked in the pigeon-holes, winking at us from the
back of the desk, and scores of half-opened letters, mixed with seedy
brown envelopes, flop lazily about the table. Old papers lie gashed and
mangled about his chair, the _debris_ of a literary battle field. A
clean towel hangs on a rack to his right. A bound copy of _The Tribune
Almanac_, from 1838 to 1868, swings from a small chain fastened to a
staple screwed in the side of his desk; two other bound volumes stand on
their feet in front of his nose, and two more of the same kind are fast
asleep on the book-rack in the corner. Stray numbers of the almanac peep
from every nook. The man who would carry off Greeley's bound pile of
almanacs would deserve capital punishment. The Philosopher could better
afford to lose one of his legs than to lose his almanacs. The room is
kept scrupulously clean and neat. A waste paper basket squats between
Mr. Greeley's legs, but one half the torn envelopes and boshy
communications flutter to the floor instead of being tossed into the
basket. The table at his side is covered with a stray copy of _The New
York Ledger_, and a dozen magazines lie thereon. Here is an iron garden
rake wrapped up in an _Independent_. There hangs a pair of handcuffs
once worn by old John Brown, and sent Mr. Greeley by an enthusiastic
admirer of both Horace and John. A champagne basket, filled with old
scrap-books and pamphlets, occupies one corner. A dirty bust of Lincoln,
half hidden in dusty piles of paper, struggles to be seen on the top of
his desk. A pile of election tables, dirty, ragged and torn, clipped
from some unknown newspaper, looks as if they had half a mind to jump
down on the 'Old Man's' bald head. A certificate of life membership in
some tract or abolition society, and maps of the World, New York, and New
Jersey hang on the wall. A rare geological specimen of quartz rock,
weighing about ten pounds, is ready to roll down a high desk to the floor
on the first alarm. Dirty pamphlets are as plentiful as cockroaches.
His office library consists of 150 volumes.
"Pen, ink, paper, scissors, and envelopes are in unfailing demand. The
cry, 'Mr. Greeley wants writing paper!' creates a commotion in the
counting-room, and Mr. Greeley gets paper quicker than a hungry fisherman
could skin an eel.
"Mr. Greeley can lay Virginia worm fences in ink faster than any other
editor in New York City. He uses a fountain-pen, a present from some
friend. He thinks a great deal of it, but during an experience of three
years has failed to learn the simple principle of suction without getting
his mouth full of ink, and he generally uses it with an empty receiver.
He makes a dash at the ink-bottle every twenty seconds, places the third
finger and thumb of his left hand on his paper, and scratches away at his
worm fence like one possessed. He writes marvellously fast. Frequently
the point of his pen pricks through his sheet, for he writes a heavy
hand, and a snap follows, spreading inky spots over the paper, resembling
a woodcut portraying the sparks from a blacksmith's hammer. Blots like
mashed spiders, or crushed huckleberries, occasionally intervene, but the
old veteran dashes them with sand, leaving a swearing compositor to
scratch off the soil, and dig out the words underneath.
"Mr. Greeley's manuscript, when seen for the first time, resembles an
intricate mass of lunatic hieroglyphics, or the tracks of a spider
suffering from _delirium tremens_. But, by those accustomed to his
writing, a remarkable exactness is observed. The spelling, punctuation,
accented letters, and capitalizing are perfect. The old type-setters of
the office prefer his manuscript above that of any other editor, for the
simple reason that he writes his article as he wishes it to appear, and
rarely, if ever, cuts or slashes a proof-sheet. And this punctuality is,
in a great measure, a feature of his life. He is always in time, and
never waits for anybody. He employs no private secretary, and when he
receives a letter, answers it on the instant. No matter how trivial the
request, the next outward-bound mail will carry away one of his
autographs, if he thinks an answer necessary.
"He knows we have entered his room, yet he continues his writing. The
only sound we hear within the sanctum is the scratch of his pen. He has
the power of concentrating all the strength of his mind on the subject of
his editorial, and will pay no attention to any question, however
important, until he finishes his sentence. If the cry of 'Fire!' should
resound through the building, Greeley would finish his sentence and ring
his bell before he would leave his room. The sentence complete, he
places the forefinger of his right hand at the end of the word last
written, seizes the handle of his pen in his teeth, and looks his
tormentor full in the face. It is a glance of inquiry, and the
questioner, intuitively conscious of this fact, repeats his
interrogation. Mr. Greeley divines the question before it is finished,
and answers it pithily and quickly. The pen is then snatched from his
mouth, dexterously dipped into his inkstand, and his fingers again travel
across his transverse sheet of foolscap like a 'daddy-long-legs' caught
in a storm. If his questioner is importunate, and insists on wasting his
time, he continues his writing, never looking up, and either answers
absent-mindedly, or in a low, impatient tone, tinged with a peculiar
boyish nervousness. If his visitor is ungentlemanly enough to still
continue his teasing importunities, a storm breaks forth, and the
uncourteous person will trot out of the sanctum with an answer ringing in
his ears that should bring a flush to his cheek.
"To Mr. Greeley time is more valuable than money or even friendship.
When busy, he is no respecter of persons. President or hod-carrier,
general or boot-black, clergyman or express-driver, authoress or
apple-woman--all are treated alike. Eminent men have left his room under
the impression that they have been deliberately slighted, while Horace
still slashed away at his inky pickets, totally unconscious of any
neglect."
Mr. Greeley's home is at Chappaqua, in Westchester County, New York,
about thirty miles from the city. He owns a fine farm of about forty
acres, which has cost him more money than he would care to tell.
Agriculture is one of his great hobbies, and he tests here all the
theories that are presented to him. His friends say that his turnips
cost him about ten dollars apiece to produce, and bring about fifty cents
per bushel in the market, and that all his farming operations are
conducted on the same principle.
[Picture: HORACE GREELEY.]
Mr. Greeley married when quite young, and has had three children. Two
daughters, aged about twenty and twelve, are living, but his son, a
bright and unusually promising child, died some years ago. Mr. Greeley
is one of the principal stockholders in the _Tribune_, and is a rich man.
He is liberal and generous to those in need, and is a warm friend to
benevolent enterprises of all kinds.
The chief reason of his popularity is the general confidence of the
people in his personal integrity. Not even his political enemies
question his honesty--and surely in these days of corruption and crime in
public life, an honest man is one that can not well be spared.