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 dÉbris 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.

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.