Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1867-09-19
HORACE GREELEY

HOHACE UhEELEI
Is the best known man in America. His name
is as familiar in the Courts of Europe as that Of
Gladstone or Drouyn de PHuys. He has been
more talked Of and written about and carricatured
and lauded and sandered than any other citizen of
the United States in this generation. He has fur
nished themes for editorials in every recognized
language, and has figured so often in Punch, Cha
riuari, and the Berlin and Vienna comic weekies,
With: his great head aad nose, stereotyped
white hat and white coat that half Of Europe con-
slider him the drollest genius and most peculiar
great man in the model Republic.
Everybody knows the history of his career-his
struggles in his New Hampshire home, his coming
to New York poor printer boy, his establishment
of the Tribune, his subsequent course as a polti-
clan and journalist, his embarkation in the anti
slavery cause, when its advocacy meant social os-
tracsm and avowed fanaticsm, down to the sup
preston of the rebellion, and the perplexities of
reconstruction. But very few have any knowl-
edge of Horace Greeley, the actual man, dissocia-
ted from pictorial extravaganza and grotesque IL
lustration on dead walls and antagoniStic cotempo-
raries. We very much doubt if any celebrity is so
widely and almost universally misunderstood, that
the popular conception Of any public character is
so entirely confounded with the private individual
Seven-eights of the people in the United States
believe Greeley subsists wholly on bran bread !;
that his sloyeny costume mainly consists Of white
coat, and souch hat hung on the back Of his
head; that he always wears booton one foot and
shoe on the other, and invariably ties his cravat
like hangman's knot under his leftear; that he
is species of baby of ffty-fve whom police carry
across Broadway, and to whose coat unchrstian
boys pin papers, while he is wondering on the
street corner who he is, and mentally offering re-
wards for the discovery of his remains.
Horace Greeley is pre-eminently public man.
He lives in print and on the rostrum; is monoma-
niacal on the subject of work, and never quite sat-
isfed when wholly withdrawn from the public eye.
It is much harder for him to rest than to work.
Though he complains often Of WEAKNESS and ia
tge and the countless tasks he sets himself to do,
he would be wretched if he were obliged to be
quiet for week. IF induced to take little re-
creation out of town, he devoursal the books, and
papers and magazines, he can find, and would write
letters to the Tribune and Independent, and have
something fresh and interesting to say too, It be
spent the night at Astoria or Carmansvile.
Mr. Greeley was married more than quarter
of century ago to young and pretty New Eng,
land woman, who was teaching in North Carolina,
where he accidentally encountered her in his trav-
els He has been the father of three children, two
girls and boy, the latter of whom was particular,
ly bright, and gave extraordinary promise, but died
in his early childhood, leaving vacuity in his do
ting parent heart that has never been filled He
had formed the brightest hopes of his boy, and
under the bereavement his philosophy, for time,
gave way completely. His two daughters, Ga.
brielle and Ida, aged respectively eighteen and
eight are clever and interesting, but eccentric and
selfwilled. They are at present pupils at con:
vent near the city; the elder has nearly finished
her education.
Mr.. Greeley's house is at Chafaqua, thirty-siz
miles from the city, on the Harlem railway, where
he has fancy farm of hundred acres upon
which he has spent most of the money he has
earned for the past fifteen years. This farm is hi
weakness and pet. He will talk to any one about
it for half day if he has leisure, and expatiate
upon its merits as many men would upon the
beauty of woman with whom they had recently
fallen in love. He isalways making improvements
at Chahaqua, or what he declares such, at leas
digging ditching, planting, draining, sub-soiling
manuring, planning and speculating upon wha
will be best for the farm. He seems to take more
pride in huge turnip or carrot of his own raising
than in his ablest editorial or most convincing
speech He certainly ought to, for all his product
have been very expensive to him; palmer ant
more practical tillers of the soil estimating tina
every potato and beet he raises costs him about tel
dollars in gold. II. G. denies this, however, ant
says the hundred acres will make him an e1cellen
return before he dies for oil he has invested il
them. He lives in town six days of the week, bu
goes home every Saturday and remains until Mon
day morning. During those twenty-four hours,
! the weather is pleasant, he lays aside journals