The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1868-12-05
The Private Habits Of Horace Greeley.
by MARK TWAIN, OF THE TRIBUNE's STAFF.

TIC morning 1Of IL IS one OF his fayorite
maxims that only early rising can keep the
health unimpaircd and the brain vigorous.
He then wakes up all the household, and
assemblies them in the library by candle
light, and after quoting the beautiful lines,
| "Euiy to bed and early to rise
Mikes / Liam healthy, wealthy, and wise,
he appoints each Individuals task for the
day, sets him at it with encouraging words,
and goes back to bed again. I mention
here, in no Eailt-fnding spirit, but with the
Difference justly due to man who is older,
and wiser, and worthier than I, that he
SHORES awfully. In g moment of irritation
once, | was rash enough to say l never
would sleep with him until he broke him
self Of this unfortunate habit. have kept
my word with bigoted and unwavering de-
termination.
At iialf-past eleven o'clock Mr. Greeley
rises again. He shaves himself. He con-
siders that there is great virtue and econ
olny in shaving himself. He does it with a
dull razor, sometimes humming part of a
tune Che knows part of tune, and takes
an innocent delight in regarding it as the
first part of Old Hundred but parties IA
miliar with that hymn have felt obliged to
confess that they could not recognize it,
and, therefore, the noise he makes is doubt
less an unconscious original composition of
Mr. Greeley's,) and sometimes, when tic
razor is especially dull, he accompanies
himself with a formula like this: "Damn
the damned razor, and the damned outcast
who made it'll. G.
lie then goes out into his model garden.
and applies his vast store of agricultural
knowledge to the amelioration of his cab
bages, after which lie writes an able agri-
cultural article for the instruction of Amer
lean farmers, lis soul chcered the while
with the reflection that if cabbages were
worth eleven dollars apiece, his model farm
would pay.
He next goes to breakfast, which is fru-
gal, abstemious meal with him, and consists
of nothing but just such things as the mar
ket affords, nothing more. He drinks moth
ing but water-nothing whatever but water
and coffee, and tea, and Scotch ale, and
lager bier, and lemonade with fly in it
sometimes house fly, and sometimes a
horse ~, according to the amount of in
SEPARATION required to warm him up to his
daily duties. During breakfast he reads
the Tribune all through, and enjoys the sat
isfaction of knowing that all the brilliant
things i'll it. written by Young, and Cooke,
and Hazard, and myself, are attributed To
him by a coniidng and Internal public.
After breakfast he writes short cCIito-
rial, and puts large dash at the beginning
of it, thus - which is the same as if he
put II. G. after it, and takes a savage pleas
urc in rejecting that none of us under
strappers can use that dash, except in pro-
fame conversation when chatting over the
outrage. lie writes this editorial in his
own handwriting. He does it because he
is SO vain of his penmanship. He always
did take an inortinate pride in his penman-
ship. He hired out once in his oung days,
as a writing but the enterprise fail
ed. The pupils could not translate his re-
marks with any certainty. His first copy
was, "Virtue is its own reward" and they
got it, Washing with soap is wholly alb
surd," and SO the trustees discharged him
for attempting to conveybad mora Is through
the medium of worse penmanship. But,
as | was saying, he writes his morning edi-
torial. Then he tries to read it over, and
can't do it, and SO sends it to the printers,
and they try to read it, and can't do it and
so they set it up at random as you may say,
putting in what words they can't make
out, and when they get aground on a long
word they put in reconstruction or
universal suf.agc,' and spar off and
paddle ahead, and next morning, if the de-
graded public can tell what it is all about,
they say II. G. wrote it, and if they can't,
they say it is one OF those imbeclc under
strappers, and that is the end of it.
On Sundays Mr.. Greeley sits in promi
nent pew in Mr.. Chapin's church, and lets
on that he is asleep, and the congregation
regard it as an cccentricity of genius.
When he is going to appear in public,
Mr.. Greeley spends two hours on his toilet.
He is the most painstakins and elaborate
man about getting up his droes that lives
in America. This is his chiefest and his
plcasantest foible. He puts on his old
white overcoat, and turns up the COLLAR
lie puts on soiled shirt, saved from the
wash, and leaves one end of the collar I'M
buttoned. lie puts on his most dilapida-
ted hat, turns it wrong side before, cants ii
on to the back of his head, and jams an
extra dent in the side of it. He puts on
his most atrocious boots, and spends fifteen
into his boot-top in what shall seem the
most careless and unstudied way. But his
cravrt-it is into the arrangement of his
cravat that he throws all his soul, all the
powers of his great mind. After fixing at
it for forty minutes before the glass, it is
perfect-it is askew every way-it over
| flows his coat-collar on one side. and sinks
into oblivion on the other-it climbs and
it telves around about his neck-the knot
is conspicuously displayed under his left
ear, and it stretches one of its long ends
straight out horizontally, and the other
goes after his eye, in the good old Toodlc
fashion-and then, completely and marvel
olsly apparcled, Mr.. Greedy strides forth,
rolling like sailor, a miracle of astound-
ing costumery, the awe and wonder of the
nations
But haven't time to tell the rest OF his
private habits. Suffice it that he is an up
right and an honest man-a practical,
great-brained mana useful man to his n9-
ton and his generation-a famous man who
has justly earned his ce!ebrity-and withal
the worst-dressed man in this or any other
country, even though he does take so thun-
dering much pains, and put on so many
frills about it.
-Punctuality is not a large sounding
word, hence not few of us are little in