Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1868-11-27
Private Habits of Horace Greeley.
BY MARK TWAIN.

I JanL reIatiNo OI lu0 LTtOWHe PutS ~ III
my power to furnish the public with the
las:-positively the very last-link lee
essary to perfect the chain of knowledge
already in possession concerning MIR.
Greeley; | mean bis private habits. We
know all about him as regards every
other department of his life and servi-
ces. Because, whenever a magazlnist OF
a bookmaker is employed to write, and
cannot think Of a subject, he writes about
Horace Greeley. Even the boys in the
schools have quit building inspired "com-
positions" on "The Horse" and have
gone to doing Horace Greeley instead
and when defamation day comes around,
their voices are no longer "still for war
and Patrick Henry, but for peace and
Horace Greeley. Now, the natural re-
suit of all this is that the public have
come at last to think that this man has
no life but public life, no nature but a
public nature, no habits but public hab-
its. This is all wrong. Mr.. Greeley
has private habits.
Mr.. Greeley gets up at 3 O'Clock in
the morning; for it is one of his favor
ite maxims that only early rising can
keep the health unimpaired and the brain
vigorous, He then wakes up all the
household and assemblies them in the
library, by candle light, and after quo
ting the beautiful lines,
'sEarly to bed and early to rise
Makes man healthy, wealthy and wise,'
he appoints each individual a task for the
day, sets him at it with encouraging
words, and goes back to bed again. |
mention here, in no fault-finding spirit,
but with the Difference justly due man
who is older, and wiser, and worthiel
than |, that he shores awfally. In mo
ment of irritation, once, l was rash
enough to say | never would sleep with
him until he broke himself of this un.
fortunate habit. have kept my word
with bigoted and unwavering determine.
ton.
AT half past IL o'clock Mr.. Gree
ley rises again. He shaves himself
He considers there is good virtue and
economy in shaving himself. He does
it with dull razor, sometimes hum
ming a part Of tune Che knows part OF
tune, and takes an innocent delight in
regarding it as the first half of Old Hun
dred; but parties familiar with that
hymn have felt obliged to confess that
they could not recognize it, and, there
fore, the noise he makes is doubtless an
unconscious original composition of Mr.
Greeley's), and sometimes, when the ra
zor is especially dull, he accompanies
himself with formula something like
this !: Damn the damned razor, and
the damned outcast who made it. H. IT,
He then goes out into his model gar.
den. and applies his vast store of agri
cultural knowledge to the ameIioration
of his cabbages; after which he writes
an able agricultural article for the in.
struction of American farmers, his soul
cheered the while with the reflection tina;
if cabbages were worth 81 apiece, bis
model farm would pay.
He next goes to breakfast, which is a
frugal, abstemious meal with him, and
consists of nothing but just such things
as the market affords, nothing more
He drinks nothing but water-nothing
but water, and coffee, aud tea, and
Scotch ale, and lager beer, and lemon
ade with a fly in it,-sometimes a horse
fly, according to the amount Of inspira-
ton required to warm him up to bis dai-
ly duties. During breakfast he reads
the Tribune all through and enjoys the
satisfaction of knowing that all the bril-
liant things in it, written by Young and
Cooke, and Hazard, myself, are attrb-
uted to him by confding and Internal
/ public.
After breakfast he writes short edi
torial, and puts large dash at the be-
ginning of it, thus g, which is
the same as if he put H. G. after it, and
takes savage pleasure in rejecting that
none of us understrappers care use that
dash, except in profane conversation
when chafing over the outrage. He
writes this editorial in his own hand
writing. He does it because he is so
vain of his penmanship. He always did
take an inordinate pride in his penman
ship. He hired out once, in his young
days, as a writing master, but the enter
prise failed. The pupils could not trans
late his marks with any certainty. His
first copy was Virtue is its own re,
ward" and they got it "W ashing with
soap is wholly absurd" and so the trus-
tees discharged him for attempting to
convey bad morals through the medium
of worse penmanship. But, as l was
saying, he writes his morning editorial,
then he tries to read it over, and can't
do ii, 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 make
out, and when they get aground on a
long word. they put in Reconstruction, "
or universal suffrage" and spar off and
paddle ahead, and next morning, if the
degraded public cannot tell what it is Ill
about, they say II. G. wrote it, and il
they can't, they say it is one of those
imbecile understrappers, and that is the
end of it.
On Sundays Mr.. Greeley sits in a
prominent pew in Mr.. Chapin's church,
and lets on that he is asleep, and the
congregation regard it as an eccentricity
OF genius.