The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1868-12-03
From Wilkes Spirit of the Times. ]
Private Habits of Horace Greeley.
BY MARK TWAIN, OF THE TR1BUsE's

|, DA MANN lWAiN, OF THE TRIBUNE
Mr.. Grcely gets up at three o'clock in
the morning for it is one of his favorite
maxims that ouly early rising can keep
the health unimpaired and the brain vi
sorous. He then wakes up all the house
hold and assemblies them ia the library,
by candlelisht, aud, after quoting the
beautiful lines:
tEarly to bed and early to rise
Make 4 man healthy, wealthy, and wise, I"
he appoints each individuals task for the
day, sets him at it with encouraging
words, aud goes back to bed again. 1
mention here, in no fault-fnding spirit,
but with the Difference justly due man
who is elder and wiser and worthier than
| /, that he snores awfully. In moment
of irritation, once, was rash enough to
| say never would sleep with him until
he broke himself of this unfortunate hab-
i it. l have kept my word with bigoted
and unwavering determination.
At half past II o'clock Mr. Greeley
rises again. He shaves himself. He
considers tlat there is great virtue and
economy in shaving himself He does it
with dull razor, sometimes hnmming
part of tune, Che knows part of a tune,
and takes an innocent delight in regard
ing it as the first half of Old hundred !;
but parties familiar with that hymn have
felt obliged to confess that they could not
recognize it, and therefore the noise he
makes is doubtless on unconscious ori-
ginal composition of Mr.. Greeley's.) } and
sometimes, when the razor is especially
| dull, he accompanies himself with for
mula ad emphatic.
He then goes into his model garden,
and applies his vast store of agricultural
knowledge to the amelioration of his cab
bages after which he writes an able agri-
cultural article for the instruction of
American farmers, bis soul cheered the
while with the reflection that if cabbages
were worth eleven dollars apiece his mod
! ell 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. lie
! drinks nothing but twater-nothing what
ever but water, and coffee, and tea, and
Scotch ale, and lager beer, and lemonade
with fly in it-sometimes house fly,
and sometimes horse fly, according to
the amount of inspiration required to
warm him up to his duties. During
breakfast he reads the Tribune all through,
and enjoys the satisfaction of knowing
that all the brilliant things in it, written
by Young, and Cooke, and Hazard, and
myself are attributed to him by confd-
ing and internal public.
After breakfast be writes short edi-
torial, and puts large dash at the be-
ginning of it, thus -, which is the
same as if he put II. G. after it, and
takes savage pleasure in rejecting that
none of us understrappers can use that
dash, except in profane conversation
when cbafng over the outrage. He writes
this editorial in his own handwriting
He does it because he is so vain of his
penmanship. He always did take an
inordinate pride in his penmanship He
hired out once, in his young days, as
writing master, but the enterprise fail
ed. The pupils could not translate his
remarks with any certainty. His first
copy was "Virtue is its own reward, +" and
they got it Washing with soap is Who'll
/ ly absurd" and so the trustees discharg-
ed him for attempting to convey bad
morals, through the medium of worse
penmanship. But, as was saying, he
writes his morning editorial. Then he
tries to read it over, and can't
do it, and SO sends it to the printers, aud
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 get aground on a long
word they put in Reconstruction" or
"universal suffrage" and spar off and apd-
die ahead, and next morning, if the de-
graded public can tell what it is all about,
thay say H. G. wrote it, and if they can't,
they say it is one of those imbecle under
strappers, and that is the end of it.
Gu Sundays Mr. Greeley sits in a
prominent pew in Mr.. Chapin's church,
aud lets on that be is asleep, and the
congregation regard it as an eccentricity
OF genius.
When be is going to appear in public,
Mr.. Greeley spends two hours on his
toilet. He is the most pain taking and
elaborate man about getting up his dress
that lives in America. This is his chic
fest and his pleasantest foible. He puts
on his old white overcoat, and turns up
the collar. He puts on soiled shirt,
saved from the wash, and leaves one end
of the collar uubuttoned. He puts on
his most dilapidated hat, turns it wrong
side before, cants it Oh to tie back of his
head, and jams an extra dent in the side
of it. He puts on his most atrocious
boots, and spends fifteen minutes tucking
the left leg of his pants into his boot top
| in what shall seem the most careless and
unstudied way. But his cravat--it is in
to the arrangement of his cravat that ne
throws all his soul, all the powers of his
1 . A ffar GvinO or II for fortv