Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1869-02-04
M1istellameuns Rtading.

MisfeIlaueeas Rtadiug.
HABITS OF HORACE GREELEY.
! BY MARK TWAIN, OF TIE TRIBUNE
Mr.. Greely gets up at 8 o clock in the morning !;
for it is one of his fvorte maxims that only early
rising can keep the health unimpaired and the
brain vigorous He then wakes up all the house
hold and assemblies them in the library, by candle
light, and after quoting the beautiful lines:
aEarIy to bed and early to rise
Makes a man 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. mention here, in no fault6nding
spirit, bat with the difference justly due man
who is older and wiser and worthier than I, that
he snores awfully. In moment of irritation once,
I was rash enough to say never would sleep with
him until he broke himself of this unfortunate ha-
bit. kept my word with bigoted and unwaver-
ing determination.
At3 past II o'clock, Mr.. Greeley rises again. He
shaves himself BE considers there is great vir-
tue and economy in shayiug himself He does it
with dull razor, sometimes humming part Of o
tune, (he knows part of tune, and takes inno-
cent delight in regarding it as the first half Of "Od
Hundred" but parties familiar with that hymn
have been obliged to confess that they could not
recognize it, and therefore, the noise he makes is
doubtless an unconscious original composition of
Mr.. Greeley " and sometimes, when the razor Is
especially dull, he accompanies himself with for
mula like this Damn the damned razor, and the
damned outcast who made it. ."-H. @.
He then goes out into his model garden, and ap-
plies his vast store of agricultural knowledge to the
ameoration of his cabbages after which he writes
an agricultural article for the instruction Of Amer-
can farmers, his soul cheered the while with the
reflection that if cabbages were worth eleven dol
lars apiece his model farm would pay.
He next goes to breakfast, which is frugal, alb
stemious meal with him, and consists of nothing
but just such things as the market afford; moth
ing more. He drinks nothing but water-noth-
ing whatever but water, and coffee, and tea, and
Scotch ale, and lager beer, and lemonade with
a fly in it-sometimes house fly and sometimes a
horse fly, according to the amount of inspiration
required to warm him up to his daily 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
a con6ding and internal public.
After breakfast he writes short editorial, and
puts large dash at the beginning oft, thus -,
which is the same as if he put Fl. G. after it, and
takes savage pleasure, in rejecting that none OF
us understrappers can use that dash, except in
profane conversation, when chafng over the out;
rage. He writes his 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 penmanship He hired out once, in
his young days, as writing master, but the enter
prise failed 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 wholly absurd, and so the
trustees discharged him for attempting to convey
bad morals, through the medium of worse pen
manship But, as was saying, he writes his
morning editorial Then he tries to read it over,
and can't do it; and 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 long word they put in reconstruct
ed" or Universal suffrage" and spar off and pad
die ahead, and the next morning, if the degraded
public can tell what it is all about they say that
H. G. wrote it, and if 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 q prominent pew
in Mr. Chapin's church, and lets on that he is
asleep and the congregation regard it as an eccen-
tricity Of genius.
When he is going to appear in public, Mr.. Gree
ley spends two hours on his toilet. Heis the most
painstaking and elaborate man about his dress in
America. This is his chiefest and his pleasantest
foible. He puts on his old white overcoat, and
turns up the collar He puts on q soiled shirt,
saved from the wash, and leaves one end of the
collar unbuttoned He puts on his most dilapida-
ted hat turns it wrong side before, cants it on the
back of his head, and jams an extra dent into the
side Of it. He puts on his most atrocious boots,
and spends fifteen minutes tucking the left leg OF
his pants into his boottop in what shall seem the
most careless and unstudied way. But his cravat
it is into the arrangement of his cravat that ne
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
overhows his coatcolar on one side, and sinks In
to oblivion on the other-it climbs and it delyes
around about his neck-the knot is consplcuously
displayed under his left ear, and il stretches one
of its long ends straight out horizontally and the
other goes after his eye in the good old Toodles
fashion-and then, completely and marvellously
apparreed, Mr. Greeley strides forth, rolling like
O sailor, miracle of astounding costumery, the
awe and wonder of the natives.
But havn't time to tell the rest of his private
habits. Suffice it that he IS an upright and an
honest mana practical great Drained mana use
full man to his nation and his generation a fam
Gus man, who has justly earued his celebrity
withal the worst-dressed man in this or any other
country, even though he takes so laundering much
palms, and put on so laundering many frills about
lit.
THE NEGRO.
James Parton, in 1.-THE Mean Yankees at Home, !"
has the following in the January number of the
atlantic Monthly.
Major De Forest, in one of his valuable and en-
tertaining articles on the "Man and Brother" +"
has intimated an opinion that the black man will