Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1873-01-17

But, If some Of Mr. Greeley's friends are
to be believed, their great friend really died
of his defeat. We DO not like To accept
what they say for truth We wish to think
better of the great departed than that he
could be killed by something that could not
kill even one of large number Of other
men. =, MI. now il never was supposed that
failure 70 reach the White House ever
brought Paliid Death TO man. jefferson,
John Adams. Burr. PinCkney. Clinton.
King, Crawford. jackson, j. q. Adams,
Clay, Writ, Harrison, Webster, White, Van
Buren. Birney, Ilule, Cas-, Scott. Fremont,
Douglas, Breckenridge, Bell, Mcclellan,
and Seymour. all We're beaten at Presiden-
tial elections. and not one of them but
handsomely survived failure. Mr.. Craw-
ford, when beaten, in lS2l-25, was a far
~icker man thsn was Mr.. Greeley a few
months ago. Vet be survived defeat almost
ten years. Mr. Clay was defeated at three
Presidential elections. and he failed to get
two nominations for the Presidency, either
Of which would have been followed by
triumph for him and Vet he lived on and
labured long, far down into the decline Of
life, dying in his seventy-siXth year. John
Adams survived his defeat more than quar-
ter of a century 1t has been said that Mr..
Webster died of hi> failure to get the Wing
nomination for the Presidency, in 1852
but the assertion Is unjust to that extraor-
dinary man. His death was caused by an
injury received when he wasalmost seventy
one years old Not less incorrect i the
statement that Mr. Douglas died on Presi-
Dental failure. Men are made Of stronger
stuff than 10 be thus easily killed. Ii Is not
fair TO Horace Greeley to make him the
victim Of % political disappointment. He
1.,l l.st
the Presidency \ man does not work
hard for more than fifty years without wear
ing out, and it j. possible that Mr.. Greeley
would have died last week had heneyer been
mentioned for the Presidency. lie had lived
too fast, though not in an offensive sense,
for he was a moral man; but his career was
one of intense excitement for thirty wears,
and when he had reached to the confines of
oldage his physical capital was gone, and
he had to follow it. The excitement of the
late Presidential contest may have been one
of the items in the killing process. but that
he was killed outright by his defeat, we
have too much respect for his memory to
believe. Over-work killed him, as 1t has
killed many Americans 4; that Is, he was 50
weakened by incesSant labor, labor Of an
exciting nature, that when a series of shocks
came upon him he had not the strength ne
cessary to bear up against them. Had he
husbandcd his strength, as he might have
done, for his circumstances We're good from
the time that he had completed his thirtieth
year,-he could have stood up in the face of
much greater visitations than those that
came upon him during the six weeks that
preceded his death. The notion that he
died from broken heart, we look upon as
a most exquisite absurdity. Sam Slick tells
us that the only case of death from a broken
heart was that of porter al Lowell, whose
heart strings cracked because he lifted too
heavy burden. That was physical fact,
but in the case of Mr.. Greeley the term
- broken heart" Is mere metaphOrieal ex-
preston and we hold that he was too
stout hearted to break down in that way
There Is nothing strange in the passing
away of a man who is almost sixty-two
years old, more men dying between the age
of sixty years and sixty-fve years than in
any other five years of adult life. But no
noted man is permitted TO die like common
folks In old times, it was assumed that
such n man must pass by poison, which was
not complimentary TO those times: but
though that form Of folly Is exploded, the
delusion is kept up that something out of
the common must occur when an uncom-
mon person leaves off living But it is the
man who dies, and whose death should con-
cern us, not the nOtability,-the man, not
/ the statesman, or the author, or the artist.
A dead beggar, it has been wisely said, is a
more awfnl parsonage than a living mon
arch and yet we exaggerate the import
ance of the monarch when his turn comes to
follow the beggar to the silent land. Mr..
Greeley was one Of the monarchs of the
mind, and 50 it is necessary to make it ap-
pear that he died out of the common fash
ion, whereas there has been but one fashion
of dying from the last day of Abel's exist
ence till now and there will be no change
in that fashion so long as there shall be hu-
man beings to live and die. The whole
thing is as much mystery now as it was on
that remote day when the first death took
place and there is not the slightest reason
for supposing that it ever will be cleared up
to human vision, even should the human
race endure for million of centuries.