ht once said: "Horace Greeley is the greatest of living
editors." He once told me that he had written editorials for a dozen
papers at one time. He also told me that while he was preparing his
history of the "American Conflict" he was in the habit of writing three
columns of editorials every day. His articles were freighted with great
power, for he was one of the strongest writers of the English language
on this continent. They were always brimful of thought, for Mr. Greeley
seldom wrote on any subject which he had not thoroughly mastered.
Speaking of a certain popular orator, who afterwards went as our
minister to China, he said to me: "Mr. B.---- is a pretty man, a very
pretty man, but he does not _study_, and no man ever can have permanent
power in this country unless he _studies_"

Mr. Greeley prided himself upon his accuracy as an editor, but one day,
when writing an editorial, in which he denounced some political
misdemeanor in the County of Chatauqua, by a slip of his pen he wrote
the name of the adjoining county Cattaraugus. The next morning when he
saw it in the paper he went up into the composing room in a perfect rage
and called out, "Who put that Cattaraugus?" The printers all gathered
around him amused at his anger until one of them pulling down from the
hook the original editorial showed him the word "Cattaraugus" "Uncle
Horace," when he saw the word, with a most inexpressible meekness,
drawled out: "Will some one please to kick me down those stairs?"

He abominated mendicancy and, although his native goodness of heart
often led him to give to the hundreds who came to him for pecuniary aid,
he one day said to me: "Since I have lived in New York I have given away
money enough to set up a merchant in business, and I sometimes doubt
whether I have done more good or harm by the operation. I am continually
beset by various clubs and societies all over the land to donate to them
the _Tribune_. I always tell them if it is worth reading it is worth
paying for. The curse of this country is the deadhead. I pay for my own
_Tribune_ every morning."

From my old friend's theology I strongly dissented, but in practical
philanthropy he gave me many a lesson and still better stimulant of his
own unselfish example. He was always ready to work in the cause of
reform without pay and without applause. When temperance meetings were
held in my church he very gladly lent his effective services, refusing
any compensation, and t