ction is hard for him to bear."[575]
Two or three weeks later, after a call at the _Tribune_ office, Seward
again wrote Weed, suggesting that "Greeley's despondency is
overwhelming, and seems to be aggravated by the loss of subscribers.
But below this is chagrin at the failure to obtain official
position."[576] With such inquiries and comments Seward put the famous
letter away.[577]

[Footnote 575: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 239.]

[Footnote 576: _Ibid._, p. 240.]

[Footnote 577: "My personal relations with Governor Seward were wholly
unchanged by this letter. We met frequently and cordially after it was
written, and we very freely conferred and co-operated during the long
struggle in Congress for Kansas and Free Labour. He understood as well
as I did that my position with regard to him, though more independent
than it had been, was nowise hostile, and that I was as ready to
support his advancement as that of any other statesman, whenever my
judgment should tell me that the public good required it. I was not
his adversary, but my own and my country's freeman."--Horace Greeley,
_Recollections of a Busy Life_, p. 321.]

Its publication did not accomplish all that Raymond expected. People
were amazed, and deep in their hearts many persons felt that Greeley
had been treated unfairly. The inquiry as to a vacancy in the Board of
Regents showed that Seward himself shared this opinion at the time.
But the question that most interested the public in 1860 was, why, if
Greeley had declared war upon Seward in 1854, did not Weed make it
known in time to destroy the influence of the man who had
"deliberately wreaked the long-hoarded revenge of a disappointed
office-seeker?" This question reflected upon Weed's management of
Seward's campaign, and to avoid the criticism he claimed to have been
"in blissful ignorance of its contents." This seems almost impossible.
But in explaining the groundlessness of Greeley's complaints, Weed
wrote an editorial, the dignity and patriotism of which contrasted
favourably with Greeley's self-seeking.

"There are some things in this letter," wrote the editor of the
_Evening Journal_, "requiring explanation--all things in it, indeed,
are susceptible of explanations consistent with Governor Seward's full
appreciation of Mr. Greeley's friendship and services. The letter was
evidently written under a morbid state of feeling, and it is less a
matter of surprise that such a letter wa