James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[403] few steps, and the principal Editorial Room is before us. It is a long, narrow apartment, with desks for the principal editors along the sides, with shelves well-loaded with books and manuscripts, a great heap of exchange papers in the midst, and a file of the Tribune on a broad desk, slanting from the wall. Everything is in real order, but apparent confusion, and the whole is “ blended in a common element of dust.” Nothing particular appears to be going on. Two or three gentlemen are looking over the papers; but the desks are all vacant, and each has upon its lid a pile of letters and papers awaiting the arrival of him to whose department they belong. One desk presents an array of new publications that might well appal the most industrious critic—twenty-four new books, seven magazines, nine pamphlets, and two new papers, all expecting a “first-rate notice.” At the right, we observe another and smaller room, with a green carpet, two desks, a sofa, and a large book-case, filled with books of reference. This is the sanctum sanctorum. The desk near the window, that looks out upon the green Park, the white City Hall in the midst thereof, and the lines of moving life that bound the same, is the desk of the Editor-in-Chief. It presents confusion merely. The shelves are heaped with manuscripts, books, and pamphlets; its lid is covered with clippings from newspapers, each containing something supposed by the assiduous exchange-reader to be of special interest to the Editor; and over all, on the highest shelf, near the ceiling, stands a large bronze bust of Henry Clay, wearing a crown of dust. The other desk, near the door, belongs to the second in command. It is in perfect order. A heap of foreign letters, covered with stamps and post-marks, awaits his coming. The row of huge, musty volumes along the floor against one of the walls of the room, is a complete file of the Tribune, with some odd volumes of the New Yorker and Log Cabin.

An hour later. One by one the editors arrive. Solon Robinson, looking, with his flowing white beard and healthy countenance, like a good-humored Prophet Isaiah, or a High Priest in undress, has dropped into his corner, and is compiling, from letters and newspapers, a column of paragraphs touching the effect of the drouth upon the potato crop. Bayard Taylor is reading a paper in the American attitude. His countenance has quite lost the Nubian