James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[429] He flung off his overcoat, hung it up in the hall, and looking into the parlor, said: “Just let me run up and see my babies one minute; I have n't seen 'em all day, you know;” and he sprung up the stairs two steps at a time. I heard him talk in high glee to the children in the room above, for just “one minute,” and then he re joined me. He began to talk something in this style:

Sit down. I have had a rough day of it—eaten nothing since breakfast—just got in from my farm—been up the country lecturing —started from Goshen this morning at five—broke down—crossed the river on the ice—had a hard time of it—ice a good deal broken and quite dangerous—lost the cars on this side—went dogging around to hire a conveyance—got to Sing Sing—went over to my farm and transacted my business there as well as I could in the time—started for the city, and as luck would have it, they had taken off the four o'clock train—did n't know that I should get down at all—harnessed up my own team, and pushed over to Sing Sing again—hadn't gone far before snap went the whippletree—got another though—and reached Sing Sing just two minutes before the cars came along —I've just got in—my feet are cold—let's go to the fire.

With these words, he rose quickly and went into the back room, not to the fire-place, but to a corner near the folding door, where hot air gushed up from a cheerless round hole in the floor. His dress, as I now observed, amply corroborated his account of the day's adventures—shirt all crumpled, cravat all awry, coat all wrinkles, stockings about his heels, and general dilapidation.

I said it was not usual at the West to go into a corner to warm one's feet; to which he replied by quoting some verses of Holmes which I did not catch. I entreated him to go to tea, as he must be hungry, but he refused “pine blank.” The conversation fell upon poetry. He said there was one more book he should like to make before he died, and that was a Song-Book for the People. There was no collection of songs in existence which satisfied his idea of what a popular song-book ought to be. He should like to compile one, or help do it. He said he had written verses himself, but was no poet; and bursting into a prolonged peal of laughter, he added, that when he and Park Benjamin were editing the New Yorker, he wrote some verses for insertion in that paper, and showed them to “Park,” and “Park” roared out, “Thunder and lightning, Greeley, ”