James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[94] of existence! a wanderer by thy stately palaces and gushing fountains salutes thee! Years, yet not many, have elapsed since, a weary roamer from a distant land, he first sought thy health—giving waters. November's sky was over earth and him, and more than all, over thee; and its chilling blasts made mournful melody amid the waving branches of thy ever verdant pines. Then, as now, thou wert a City of Tombs, deserted by the gay throng whose light laughter re-echoes so joyously through thy summer-robed arbors. But to him, thou wert ever a fairy land, and he wished to quaff of thy Hygeian treasures as of the nectar of the poet's fables. One long and earnest draught, ere its sickening disrelish came over him, and he flung down the cup in the bitterness of disappointment and disgust, and sadly addressed him again to his pedestrian journey. Is it ever thus with thy castles, Imagination? thy pictures, Fancy? thy dreams, O Hope? Perish the unbidden thought! A health, in sparkling Congress, to the rainbow of life! even though its promise prove as shadowy as the baseless fabric of a vision. Better even the dear delusion of Hope—if delusion it must be—than the rugged reality of listless despair. (I think I could do this better in rhyme, if I had not trespassed in that line already. However, the cabin-conversation of a canal-packet is not remarkably favorable to poetry.) In plain prose, there is a great deal of mismanagement about this same village of Saratoga. The sea son gives up the ghost too easily, &c., &c.

During the four years that Horace lived at East Poultney, he boarded for some time at the tavern, which still affords entertainment for man and beast—i. e. pedler and horse—in that village. It was kept by an estimable couple, who became exceedingly attached to their singular guest, and lie to them. Their recollections of him are to the following effect:— Horace at that time ate and drank whatever was placed before him; he was rather fond of good living, ate furiously, and fast, and much. He was very fond of coffee, but cared little for tea. Every one drank in those days, and there was a great deal of drinking at the tavern, but Horace fever could be tempted to taste a drop of anything intoxicating. ‘I always,’ said the kind landlady, ‘took a great interest in young people, and. when I saw they were going wrong, it used to distress me, no matter whom they belonged to; but I never feared for Horace. Whatever might be going on about the village or in the bar-room, I always knew he would do right.’ He stood on no ceremony at the table; he fell to without waiting to be asked or helped, devoured everything right and left, stopped as suddenly as he had begun, and