James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

Yet, the better qualities of the British decidedly preponderate; and he adds, that the quiet comfort and heartfelt warmth of an English fireside must he felt to be appreciated.

On Wednesday, the sixth of August, Horace Greeley was once more on board the steamship Baltic, homeward bound.

‘I rejoice,’ he wrote on the morning of his departure, ‘I rejoice to feel that every hour, henceforth, must lessen the distance which divides me from my country, whose advantages and blessings this four months absence has taught me to appropriate more dearly and to prize more deeply than before. With a glow of unwanted rapture I see our stately vessel's prow turned toward the setting sun, and strive to realize that only some ten days separate me from those I know and love best on earth. Hark! the last gun announces that the mail-boat has left us, and that we are fairly afloat on our ocean journey; the shores of Europe recede from our vision; the watery waste is all around us; and now, with God above and Death below, our gallant bark and her clustered company together brave the dangers of the mighty deep. May Infinite Mercy watch over our onward path and bring us safely to our several homes; for to die away from home and kindred seems one of the saddest calamities that could befall me. This mortal tenement would rest uneasily in an ocean shroud, this spirit reluctantly resign that tenement to the chill and pitiless brine: these eyes close regretfully on the stranger skies and bleak inhospitality of the sullen and stormy main. No! let me see once more the scenes so well remembered and b loved; let me grasp, if but once again, the hand of Friendship, and hear the thrilling accents of proved Affection, and when sooner or later the hour of mortal agony shall come, let my last gaze be fixed on eyes that will not forget me when I am gone, and let my ashes repose in that congenial soil which, however I may there be esteemed or hated, is still “ My own green land forever!” ’

Neptune was more gracious to the voyager on his homeward than he had been on his outward passage. The skies were clearer, the winds more favorable and gentler. A few days, not intolerably disagreeable, landed him on the shores of Manhattan. The ship reached the wharf about six o'clock in the morning, cheating the expectant morning papers of their foreign news, which the editor of the Tribune had already “made up” for publication on board the steamer, However, he had no sooner got on shore than he rushed away to the office, bent on getting out an “extra” in advance of all contemporaries. The compositors were all absent, of course; but boys were forthwith dispatched to summon them from bed and breakfast. Meanwhile,