In a letter to his sister Sophia, July 21, 1843, written from Mr. William Emerson's house at Staten Island, Thoreau says:—
"In New York I have seen, since I wrote last, Horace Greeley, editor of the 'Tribune,' who is cheerfully in earnest at his office of all work,—a hearty New Hampshire boy as one would wish to meet,—and says, 'Now be neighborly.' He believes only or mainly, first in the Sylvania Association, somewhere in Pennsylvania; and secondly, and most of all, in a new association, to go into operation soon in New Jersey, with which he is connected."
This was the "Phalanstery" at which W. H. Channing afterward preached. A fortnight later, Thoreau writes to Mr. Emerson:—
"I have had a pleasant talk with W. H. Channing; and Greeley, too, it was refreshing to meet. They were both much pleased with your criticism on Carlyle, but thought that you had overlooked what chiefly concerned them in the book,—its practical aims and merits."
This refers to the notice of Carlyle's "Past and Present," in the "Dial" for July, 1843, and shows that Mr. Greeley was a quick reader of that magazine, as Thoreau always was of the "New York Tribune." From this time onward a warm friendship continued between Thoreau and Greeley, and many letters went to and fro, which reveal the able editor in the light of a modern Mæcenas to the author of the Musketaquid Georgics.
No letters seem to have passed between them earlier than 1846; and in 1844-45 Thoreau must have known the "Tribune" editor best through his newspaper, and from the letters of Margaret Fuller, Ellery Channing, and other common friends, who saw much of him then, admired and laughed at him, or did both by turns. Miss Fuller, who had gone to New York to write for the "Tribune," and to live in its Editor's family, wrote:—
"Mr. Greeley is a man of genuine excellence, honorable, benevolent, and of an uncorrupted disposition. He is sagacious, and, in his way, of even great abilities. In modes of life and manners, he is a man of the people,—and of the American people. With the exception of my own mother, I think him the most disinterestedly generous person I have ever known."
There was a laughable side even to these fine traits, and there were eccentricities of dress and manner, which others saw more keenly than this generous woman. Ellery Channing,—whose eye no whimsical or beautiful object ever escaped,—in the letter of March, 1845, already cited, thus signaled to Thoreau the latest news of his friend:—
"Mumbo Jumbo is recovering from an attack of sore eyes, and will soon be out, in a pair of canvas trousers, scarlet jacket, and cocked hat. I understand he intends to demolish all the remaining species of Fetichism at a meal. I think it is probable it will vomit him."
Thoreau wrote an essay on Carlyle in 1846, and in the summer of that year sent it to Mr. Greeley, with a request that he would find a place for it in some magazine. To this request, which Mr. Greeley himself had invited, no doubt, he thus replied:—