He was an inveterate punster. Miss Caroline Ticknor tells us how he used to lie on a couch in a back room at the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston, at a very early hour, and amuse the boys who were sweeping and dusting the store until one of the partners arrived. I believe he never lost a chance to indulge in a verbal quibble. "In the meantime, and 'twill be a very mean time."
I often regret that I did not preserve his comical letters, and those of Richard Grant White and other friends who were literary masters. Mr. Grant White helped me greatly when I was doubtful about some literary question, saying he would do anything for a woman whose name was Kate. And a Dartmouth graduate, whom I asked for a brief story of Father Prout, the Irish poet and author, gave me so much material that it was the most interesting lecture of my season. He is now a most distinguished judge in Massachusetts.
Saxe, like other humourists, suffered from melancholia at the last. Too sad!
After giving a lecture in the chapel of Packer Institute at the time I was with Mrs. Botta in New York, I was surprised to receive a call the next morning from Mr. Charles Storrs of 23 Monroe Place, Brooklyn, asking me to go to his house, and make use of his library, which he told me Horace Greeley had pronounced the best working and reference library he had ever known. A great opportunity for anyone! Mr. Storrs was too busy a man to really enjoy his own library. Mrs. Storrs and Miss Edna Dean Proctor, who made her home with them, comprised his family, as his only daughter had married Miss Proctor's brother and lived in Peoria, Illinois. Mr. Storrs had made his own fortune, starting out by buying his "time" of his father and borrowing an old horse and pedlar's cart from a friend. He put into the cart a large assortment of Yankee notions, or what people then called "short goods," as stockings, suspenders, gloves, shoestrings, thread and needles, tape, sewing silk, etc. He determined to make his own fortune and succeeded royally for he became a "merchant prince." His was a rarely noble and generous nature with a heart as big as his brain. Several of his large rooms downstairs were crammed with wonderfully beautiful and precious things which his soul delighted in picking up, in ivory, jade, bronze, and glass. He was so devotedly fond of music that at great expense he had a large organ built which could be played by pedalling and pulling stops in and out, and sometimes on Sunday morning he would rise by half-past six, and be downstairs in his shirt sleeves hard at work, eliciting oratorio or opera music for his own delectation. A self-made man, "who did not worship his creator." He was always singularly modest, although very decided in his opinions. Men are asking of late who can be called educated. Certainly not a student of the ancient Assyrian or the mysteries of the Yogi, or the Baha, or the Buddhistic legends, when life is so brief and we must "act in the living present." But a man who has studied life and human nature as well as the best form of books, gained breadth and culture by wide travel, and is always ready for new truths, that man is educated in the best sense, although entirely self-educated. Greeley used to say, "Charles Storrs is a great man."
Greeley used to just rest and enjoy himself at Mr. Storrs's home, often two weeks at a time, and liked to shut himself into that wonderful library to work or read. Once when he returned unexpectedly, the maid told Miss Proctor that Mr. Greeley had just come in from the rain and was quite wet, and there was no fire in the library. He did not at first care to change to Mr. Storrs's special den in the basement. But Miss Proctor said "It is too cold here and your coat is quite wet." "Oh, I am used to that," he said plaintively. But his special desk was carried down to a room bright with an open fire, and he seemed glad to be cared for.
Whitelaw Reid was photographed with Greeley when he first came on from the West to take a good share of the responsibility of editing the Tribune. He stood behind Greeley's chair, and I noticed his hair was then worn quite long. But he soon attained the New York cut as well as the New York cult. Both Reid and John Hay were at that time frequent guests of Mr. Storrs, who never seemed weary of entertaining his friends. Beecher was one of his intimate acquaintances and they often went to New York together hunting for rare treasures.
I have several good stories about Mr. Greeley for which I am indebted to Miss Proctor who told them to me.
1. He used to write way up in a small attic in the Tribune building, and seldom allowed anyone to interrupt him. Some man, who was greatly disgusted over one of Greeley's editorials, climbed up to his sanctum, and as soon as his head showed above the railing, he began to rave and rage, using the most lurid style of profanity. It seemed as if he never would stop, but at last, utterly exhausted and out of breath and all used up, he waited for a reply.
Greeley kept on writing, never having looked up once. This was too much to be endured, and the caller turned to go downstairs, when Greeley called out: "Come back, my friend, come back, and free your mind."
2. Mr. Greeley once found that one of the names in what he considered an important article on the Board of Trade had been incorrectly printed. He called Rooker, the head man in the printing department, and asked fiercely what man set the type for this printing, showing him the mistake. Rooker told him, and went to get the culprit, whom Greeley said deserved to be kicked. But when he came, he brought Mr. Greeley's article in his own writing, and showed him that the mistake was his own. Mr. Greeley acknowledged he was the guilty one, and begging the man's pardon, added, "Tom Rooker, come here and kick me quick."