suffering man. And now he begins to talk of growing old. He says most beautifully :

"As for me, long tossed on the stormiest waves of doubtful conflict, and an arduous endeavor, I have begun to feel, since the shade of forty years fell upon me, the weary, tempestdriven voyager's longing for land, the wanderer's yearning for the hamlet where in childhood he nestled by his mother's knee, and was soothed to sleep on her breast.

"The sober down-hill of life dispels many illusions, while it develops or strengthens within us the attachment, perhaps long smothered or overlaid, for 'that dear hut,' our home. And so I, in the sober afternoon of life, when its sun, if not high, is still warm, have bought me a few acres of land in the broad, still country, and, bearing thither my household treasures, have resolved to steal from the city's labors and anxieties, at least one day in each week, wherein to revive, as a farmer, the memories of my childhood's humble home.

"And already I realize that the experience cannot cost so much as it is worth. Already I find in that day's quiet an antidote and a solace for the feverish, festering cares of the week which environ it. Already my brook murmurs a soothing even-song to my burning, throbbing brain, and my trees, gently stirred by the fresh breezes, whisper to my spirit something of their own quiet strength and patient trust in God.

"And thus do I faintly realize, but for a brief and flitting day, the serene joy which shall irradiate the farmer's vocation, when a fuller and a truer education shall have refined and chastened his animal cravings, and when science shall have en

dowed him with her treasures, redeeming labor from drudgery while quadrupling its efficiency, and crowning with beauty and plenty our bounteous, beneficent earth."

In another place he writes thus eloquently of growing old:

"Is it well to desire and pray for length of days? I would say, so long as our mental faculties remain essentially undecayed, it is well, it is desirable to live. The love of life is not a blind, irrational instinct, but has as its base a just perception that existence is a blessing, and that even in this "vale of tears," its joys outweigh its woes. And besides, our terrestrial course prepares and shapes us for the life that shall succeed it, which will be, to a great extent, a continuation, or second edition of this, with corrections and improvements. Doubtless, Infinite Mercy has means provided whereby the millions to whom this life was a blank shall nevertheless be prepared for bliss in the next; and I trust even those who have misused and culpably squandered this stage of being will yet be ultimately fitted for happiness in another. But opportunities wasted can never be regained; the memory of past unworthiness must ever be humiliating and regretful to the redeemed soul. In vain does Joseph, revealing himself in Egypt to his treacherous brethren, entreat them to 'Be not angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life;' the view of God needed no vindication, while theirs do not receive any. I apprehend that flagrant transgressors (and who is or is not of this number, who shall here say?) will ever feel consciousness of inferiority and self-reproach in the presence of

those who walked worthily on earth-that retrospect of their darker hours can never be joyful nor welcome to Judas or Magdalen. So long as we may grow therein in wisdom and worth it is as well, it is desirable to live, but no further. To my view, insanity is the darkest, the most appalling of earthly ca lamities; but how much better is an old age that drivels and wanders, that misunderstands and forgets? When the soul shall have become choked and smothered by the ruins of its wasting, falling habitation, I should prefer to inhabit that shattered tenement no longer. I should not choose to stand shuddering and trembling on the brink of the dark river, weakly drawing back from the chill of its sweeping flood, when faith assures me that a new Eden stretches green and fair beyond it, and that the baptism it invites will cleanse the soul of all that now clogs, clouds, and weighs it to the earth. No, when the windows of the mind shall be darkened, when the growth of the soul here shall have been arrested, I would not weakly cling to the earth which will have ceased to nourish and uphold Rather 'let the golden cup be loosed, and the pitcher broken at the fountain;' let the sun of my existence go down ere the murky vapors shroud its horizon; let me close my eyes calmly on the things of earth, and let my weary frame sleep beneath the clods of the valley; let the spirit, which it can no longer cherish as a guest, be spared the ignominy of detention as a prisoner; but, freed from the fetters of clay, let it wing its way through the boundless universe, to wheresoever the benign Father of spirits shall have assigned it an everlasthome."

me.

The defeat of General Scott in 1852 emancipated Mr. Greely and the Tribune from the shackles of party and the tyranny of conservatism; it made him the most free of successful editors, and his paper the ablest and most fearless journal in America. We will close our sketch of his life by a glance at him in his office.

In visiting the Tribune establishment, one should by no means be content with an introduction into the editorial sanctum. He should first descend into subterranean regions where the press-work of the Tribune is executed. A view of the mammoth press, which, with its iron fingers, throws off fifteen thousand impressions an hour, will give him an idea of the business of the establishment. It is a press which has little rest, for the aggregate circulation of the Tribune is over one hundred and seventy thousand copies! Ascend to the first floor, and view the place where the business of the paper is conducted-where its immense advertising patronage is received and accounted for-where all bills against the firm of Greeley & McElrath are settled! Mount still higher, and see the printers at their work. If it is day, a busy scene will present itself, yet utter silence pervades the apartments. If it be night, it is still the same-each case is manned, and the work progresses under a new set of workmen, as rapidly as by day. Floor above floor, is occupied by the industrious printers, and the

clerks who each day send off tens of thousands of papers, and one day in each week, more than one hundred thousand. But we have not visited the place where the burning thoughts which are the life of the Tribune, are put upon paper. It is in the highest story but one, fronting on the park. We first enter a long room fronting Spruce street, and extending to Nassau street. Here the sub-editors work. A row of them, each seated at his desk and plying the pen or scissors industriously, attracts our attention. George Ripley, a fine, manly person, with dark hair and darker eyes, sits at one. He is the literary editor of the Tribune, the book critic, and one would hardly suppose from his bland manners that his business, like that of a surgeon, consists in cutting people up! A book lies open before him-he is marking passages for extraction, and to-morrow morning we shall read them in the moist pages of the journal, as we sip our coffee, together with the critic's remarks. Bayard Taylor, perhaps, sits at another desk, just returned from a profitable lecturing tour, and we stop to gaze at the brilliant young traveler. Not far off sits white-haired "Solon "-Solon Robinson, the author of "Hot Corn "—the agricultural and city item editor of the Tribune. We skip the other editors in this room, and pass into a smaller apartment looking out upon the City Hall. The room is newly carpeted -in one corner, there is an old-fashioned sofa-easy