At Any Rate, So
Completely Did Phelps Absorb This Paper And This Personality That He
Was Popularly Known As "Greeley" In The Region Where He Lived.
Perhaps A Fancied Resemblance Of The Two Men In The Popular Mind Had
Something To Do With This Transfer Of Name.
There is no doubt that
Horace Greeley owed his vast influence in the country to his genius,
nor much doubt that he owed his popularity in the rural districts to
James Gordon Bennett; that is, to the personality of the man which
the ingenious Bennett impressed upon the country.
That he despised
the conventionalities of society, and was a sloven in his toilet, was
firmly believed; and the belief endeared him to the hearts of the
people. To them "the old white coat" - an antique garment of
unrenewed immortality - was as much a subject of idolatry as the
redingote grise to the soldiers of the first Napoleon, who had seen
it by the campfires on the Po and on the Borysthenes, and believed
that he would come again in it to lead them against the enemies of
France. The Greeley of the popular heart was clad as Bennett said he
was clad. It was in vain, even pathetically in vain, that he
published in his newspaper the full bill of his fashionable tailor
(the fact that it was receipted may have excited the animosity of
some of his contemporaries) to show that he wore the best broadcloth,
and that the folds of his trousers followed the city fashion of
falling outside his boots. If this revelation was believed, it made
no sort of impression in the country. The rural readers were not to
be wheedled out of their cherished conception of the personal
appearance of the philosopher of the Tri-bune.
That the Tri-bune taught Old Phelps to be more Phelps than he would
have been without it was part of the independence-teaching mission of
Greeley's paper. The subscribers were an army, in which every man
was a general. And I am not surprised to find Old Phelps lately
rising to the audacity of criticising his exemplar. In some
recently-published observations by Phelps upon the philosophy of
reading is laid down this definition: "If I understand the necessity
or use of reading, it is to reproduce again what has been said or
proclaimed before. Hence, letters, characters, &c., are arranged in
all the perfection they possibly can be, to show how certain language
has been spoken by the, original author. Now, to reproduce by
reading, the reading should be so perfectly like the original that no
one standing out of sight could tell the reading from the first time
the language was spoken."
This is illustrated by the highest authority at hand: I have heard as
good readers read, and as poor readers, as almost any one in this
region. If I have not heard as many, I have had a chance to hear
nearly the extreme in variety. Horace Greeley ought to have been a
good reader.
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