GREELEY, MARY Y. C. 



GREENLEAF, ALFRED. 



369 



past At the same time, he gave a courteous greet,- 

 ino- to the new light, which dawned upon the intel- 

 lectual horizon. He never made his own experience 

 the" measure of possibility. He listened to every 

 scheme which was held forth in the interests of hu- 

 manity. He treated their advocates with kindness, 

 if not always with sympathy, and challenged for 

 their pretensions a generous hearing. Every im- 

 provement in legislation, in the order of civil society, 

 in the arrangements of labor and the relations of in- 

 dustry, in tlfe researches of science and the education 

 of the young, was welcomed with cordiality, and ex- 

 amined with fairness. His faith in the future was not 

 dimmed by his reverence for the past. Nor was his 

 confidence in the progress of the human race im- 

 paired by any tincture of personal selfishness. 

 Scarcely any man of his culture and genuine refine- 

 ment of mind had a less active sense of individual 

 comfort. But, what he did not seek for himself, he 

 sought for his kind. He keenly felt for the poor, 

 the infirm, the ignorant, the forsaken, the helpless, 

 and though often abrupt in his expressions,_ and not 

 conciliatory to excess in his manners, he will be set 

 down by the recording angel as " one who loved his 

 fellow-men." 



Prominent as were the relations of Mr. Greeley 

 with the public, no one can fully comprehend his 

 character without following him into the retirements 

 of private and domestic life. He was a man of sin- 

 gular purity of nature. No foul word or unseemly 

 jest was ever permitted to escape his lips. He cher- 

 ished the strongest attachment to the ties of family 

 and home. No man had a keener sense of the power 

 of kindred blood. His domestic tastes had the force 

 of a passionate instinct. His devotion to his invalid 

 wife, through years of protracted suffering, exhib- 

 ited the character of a religious sentiment. The in- 

 nate poetry of his nature was concentrated upon his 

 children. His love for the "^glorious boy," whose 

 early death was a perpetual grief, seemed less like a 

 reality than a romance. This child, whose radiant 

 beauty was never equalled in "the sunshine of pict- 

 ure," cannot be forgotten in any remembrance of 

 the father. His sweet and gracious nature was no 

 less attractive than his personal loveliness. His 

 sudden death, nearly twenty-five years ago, left a 

 feeling of loneliness and desolation upon the heart 

 of Mr. Greeley j for which the lapse of years brought 

 no assuaging influence. " When, at length," he 

 writes of himself, "the struggle ended with his last 

 breath, and even his mother was convinced that his 

 eyes would never again open upon the scenes of this 

 world, I knew that the summer of my life was over, 

 that the chill breath of its autumn was at hand, and 

 that my future course must be along the dovvn-nill 

 of life." 



GREELEY. Mrs. MARY YOUNG CHENEY, 

 wife of Horace Greeley, a lady of remarkable 

 intellectual ability, born at Litclifield, Conn., 

 in 1814; died in Few York City, October 30, 

 1872. As Miss Cheney, she received a very 

 thorough education, under the instruction of 

 that eminent teacher, the late John P. Brace, 

 and his successor at Litchfield ; and, while yet 

 under twenty years of age, came to New York 

 City, and taught a school for young ladies, 

 with remarkable success. Being threatened 

 with a pulmonary disease, she removed to 

 Warrenton, F. C., where she established a 

 similar school, which was still more success- 

 ful, and which was only discontinued on her 

 marriage with Mr. Greeley, July 5, 1836. Mrs. 

 Greeley was a lady of wide and generous lit- 

 erary culture, a polished and elegant writer ; 

 but she was also a woman of strong and de- 



VOL. XII. 24 A 



cided views, to which she adhered with great 

 tenacity. Sh* had adopted Dr. Sylvester 

 Graham's system in regard to vegetable diet ; 

 and, for years, she ruled her household and 

 entertained her guests in accordance with his 

 theories. She was, nevertheless, a loyal wife, 

 and performed her part, so long as her health 

 permitted, in endeavoring to aid her husband 

 in his enterprises. While he was struggling 

 to maintain the New- Yorker, she prepared the 

 literary criticisms, and they were well done. 

 A year after the establishment of the Tribune, 

 she, and the Countess d'Ossoli (then Miss 

 Margaret Fuller), travelled extensively over 

 the Continent of Europe, making many of 

 their journeys on foot, and taking with them a 

 young child of Mrs. Greeley's, and both cor- 

 responded regularly with the paper, in letters, 

 whose ability and vivacity have not since been 

 surpassed by the able correspondents of the 

 metropolitan journals. Mrs. Greeley early be- 

 came a convert to the doctrines of the Spirit- 

 ualists, and her belief in those doctrines ma- 

 terially influenced the latter portion of her 

 life. She had been an invalid for nearly ten 

 years from a complication of pulmonary and 

 nervous disorders, and had repeatedly visited 

 Europe and the tropics in the vain hope of 

 finding relief from the severe suffering under 

 whicli she labored. In June, 1872, she re- 

 turned from Europe with her daughters, and 

 spent most of the summer at Chappaqua, but, 

 at her own request, was brought to New York 

 City for the final struggle with disease. Her 

 husband, during the last month of her life, 

 abandoned the exciting and embittered politi- 

 cal campaign, then in progress, and, for weeks, 

 shut himself away from all his associates to 

 minister with the most tender and unwearied 

 fidelity to his dying wife. 



GREENLEAF, ALFRED, A. M., an eminent 

 teacher and promoter of education, born in 

 West Fewbury, Mass., May 10, 1804; died 

 in Brooklyn, F. Y., December 26, 1872. He 

 was of an intellectual and highly-cultivated 

 family, and early manifested an eager desire 

 for learning. He was fitted for college at the 

 age of sixteen, but did not enter Dartmouth 

 College until a year or two later. A serious 

 illness prevented him from graduating with his 

 class, but, in 1838, his Alma Mater conferred 

 on him the degree of M. A., which he had pre- 

 viously received from the University of New 

 York. Yery soon after leaving college, he 

 commenced life as a teacher at Marblehead, 

 Mass. After about two years' experience 

 there he was called to the principalship of the 

 Franklin Hall School, at Salem, Mass., a school 

 of six hundred pupils, many of them of adult 

 age. He conducted this school with remarka- 

 ble success for about ten years, when (in 1838) 

 he was called to Brooklyn to take charge of a 

 young ladies' seminary of very high grade. 

 He accepted the invitation, and for twenty-two 

 years presided over it with such credit to him- 

 self and benefit to his pupils (of whom more 



