James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[425] fair proportions, hung over their tops. His hat is a large, black beaver, and it certainly has known no touch of the brush since its maker gave it the finishing twirl, and pronounced it good. It differs from the hats of mankind in general, as an enraged porcupine differs from a porcupine whose evil passions slumber. It appears to have been thrown on his head, and has chanced to fall rather behind, like Sam Slick's. Fragments of straw adhere to the nap, as though the owner had been taking morning exercise in a stable. In truth, I hear that he has little faith in Orange County, and keeps a cow. A very long, very loose, well-worn, white over-coat, with the collar standing up, and the long skirts flying behind, envelopes the singular figure. This coat is long, apparently, because it was made a long time ago, before any Parisian or London tailor had from his back-shop issued to Christendom the mandate, “let the over-coats of mankind be worn short till further notice.” There is, indeed, so little of the citizen in the appearance of the individual I am describing, that, if it were not Sunday, he would —be taken, often must be taken, for a farmer just come to town upon a load of produce, who is now hurrying about the streets on errands for the good wife at home.

On he goes, and I at his heels. At the door of the building known as the Stuyvesant Institute, he enters. A slight change, I perceive, has taken place in the exterior of this edifice since I passed it yesterday. The Daguerreotype-cases and exhibition transparences have been removed, and over the door a signboard, similar in style and cost to those which tell a hungry public where Family Baking is done at ten and two, announces, that here the Independent Christian Society holds its meetings, and that the seats are Free. Other sign-boards about the door set forth the same facts. Fired by curiosity, and emboldened by the promised freedom of the seats, I enter, and find my way to the lecture room.

It is a semi-circular apartment of six hundred medical student capacity, slanting steeply downward to the lecturer's platform. It is early, and only a few of the Independent Christians have arrived. Horatius, I see, has taken the seat nearest the door, and is already absorbed in the perusal of a newspaper, the London Times. With his hat off and his coat thrown open, he looks quite a different per