“Now, Cousin Arthur, please don’t misunderstand me. Even what I have seen at the Five Points doesn’t tempt me to believe in slavery. I want of all things to see that exterminated. But, really and truly, I find an immeasurably worse slavery here in New York than I ever saw in Virginia, and I want to see it all abolished together, not merely the best and kindliest and most humane part of it. I want to see the time when every human being who works shall enjoy the full results of his work; when no man shall be any other man’s master; when no man shall grow rich by pocketing the proceeds of any other man’s genius or industry. I said all this to that woman, and she replied: ‘You are obviously a pestilent socialist. You are as bad as Fourier and Albert Brisbane and Horace Greeley.’ That was very rude of her, seeing that Mr. Greeley was present, but I’ve noticed that the people who most highly pride themselves on good manners are often rude and inconsiderate of others to a degree that would not be tolerated in Virginia society--except perhaps from Mr. Madison Peyton. By the way, Mr. Jefferson Peyton was present, and to my regret he said some things in defence of slavery which I could not at all approve. Mr. Greeley interrupted him to say something like this: “‘The dear young lady is quite right. We have a horrible slavery right here in New York, and we ought to make war on that as earnestly as we do on African slavery at the South. I’m trying to do it in the Try-bune’--that’s the way he pronounces the name of his paper--‘and I’m going to keep on trying.’ “That encouraged me, for I find myself more and more disposed to respect Mr. Greeley as I come to know him better. I don’t always agree with him. I sometimes think he is onesided in his views, and of course he is enormously self-conceited. But he is, at any rate, an honest man, and a brave and sincere one. He isn’t afraid to say what he thinks, any more than you are, and I like him for that. Another great editor whom I have met frequently, seems to me equally courageous, but far less conscientious. He is inclined to take what he calls ‘the newspaper view’ of things,--by which he means the view that appeals to the multitude for the moment, without much regard for any fixed principle. Socially he is a much more agreeable man than Mr. Greeley, but I don’t think him so trustworthy. Mr. Greeley impresses me as a man who may be enormously wrong-headed, under the influence of his prejudiced misconceptions, but who, wrong-headed or right-headed, will never consciously wrong others. If he had been born the master of a Virginia plantation he would have dealt with his negroes in the same spirit in which he has insisted upon giving to his fellow workers on the Tribune a share in the profits of their joint work. Mr. Greeley is odd, but I like him better than any editor I have met.”