It was part of Bryant’s creed that the profession to which he devoted his life should be treated as one of elevated dignity. When he died the Associated Press declared, in the preamble to its resolutions of respect, that “he redeemed, as far as one man could do so, the journalism of his early days from the offensive practice of personal discussion, often ending in duels, and at times in death, and placed it upon the broad foundation of that tolerance for others which is inseparable from free discussion and true self-respect.” In 1837 a hare-brained fellow named Holland, connected with a short-lived journal called the _Times_, challenged him to a duel because he had asserted that the _Times_ was a mere tool in the hands of Senator Nathaniel P. Tallmadge. Bryant pocketed the challenge, and told its bearer that everything must take its turn; that Holland had already been termed a scoundrel by Leggett, and he could not take up the new quarrel till the old one was settled. Year by year the _Evening Post_ refused to be drawn into offensive personalities. In 1832, when the _Courier_ and _Enquirer_ assailed it, Bryant wrote that “we shall never so far lose sight of a proper sense of our own dignity, or of respect for our readers, as to make incidents in the private life of any political opponent a subject of discussion or reproach.” Ten years later he was about to reply to an article in the _Plebeian_, but on looking at it a second time, “we were repelled from our purpose by the personalities which it contains.” In 1863 a scurrilous attack on Bigelow and Thayer by the _World_ drew the same curt statement. How scrupulous Bryant was in his fifty years’ editorship two incidents will illustrate. In the spring of 1859 a bill was pending at Albany to increase the compensation paid for legal advertisements, which was unfairly low. All the newspapers urged it, and the _Evening Post’s_ correspondent, one Wilder, proved a perfect Hercules of a lobbyist. “Yet,” Bryant wrote Bigelow, “I was uncomfortable all the while at the idea of having a bill before the Legislature from which, if it passed, I would derive a personal advantage, and I was quite relieved when I saw that it was defeated.” Some years earlier the London _Examiner_ published a complimentary article regarding Bigelow’s book upon Jamaica, of which he had about a hundred copies that he was eager to sell. He asked Bryant if he would be guilty of an impropriety in republishing the notice. “No,” Bryant said hesitatingly, looking up from his desk, “no, not as the world goes.” “But,” persisted Bigelow, “how as the _Evening Post_ goes?” “Why,” rejoined the poet, “I never did such a thing. I have had a good many pleasant things said about me, but I never republished one of them in the _Evening Post_.” It need not be said that Bigelow abandoned his plan.