The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1886-06-16
For THE CLARIoN]
seargent 5. Prentiss.
80 !.

sand miles from Casco Bay, on the bank,
of the great Father of Waters" sur.
rounded by his wife and children and
friends who would have died for him !
man who had entranced senates. and
filled America with the fame of his won.
derful oratory, passed into the unseen
Holy, with the suffrage Of the sublime
Litany,''O God the SON, Redeemer of the
world" upon his lips. And now two
miles south of Natchez, in a plat of
ground enclosed by brick wall, shaded
by the cedar, the mimosa, and the crane
myrtle, there is a grave. A plain mar
bic head stone, festooned with wild grow
ing vines, bears this inscription:
5. s PREs1Iss,
Born at Portland, Maine.
September 80, 1905.
Departed this life
July lst, 1850
Il am the Resurrection
And the Life. He that
Beieveth on me
Though he were dead
1et shall he live"
This man was a child Of genius. He
was strong, he was weak. Strong in the
endowment of princely intellect, yet
weak in many aspects of character, for
so the inheritors of genius have ever
been. He was gentle as a child, and
tender as woman. His friendships
were beautiful, his animosities terrible.
Ills whole nature was intense, so intense
the marvel is that his frail body stood
the wear so long. His intellectual en-
dowments were brilliant-memOry, i'm
agination, reason. His powers were har.
moniously blended, aud so at his com
mand, that in all his life they never
failed him. His capacity for thinking
was immense. His dietion chaste as
Grecian speech. His voice ce-those who
heard it pronounce indescribable. His
eye, soft, tender, as if in dreaming fan
cies lost, and then terrible as the light
ming, chasing and enchanting his audi
ence, or filling them with awe and terror,
but holding them in the fascination of
its awful fash Thinker, orator, poet
His sentences in his impassioned mood
are heart-throbs. lie had Webster 5
grand breadth, Calhoun's subtitle insight,
and far more than Clay the gift of ora
tory. When he spoke he seemed the re-
alization Of all the world had accom-
plished, and in the upper air the centu-
to witness the triumph. He reveled in
fancy, but lived in unpoetic facts. He
WAS rich only in genius. He claimed
no broad acres. He had no family name
distinguished in the annals of achieve
Inents. lie had frail body, and his
faithful staff. But he had genius. He
conquered fortune. He conquered men.
He won fame He won love, and in it
all he was unconscious of himself. He
was often astonished at his success, and
then went on as in half dream, seeing
all the angels of God-and alas! meet
ing, and often yielding to many fiend
from hell
Let us study this life with sincere
admiration for the many noble things in
it, and with profound sorrow for the
things we fain would hide.
The father of S. s. Prentiss was a sea-
faring man, a calling which always de-
velopS self-reliance, and manliness. In
his frequent absences from home the
mother became the protector of the fam
lily, and for his mother the son cherished
an almost alteration. She was a woman
of gentle, quiet ways, and the son inner
tied much of her gentleness, with the
selfreliance of his father. A violent
attack of fever when 4 child left him
lame, and debarred him from the active
sports of boyhood. This forced him to
seek for play in intellectual cultivation,
and at very early age he was master of
knowledge. In his eighth year he was
sent to school, "drawn thither in little
wagon by his elder brother" His
faoabar'g obo 10 briaU,y lopariba1 I.
"a martinez in discipline, an encyclope
dian In knowledge, and Puritan in re-
Egion." Under this teacher he grew
rapidly in scholarship. Traditions of a
speech he made in an apple orchard to
his school-mates gave promise of the
fame of after years, and on account of
his lameness and general brightness"
his father determined 20 send him to
college. AT the age of sixteen he was
so well prepared that he was able to en-
ter the junior class, and in two years he
had his Bachelors diploma from Bow
doin College.
He attracted attention in college from
the first. He was student always.
The idea that genius is excused from
drudgery is a sophisr1. One of the in.
exorable laws of genius is study. Prem
tiss studied with diligence. His mind
was cast in logical mould, and he easily
mastered the most atstruse subjects.
His imagination, had it not been for the
sterner logic, would have dominated
him. He fed it with Shakespeare, Mil
ton, Scott, the Arabian Nights, and
other productions. In after years the
authors could have taken lessons at his
feet, had they heard his Interpretation
OF their suggestive thought.
. After graduation came the question
of what he sheuld do. On the 201h of
September he entered the law office of
Judge Pierce, and studied for ten
months. In the meanwhile his father
died, and he felt it his duty to help his
mother. The great West was then at
tracing young men from the older
States, and Prentiss joined the band of
restless ones, dreaming of fortune, per
haps of fame. On the Goth of August,
1927, he arrived in Cincinnati with
letter of introduction to Judge Wright,
and on the 2Sth, he enrolled himself a
law student in his office. His means
were soon exhausted, and in October he
started for Natchez, where he hoped to
secure school.
On his arrival at Natchez he had FIVE
dollars. The first thing he did after
registering his name, was to order a box
of cigars and bottle of wine to be sent
to his room. His explanation of this
extravaganza in after years was charac-
teristic. He did it to create the impress
sion he had money. The expenditure
gained him credit and consideration.
OF course no landlord would imagine a
guest so liberal with his money almost
without money Prentiss never cared
for money in the way of boarding it,
and while he made money with growing
fame, he was never rich, or even COM
Portable in a financial way.