Los Angeles herald., 1891-07-16

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PRENTICE MULFORD.
In mental ability he was chief among
his fellows. He possessed vast knowledge,
but of the most heterogeneous character.
He was full of the most strange, out-of-the-
way Information, mingled with much that
was practical to degree. His humor was
delightful, he saw the comic side of every
thing, yet was his humor most closely
allied to pathos. His range of thought
covered the widest, and to many, the most
absurd dreams, but he was full of hard
common sense, which flashed out in his
brief comment on the doings of day with
the shock of douche of cold water. In
literary work nothing is so difficult as the
writing of epigrams, those short, pithy
sentences which cover SO much in SO few
words; yet to Mulford they seemed to be
the easiest of all forms of composition.
In his love of nature Prentice Mulford
reminded one of Thoreau. He was exceed
tngly fond of the water, and he lived on it
for many years, cruising about alone in his
boat. In San Francisco, when he was
working for The Golden Era, weekly pa
per edited by Colonel Lawrence, his home
was in an old whaleboat he had picked up
somewhere and made over to suit his
needs. For quite long time he wore the
strangest clothes one can imagine-a knit
ted suit all in one piece, like a bathing
suit. This had, I believe, originally been
blue in color, but the wind, and the rain,
and the strong sunlight had turned it to a
rusty brown. Mulford declared it to be
the only garment a man should wear, and
was fond of expatiating on it's many excel
lent qualities.
In his boat he had a place to sleep and
an arrangement for cooking. 1t was his
habit to land once in a day or two for the
purpose of buying bread, papers, eggs,
milk and butter, and to mail and receive
his letters. At other times he cruised,
sleeping at night with his boat anchoredin
the most lonely parts of the bay But
writing on pad resting on his knee, with
his arm over the tiller, he would pour out
any guam tity of the wittiest, most humor-
GUS, most common sense matter that any
one ever read. Some of his articles liter
ally laughed with the fun that bubbled
through them; in others he struck deep
notes Of passion or of pain.
Colonel Lawrence, himself one of the
queerest originals ever met, was full of
stories about Mulford. The Golden Era
was the first paper Mulford wrote for, and
he remained faithful to 1T SO long as
Colonel Lawrence had it. Mulford was
under salary, but as he was utterly careless
about money and never drew more than
ten dollars at a time-which he preferred
should be paid in silver quarters, as he
thereby had plenty of small change-his
money accumulated to his credit in The
Era Office. Many times Colonel Lawrence
urged him to draw it out, but Mulford al
ways replied he had no need of it. Then
the colonel mentioned the savings bank,
but Mulford, who at that time was rank
socialist, declared he considered banks i'm
moral institutions which he refused to
patronize
Mulford was shy beyond the power of
words to express. When for any cause he
found it necessary to visit The Era Office,
then in Merchant street, he used to stand
ON the sidewalk until some one he knew
came along who would go up with him.
Remember, the man was a favorite with
every one in the place, and was at that
time one of the chief contributors to the
paper. When alone with one person he
knew well, or with two, or, perhaps, if he
were in the mood, with three, he would
talk at times most brilliantly, holding his
audience spellbound by the beauty of his
thoughts and words, or keeping them in
paroxysms of laughter by his fun. Let
some one he did not know join the circle,
or let two more persons come up and Null
ford became silent at once, nor was it long
before he would break away to enjoy his
beloved solitude once more. While he was
able to face audiences at his lectures in aft
er days, he never got over his shyness when
brought into close companionship with
men.
Mulford was q man who cared absolutely
nothing about money. During the period
of his married life, when he had wife to
support, he made greater efforto to earn it
than at any other time, but ordinarily he
was Indifferent. His wants were few and
of the simplest; his food was the plainest
he could get, and his friends cared far moro
about his dress than he ever did. At one
time he believed that men should not eat
meat, for he held the blood was the life.
His diet then was fish, vegetables, fruit
and bread. I have heard him argue elo-
queRtly in favor of this regimen, and it is
needless to say agreed with him. No one
ever disagreed with Mulford when he
spoke in earnest, however much one might
rebel afterward when the spell of the talk
was no longer on him. But Mulford had
strange ideas about the blood, and some
times have thought he then looked on it
Us sacrament. This, however, is part
of his mysticism which no one, SO far as /
know, ever thoroughly understood.
Strange things became no longer strange
to those who knew Prentice Mulford; he
always did that which no one would ex-
pect He had the most absolute disbelief
In his own mental powers; he never real
lied the intense admiration felt for them
By other men. He has in his time actually
resigned position on paper because he
was convinced he would be discharged; the
fact being that no one in the Office would
have allowed him to go if it might be pre-
vented. He hated fattery of all descriD-
lions; s1ionixing" drove him away at once.
He lksd people to admire his articles, but