“By never mentioning pay again,” was the prompt and decisive reply.

CHAPTER XXV.

A FINANCIAL CRASH.

A WONDERFUL MEMORY—­A NATION WITHOUT DEBT—­CRUSHING THE NATIONAL BANK—­RISE OF STATE BANKS—­INFLATED CURRENCY—­GRAND FLARE-UP—­TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF—­COMMENCING ANEW—­FAILING TO REACH AN OBTUSE HEART—­KING ALCOHOL DOES HIS WORK—­PRENTISS AND FOOTE—­LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG—­A NOBLE SPIRIT OVERCOME—­CHARITY COVERETH A MULTITUDE OF SINS.

The rare combination of the elements of the mind in Mr. Prentiss is only occasionally met with in time.  Judgment, imagination, and memory were all transcendent and equal in their respective powers.  With such a mind, everything possible to man may be accomplished.  The invention is rapid; the combining and applying responds as rapidly; the fitting and the proper wait on these in the judgment, and the emanation of the whole is perfect.  The imagination conceives, the memory retains, and the judgment applies.  The consummate perfection of all of these elements in one mind, assures greatness.  Charles James Fox, one of England’s ablest statesmen, said this combination, organized in the brain of Napoleon, was more complete than had existed with any man since the days of Julius Caesar, and would have made him transcendently great in anything to which he might have addressed his powers.  As a poet, he would have equalled Homer; as a lawyer, the author of the Pandects; as an architect, Michael Angelo; as an astronomer, Newton or Galileo; as an actor, Garrick, or his beloved Talma—­as he had equalled Caesar and Hannibal, and greatly surpassed Marlborough, Frederick the Great, and Charles XII.; as an orator, Demosthenes; and as a statesman, the greatest the earth ever knew.

This combination in the mind of Prentiss, with the great development of the organ of language, made him the unrivalled orator of his age.  His powers of memory were so great as to astonish even those eminently gifted in the same manner.  In reading, he involuntarily committed to memory, whether of prose or poetry.  He seemed to have memorized the Bible, Shakspeare, Dryden, Ben Jonson, Byron, and many others of the modern poets.  The whole range of literature was at his command:  to read once, was always to remember.  This capacity to acquire was so great that he would in a month master as much as most men could in twelve.

It appeared immaterial to what he applied himself, the consequence was the same.  Scientific research, or light literature; the ordinary occurrences of the day, recorded in the newspapers, or detailed by an occasional visitor—­all were remembered, and with truthful exactness.  Dates, days, names, and events fastened upon his memory tenaciously, and remained there without an effort.  Hence, the fund of information possessed by him astonished the best informed, who were gray with years and reading.  The exuberance of his imagination continually supplied new and beautiful imagery to his conversation; and in private intercourse, such was the rich purity of his language, and his ideas so bold and original, that all were willing listeners:  no one desired to talk if Prentiss was present and would talk.