he youngest son of the seventeen children of a Boston tallow-chandler
named Franklin was born a subject of Queen Anne of England, on the 6th
of January, 1706; and on the same day received the baptismal name of
Benjamin at the Old South Church in that city. He continued for more
than seventy of the eighty-four years of his life a subject of four
successive British monarchs. During that period, neither Anne nor
either of the three Georges who succeeded her had a subject of whom
they had more reason to be proud, nor one whom at his death their
people generally supposed they had more reason to detest. No
Englishman of his generation can now be said to have established a
more enduring fame, in any way, than Franklin established in many
ways. As a printer, as a journalist, as a diplomatist, as a statesman,
as a philosopher, he was easily first among his peers.
On the other hand, it is no disparagement of the services of any of
his contemporaries on either side of the Atlantic, to say that no one
of his generation contributed more effectually to the dissolution of
the bonds which united the principal British-American colonies to the
mother country, and towards conferring upon them independence and a
popular government.
As a practical printer Franklin was reported to have had no superiors;
as a journalist he exerted an influence not only unrivaled in his day,
but more potent, on this continent at least, than either of his
sovereigns or their Parliaments. The organization of a police, and
later of the militia, for Philadelphia; of companies for extinguishing
fires; making the sweeping and paving of the streets a municipal
function; the formation of the first public library for Philadelphia,
and the establishment of an academy which has matured into the now
famous University of Pennsylvania, were among the conspicuous reforms
which he planted and watered in the columns of the Philadelphia
Gazette. This journal he founded; upon the earnings of it he mainly
subsisted during a long life, and any sheet of it to-day would bring a
larger price in the open market probably than a single sheet of any
other periodical ever published.
Franklin's Almanack, his crowning work in the sphere of journalism,
published under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders,—better known since
as Poor Richard,—is still one of the marvels of modern literature.
Under one or another of many titles the contents of this publication,
exclusive of its calendars, have been translated into every tongue
having any pretensions to a literature; and have had more readers,
probably, than any other publication in the English or indeed in any
other language, with the single exception of the Bible. It was the
first issue from an American press that found a popular welcome in
foreign lands, and it still enjoys the special distinction of being
the only almanac ever published that owed its extraordinary popularity
entirely to its literary merit.
What adds to the surprise with which we contemplate the fame and
fortunes of this unpretentious publication, is the fact that its
reputation was established by its first number, and when its author
was only twenty-six years of age. For a period of twenty-six years,
and until Franklin ceased to edit it, this annual was looked forward
to by a larger portion of the colonial population and with more
impatience than now awaits a President's annual message to Congress.
Franklin graduated from journalism into diplomacy as naturally as
winter glides into spring. This was simply because he was by common
acclaim the fittest man for any kind of public service the colony
possessed, and especially for any duty requiring talents for
persuasion, in which he proved himself to be unquestionably past
master among the diplomatists of his time.
The question of taxing the Penn proprietary estates in Pennsylvania,
for the defense of the province from the French and Indians, had
assumed such an acute stage in 1757 that the Assembly decided to
petition the King upon the subject; and selected Franklin, then in the
forty-first year of his age, to visit London and present their
petition. The next forty-one years of his life were practically all
spent in the diplomatic service. He was five years absent on this his
first mission. Every interest in London was against him. He finally
surmounted all obstacles by a compromise, which pledged the Assembly
to pass an act exempting from taxation the unsurveyed lands of the
Penn estate,—the surveyed waste lands, however, to be assessed at the
usual rate. For his success the Penns and their partisans never
forgave him, and his fellow colonists never forgot him.
Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1762, but not to remain. The
question of taxing the colonies without representation was soon thrust
upon them in the shape of a stamp duty, and Franklin was sent out
again to urge its repeal. He reached London in November 1764, where he
remained the next eleven years and until it became apparent that the
surrender of the right to arbitrarily tax the colonies would never be
made by England during the life of the reigning sovereign, George III.
Satisfied that his usefulness in England was at an end, he sailed for
Philadelphia on the 21st of March, 1775; and on the morning of his
arrival was elected by the Assembly of Pennsylvania a delegate to the
Continental Congress which consolidated the armies of the colonies,
placed General George Washington in command of them, issued the first
Continental currency, and assumed the responsibility of resisting the
imperial government; his last hope of maintaining the integrity of the
empire having been dissipated by recent collisions between the people
and the royalist troops at Concord and Lexington. Franklin served on
ten committees in this Congress. He was one of the five who drew up
the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, and in September
following was chosen unanimously as one of the three commissioners to
be sent out to solicit for the infant republic the aid of France and
the sympathies of continental Europe. In this mission, the importance
of which to his country can hardly be exaggerated, he was greatly
favored by the reputation which had preceded him as a man of science.
While yet a journalist he had made some experiments in electricity,
which established its identity with lightning. The publication by an
English correspondent of the letters in which he gave an account of
these experiments, secured his election as an honorary member of the
Royal Society of London and undisputed rank among the most eminent
natural philosophers of his time. When he arrived in Paris, therefore,
he was already a member of every important learned society in Europe,
one of the managers of the Royal Society of London, and one of the
eight foreign members of the Royal Academy in Paris, where three
editions of his scientific writings had already been printed. To these
advantages must be added another of even greater weight: his errand
there was to assist in dismembering the British Empire, than which
nothing of a political nature was at this time much nearer every
Frenchman's heart.
The history of this mission, and how Franklin succeeded in procuring
from the French King financial aid to the amount of twenty-six
millions of francs, at times when the very existence of the republic
depended upon them, and finally a treaty of peace more favorable to
his country than either England or France wished to concede, has been
often told; and there is no chapter in the chronicles of this republic
with which the world is more familiar.
Franklin's reputation grew with his success. "It was," wrote his
colleague John Adams, "more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton,
Frederick the Great or Voltaire, and his character more beloved and
esteemed than all of them.... If a collection could be made of all the
gazettes of Europe for the latter half of the eighteenth century, a
greater number of panegyrical paragraphs upon le grand Franklin
would appear, it is believed, than upon any other man that ever
lived."
A few weeks after signing the definitive treaty of peace in 1783,
Franklin renewed an application which he had previously made just
after signing the preliminary treaty, to be relieved of his mission;
but it was not until the 7th of March, 1785, that Congress adopted a
resolution permitting "the Honorable Benjamin Franklin to return to
America as soon as convenient." Three days later, Thomas Jefferson was
appointed to succeed him.
On the 13th of September, 1785, and after a sojourn of nearly nine
years in the French capital, first in the capacity of commissioner and
subsequently of minister plenipotentiary, Franklin once more landed in
Philadelphia, on the same wharf on which, sixty-two years before, he
had stepped, a friendless and practically penniless runaway apprentice
of seventeen.
Though now in his seventy-ninth year, and a prey to infirmities not
the necessary incidents of old age, he had scarcely unpacked his
trunks after his return when he was chosen a member of the municipal
council of Philadelphia, and its chairman. Shortly after, he was
elected president of Pennsylvania, his own vote only lacking to make
the vote unanimous. "I have not firmness," he wrote to a friend, "to
resist the unanimous desire of my countryfolks; and I find myself
harnessed again into their service another year. They engrossed the
prime of my life; they have eaten my flesh, and seem resolved now to
pick my bones."
He was unanimously re-elected to this dignity for the two succeeding
years, and while holding that office was chosen a member of the
convention which met in May 1787 to frame the Constitution under which
the people of the United States are still living.
With the adoption of that instrument, to which he probably contributed
as much as any other individual, he retired from official life; though
not from the service of the public, to which for the remaining years
of his stay on earth his genius and his talents were faithfully
consecrated.
Among the fruits of that unfamiliar leisure, always to be remembered
among the noblest achievements of his illustrious career, was the part
he had in organizing the first anti-slavery society in the world; and
as its president, writing and signing the first remonstrance against
slavery ever addressed to the Congress of the United States.
In surveying the life of Dr. Franklin as a whole, the thing that most
impresses one is his constant study and singleness of purpose to
promote the welfare of human society. It was his daily theme as a
journalist, and his yearly theme as an almanac-maker. It is that
which first occurs to us when we recall his career as a member of the
Colonial Assembly; as an agent of the provinces in England; as a
diplomatist in France; and as a member of the conventions which
crowned the consistent labors of his long life. Nor are there any now
so bold as to affirm that there was any other person who could have
been depended upon to accomplish for his country or the world, what
Franklin did in any of the several stages of his versatile career.
Though holding office for more than half of his life, the office
always sought Franklin, not Franklin the office. When sent to England
as the agent of the colony, he withdrew from business with a modest
competence judiciously invested mostly in real estate. He never seems
to have given a thought to its increase. Frugal in his habits, simple
in his tastes, wise in his indulgences, he died with a fortune neither
too large nor too small for his fame as a citizen or a patriot. For
teaching frugality and economy to the colonists, when frugality and
economy were indispensable to the conservation of their independence
and manhood, he has been sneered at as the teacher of a
"candle-end-saving philosophy," and his 'Poor Richard' as a
"collection of receipts for laying up treasures on earth rather than
in heaven." Franklin never taught, either by precept or example, to
lay up treasures on earth. He taught the virtues of industry, thrift,
and economy, as the virtues supremely important in his time, to keep
people out of debt and to provide the means of educating and
dignifying society. He never countenanced the accumulation of wealth
for its own sake, but for its uses,—its prompt convertibility into
social comforts and refinements. It would be difficult to name another
man of any age to whom an ambition to accumulate wealth as an end
could be imputed with less propriety. Though probably the most
inventive genius of his age, and thus indirectly the founder of many
fortunes, he never asked a patent for any of his inventions or
discoveries. Though one of the best writers of the English language
that his country has yet produced, he never wrote a line for money
after he withdrew from the calling by which he made a modest provision
for his family.
For the remaining half of his life both at home and abroad, though
constantly operating upon public opinion by his pen, he never availed
himself of a copyright or received a penny from any publisher or
patron for any of these labors. In none of the public positions which
he held, even when minister plenipotentiary, did his pay equal his
expenditures. He was three years president of Pennsylvania after his
return from France, and for his services declined to appropriate to
his own use anything beyond his necessary expenditures for stationery,
postage, and transportation. It is not by such methods that men
justly incur the implied reproach of "laying up treasures on earth,"
or of teaching a candle-end-saving philosophy.
Franklin courted fame no more than fortune. The best of his writings,
after his retirement from journalism, he never gave to the press at
all; not even his incomparable autobiography, which is still
republished more frequently than any of the writings of Dickens or of
Thackeray. He always wrote for a larger purpose than mere personal
gratification of any kind. Even his bagatelles and jeux d'esprit
read in the salons of Paris, though apparently intended for the eyes
of a small circle, were inspired by a desire to make friends and
create respect for the struggling people and the great cause he
represented. Few if any of them got into print until many years after
his decease.
Franklin was from his youth up a leader, a lion in whatever circle he
entered, whether in the printing-house, the provincial Assemblies, as
agent in England, or as a courtier in France. There was no one too
eminent in science or literature, on either side of the Atlantic, not
to esteem his acquaintance a privilege. He was an honorary member of
every important scientific association in the world, and in friendly
correspondence with most of those who conferred upon those bodies any
distinction; and all this by force of a personal, not to say
planetary, attraction that no one brought within his sphere could long
resist.
Pretty much all of importance that we know of Franklin we gather from
his private correspondence. His contemporaries wrote or at least
printed very little about him; scarcely one of the multitude whose
names he embalmed in his 'Autobiography' ever printed a line about
him. All that we know of the later half of his life not covered by his
autobiography, we owe almost exclusively to his private and official
correspondence. Though reckoning among his warm friends and
correspondents such men as David Hume, Dr. Joseph Priestley, Dr.
Price, Lord Kames, Lord Chatham, Dr. Fothergill, Peter Collinson,
Edmund Burke, the Bishop of St. Asaph and his gifted daughters,
Voltaire, the habitués of the Helvétius salon, the Marquis de Ségur,
the Count de Vergennes, his near neighbors De Chaumont and Le
Veillard, the maire of Passy,—all that we learn of his
achievements, of his conversation, of his daily life, from these or
many other associates of only less prominence in the Old World, might
be written on a single foolscap sheet. Nor are we under much greater
obligations to his American friends. It is to his own letters (and
except his 'Autobiography,' he can hardly be said to have written
anything in any other than the epistolary form; and that was written
in the form of a letter to his son William, and most of it only began
to be published a quarter of a century after his death) that we must
turn to learn how full of interest and importance to mankind was this
last half-century of his life. Beyond keeping copies of his
correspondence, which his official character made a duty as well as a
necessity, he appears to have taken no precautions to insure the
posthumous fame to which his correspondence during that period was
destined to contribute so much. Hence, all the biographies—and they
are numberless—owe almost their entire interest and value to his own
pen. All, so far as they are biographies, are autobiographies; and for
that reason it may be fairly said that all of them are interesting.
It is also quite remarkable that though Franklin's life was a
continuous warfare, he had no personal enemies. His extraordinary and
even intimate experience of every phase of human life, from the very
lowest to the very highest, had made him so tolerant that he regarded
differences of opinion and of habits much as he regarded the changes
of the weather,—as good or bad for his purposes, but which, though he
might sometimes deplore, he had no right to quarrel with or assume
personal responsibility for. Hence he never said or did things
personally offensive. The causes that he represented had enemies, for
he was all his life a reformer. All men who are good for anything have
such enemies. "I have, as you observe," wrote Franklin to John Jay the
year that he retired from the French mission, "some enemies in
England, but they are my enemies as an American; I have also two or
three in America who are my enemies as a minister; but I thank God
there are not in the whole world any who are my enemies as a man: for
by his grace, through a long life, I have been enabled so to conduct
myself that there does not exist a human being who can justly say,
'Ben Franklin has wronged me.' This, my friend, is in old age a
comfortable reflection. You too have or may have your enemies; but let
not that render you unhappy. If you make a right use of them, they
will do you more good than harm. They point out to us our faults; they
put us upon our guard and help us to live more correctly."
Franklin's place in literature as a writer has not been generally
appreciated, probably because with him writing was only a means, never
an end, and his ends always dwarfed his means, however effective. He
wrote to persuade others, never to parade his literary skill. He never
wrote a dull line, and was never nimious. The longest production of
his pen was his autobiography, written during the closing years of his
life. Nearly all that he wrote besides was in the form of letters,
which would hardly average three octavo pages in length. And yet
whatever the subject he touched upon, he never left the impression of
incompleteness or of inconclusiveness. Of him may be said, perhaps
with as much propriety as of any other man, that he never said a word
too soon, nor a word too late, nor a word too much. Tons of paper have
been devoted to dissuasives from dueling, but the argument was never
put more effectively than Franklin put it in these dozen lines of a
letter to a Mr. Percival, who had sent him a volume of literary and
moral dissertations.
"A gentleman in a coffee-house desired another to sit further from
him. 'Why so?'—'Because you stink.'—'That is an affront, and you
must fight me.'—'I will fight you if you insist upon it, but I do not
see how that will mend the matter. For if you kill me, I shall stink
too; and if I kill you, you will stink, if possible, worse than at
present.' How can such miserable sinners as we are, entertain so much
pride as to conceit that every offense against our imagined honor
merits death? These petty princes, in their opinion, would call that
sovereign a tyrant who should put one of them to death for a little
uncivil language, though pointed at his sacred person; yet every one
of them makes himself judge in his own cause, condemns the offender
without a jury, and undertakes himself to be the executioner."
Some one wrote him that the people in England were abusing the
Americans and speaking all manner of evil against them. Franklin
replied that this was natural enough:
"They impute to us the evil they wished us. They are angry with us,
and speak all manner of evil of us; but we flourish notwithstanding.
They put me in mind of a violent High Church factor, resident in
Boston when I was a boy. He had bought upon speculation a Connecticut
cargo of onions which he flattered himself he might sell again to
great profit; but the price fell, and they lay upon his hands. He was
heartily vexed with his bargain, especially when he observed they
began to grow in his store he had filled with them. He showed them one
day to a friend. 'Here they are,' said he, 'and they are growing too.
I damn them every day, but I think they are like the Presbyterians;
the more I curse them, the more they grow.'"
Mr. Jefferson tells us that Franklin was sitting by his side in the
convention while the delegates were picking his famous declaration
of Independence to pieces, and seeing how Jefferson was squirming
under their mutilations, comforted him with the following stories, the
rare excellence of which has given them a currency which has long
since worn off their novelty:—
"'I have made it a rule,' said he, 'whenever in my power, to avoid
becoming the draftsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I
took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you.
"'When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an
apprenticed hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop
for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome sign-board with
the proper inscription. He composed it in these words: John Thompson,
Hatter, makes and sells Hats for ready Money, with a figure of a hat
subjoined. But he thought he would submit it to his friends for their
amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word hatter
tautologous, because followed by the words makes hats, which showed
he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word
makes might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care
who made the hats; if good and to their mind, they would buy, by
whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words
for ready money were useless, as it was not the custom of the place
to sell on credit: every one who purchased expected to pay. They were
parted with, and the inscription now stood, John Thompson sells
hats. "Sells hats," says his next friend; "why, nobody will expect
you to give them away. What then is the use of that word?" It was
stricken out, and hats followed, the rather as there was one painted
on the board. So his inscription was ultimately reduced to John
Thompson, with the figure of a hat subjoined.'"
When the members were about to sign the document, Mr. Hancock
is reported to have said, "We must be unanimous; there must
be no pulling different ways; we must all hang together." "Yes,"
replied Franklin, "we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly
we shall all hang separately."
The Doric simplicity of his style; his incomparable facility of condensing
a great principle into an apologue or an anecdote, many of
which, as he applied them, have become the folk-lore of all nations;
his habitual moderation of statement, his aversion to exaggeration,
his inflexible logic, and his perfect truthfulness,—made him one of
the most persuasive men of his time, and his writings a model which
no one can study without profit. A judicious selection from Franklin's
writings should constitute a part of the curriculum of every
college and high school that aspires to cultivate in its pupils a pure
style and correct literary taste.
There was one incident in Franklin's life, which, though more frequently
referred to in terms of reproach than any other, will probably
count for more in his favor in the Great Assize than any other of
his whole life. While yet in his teens he became a father before he
was a husband. He never did what men of the loftiest moral pretensions
not unfrequently do,—shirk as far as possible any personal
responsibility for this indiscretion. On the contrary, he took the
fruit of it to his home; gave him the best education the schools of
the country then afforded. When he went abroad, this son accompanied
him, was presented as his son wherever he went, was presented
in all the great houses in which he himself was received; he
entered him at the Inns of Court, and in due time had him admitted
to the English bar; made him his private secretary, and at an early
age caused him to be appointed by the Crown, Governor of New
Jersey. The father not only did everything to repair the wrong he
had done his son, but at a time when he was at the zenith of his
fame and official importance, publicly proclaimed it as one of the
great errors of his life. The world has always abounded with bastards;
but with the exception of crowned heads claiming to hold
their sceptres by Divine right, and therefore beyond the reach of
popular criticism or reproach, it would be difficult to name another
parent of his generation of anything like corresponding eminence
with Franklin, who had the courage and the magnanimity to expiate
such a wrong to his offspring so fully and effectively.
Franklin was not a member of the visible Church, nor did he
ever become the adherent of any sect. He was three years younger
than Jonathan Edwards, and in his youth heard his share of the then
prevailing theology of New England, of which Edwards was regarded,
and perhaps justly, as the most eminent exponent. The extremes to
which Edwards carried those doctrines at last so shocked the people
of Massachusetts that he was rather ignominiously expelled from his
pulpit at Northampton; and the people of Massachusetts, in very
considerable proportions, gradually wandered over into the Unitarian
communion. To Jonathan Edwards and the inflexible law of action
and reaction, more than to Priestley or any one else of their generation,
that sect owes to this day its numerical strength, its influence,
and its dignity, in New England. With the creed of that sect Dr.
Franklin had more in common than with any other, though he was
much too wise a man to suppose that there was but one gate of
admission to the Holy City. He believed in one God; that Jesus was
the best man that ever lived, and his example the most profitable
one ever given us to follow. He never succeeded in accepting the
doctrine that Jehovah and Jesus were one person, or that miracles
attributed to the latter in the Bible were ever worked. He thought
the best service and sufficient worship of God was in doing all the
good we can to his creatures. He therefore never occupied himself
much with ecclesiastical ceremonies, sectarian differences, or theological
subtleties. A reverend candidate for episcopal orders wrote to
Franklin, complaining that the Archbishop of Canterbury had refused
to ordain him unless he would take the oath of allegiance, which he
was too patriotic a Yankee to do. Franklin, in reply, asked what
necessity there was for his being connected with the Church of England;
if it would not be as well were it the Church of Ireland. Perhaps
were he to apply to the Bishop of Derry, who was a man of
liberal sentiments, he might give him orders, as of that Church.
Should both England and Ireland refuse, Franklin assumed that the
Bishops of Sweden and Norway would refuse also, unless the candidates
embraced Lutheranism. He then added:—
"Next to becoming Presbyterians, the Episcopalian clergy of America,
in my humble opinion, cannot do better than to follow the example of
the first clergy of Scotland, soon after the conversion of that
country to Christianity. When the King had built the cathedral of St.
Andrew's, and requested the King of Northumberland to lend his bishops
to ordain one for them, that their clergy might not as heretofore be
obliged to go to Northumberland for orders, and their request was
refused, they assembled in the cathedral, and the mitre, crosier, and
robes of a bishop being laid upon the altar, they after earnest
prayers for direction in their choice elected one of their own number;
when the King said to him, "Arise, go to the altar, and receive your
office at the hand of God." His brethren led him to the altar, robed
him, put the crosier in his hand and the mitre on his head, and he
became the first Bishop of Scotland.
"If the British islands were sunk in the sea (and the surface of this
globe has suffered great changes), you would probably take some such
method as this; and if they persist in denying your ordination, it is
the same thing. A hundred years hence, when people are more
enlightened, it will be wondered at that men in America, qualified by
their learning and piety to pray for and instruct their neighbors,
should not be permitted to do it till they had made a voyage of six
thousand miles out and home, to ask leave of a cross old gentleman at
Canterbury."
Franklin, however, was in no sense an agnostic. What he could
not understand he did not profess to understand or believe; neither
was he guilty of the presumption of holding that what he could not
understand, he might not have understood if he had been a wiser and
better man. Though impatient of cant and hypocrisy, especially in
the pulpit, he never spoke lightly of the Bible, or of the Church and
its offices. When his daughter Sally was about to marry, he wrote
to her:—
"My dear child, the natural prudence and goodness of heart God has
blest you with, make it less necessary for me to be particular in
giving you advice. I shall therefore only say, that the more
attentively dutiful and tender you are towards your good mamma, the
more you will recommend yourself to me. But why should I mention me,
when you have so much higher a promise in the Commandments, that such
conduct will recommend you to the favor of God? You know I have many
enemies, all indeed on the public account (for I cannot recollect that
I have in a private capacity given just cause of offense to any one
whatever): yet they are enemies, and very bitter ones; and you must
expect their enmity will extend in some degree to you, so that your
slightest indiscretions will be magnified into crimes, in order the
more sensibly to wound and afflict me. It is therefore the more
necessary for you to be extremely circumspect in all your behavior,
that no advantage may be given to their malevolence.
"Go constantly to church, whoever preaches. The act of devotion in the
Common Prayer Book is your principal business there, and if properly
attended to will do more towards amending the heart than sermons
generally can do. For they were composed by men of much greater piety
and wisdom than our common composers of sermons can pretend to be; and
therefore I wish you would never miss the prayer days: yet I do not
mean you should despise sermons, even of the preachers you dislike,
for the discourse is often much better than the man, as sweet and
clear waters come through very dirty earth. I am the more particular
on this head, as you seemed to express a little before I came away
some inclination to leave our church, which I would not have you do."
I cannot more fitly close this imperfect sketch of America's most
illustrious citizen, than by quoting from a touching and most affectionate
letter from Mrs. Hewson (Margaret Stevenson),—one of Franklin's
worthiest, most faithful, and most valued friends,—addressed to
one of Franklin's oldest friends in England.
"We have lost that valued, venerable, kind friend whose knowledge
enlightened our minds and whose philanthropy warmed our hearts. But we
have the consolation to think that if a life well spent in acts of
universal benevolence to mankind, a grateful acknowledgment of Divine
favor, a patient submission under severe chastisement, and an humble
trust in Almighty mercy, can insure the happiness of a future state,
our present loss is his gain. I was the faithful witness of the
closing scene, which he sustained with that calm fortitude which
characterized him through life. No repining, no peevish expression
ever escaped him during a confinement of two years, in which, I
believe, if every moment of ease could be added together, would not
amount to two whole months. When the pain was not too violent to be
amused, he employed himself with his books, his pen, or in
conversation with his friends; and upon every occasion displayed the
clearness of his intellect and the cheerfulness of his temper. Even
when the intervals from pain were so short that his words were
frequently interrupted, I have known him to hold a discourse in a
sublime strain of piety. I say this to you because I know it will give
you pleasure.
"I never shall forget one day that I passed with our friend last
summer. I found him in bed in great agony; but when that agony abated
a little I asked if I should read to him. He said yes; and the first
book I met with was Johnson's 'Lives of the Poets.' I read the 'Life
of Watts,' who was a favorite author with Dr. Franklin; and instead of
lulling him to sleep, it roused him to a display of the powers of his
memory and his reason. He repeated several of Watts's 'Lyric Poems,'
and descanted upon their sublimity in a strain worthy of them and of
their pious author. It is natural for us to wish that an attention to
some ceremonies had accompanied that religion of the heart which I am
convinced Dr. Franklin always possessed; but let us who feel the
benefit of them continue to practice them, without thinking lightly of
that piety which could support pain without a murmur, and meet death
without terror."
Franklin made a somewhat more definite statement of his views
on the subject of religion, in reply to an inquiry from President
Styles of Yale College, who expressed a desire to know his opinion
of Jesus of Nazareth. Franklin's reply was written the last year of
his life, and in the eighty-fourth of his age:—
"You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I
have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss,
and shall endeavor in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed. I
believe in one God, the creator of the universe. That he governs it by
his Providence. That he ought to be worshiped. That the most
acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other
children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with
justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take
to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them
as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire,
I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us,
the best the world ever saw or is like to see; but I apprehend it has
received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the
present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; though
it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and
think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an
opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm,
however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good
consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more
respected and more observed; especially as I do not perceive that the
Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his
government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.
"I shall only add, respecting myself, that, having experienced the
goodness of that Being in conducting me prosperously through a long
life, I have no doubt of its continuance in the next, though without
the smallest conceit of meriting such goodness. My sentiments on this
head you will see in the copy of an old letter inclosed, which I wrote
in answer to one from an old religionist whom I had relieved in a
paralytic case by electricity, and who, being afraid I should grow
proud upon it, sent me his serious though rather impertinent caution."
Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three
children into New England about 1682. The conventicles having been
forbidden by law and frequently disturbed, induced some considerable
men of his acquaintance to remove to that country, and he was
prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy
their mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife he had four
children more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all
seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time at his
table, who all grew up to be men and women, and married. I was the
youngest son and the youngest child but two, and was born in Boston,
New England. My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of
Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom
honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather in his church history of
that country, entitled 'Magnalia Christi Americana,' as "a goodly,
learned Englishman," if I remember the words rightly. I have heard
that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces, but only one of them was
printed, which I saw now many years since....
My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was
put to the grammar school at eight years of age, my father intending
to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church.
My early readiness in learning to read (which must have been very
early, as I do not remember when I could not read), and the opinion of
all his friends that I should certainly make a good scholar,
encouraged him in this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin too approved
of it, and proposed to give me all his short-hand volumes of
sermons,—I suppose as a stock to set up with,—if I would learn his
character. I continued, however, at the grammar school not quite one
year, though in that time I had risen gradually from the middle of the
class of that year to be the head of it, and farther was removed into
the next class above it, in order to go with that into the third at
the end of the year. But my father in the mean time,—from a view of
the expense of a college education, which having so large a family he
could not well afford, and the mean living many so educated were
afterwards able to obtain,—reasons that he gave to his friends in my
hearing,—altered his first intention, took me from the grammar
school, and sent me to a school for writing and arithmetic, kept by a
then famous man, Mr. George Brownell, very successful in his
profession generally, and that by mild, encouraging methods. Under him
I acquired fair writing pretty soon, but I failed in the arithmetic,
and made no progress in it. At ten years old I was taken home to
assist my father in his business, which was that of a tallow-chandler
and soap-boiler,—a business he was not bred to, but had assumed on
his arrival in New England, and on finding his dyeing trade would not
maintain his family, being in little request. Accordingly I was
employed in cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping-mold and
the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of errands, etc.
I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea, but my
father declared against it: however, living near the water, I was much
in and about it, learnt early to swim well and to manage boats; and
when in a boat or canoe with other boys I was commonly allowed to
govern, especially in any case of difficulty; and upon other occasions
I was generally a leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into
scrapes, of which I will mention one instance, as it shows an early
projecting public spirit, though not then justly conducted.
There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, on the edge
of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish for minnows. By much
trampling we had made it a mere quagmire. My proposal was to build a
wharf there, fit for us to stand upon; and I showed my comrades a
large heap of stones which were intended for a new house near the
marsh, and which would very well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the
evening, when the workmen were gone, I assembled a number of my
playfellows, and working with them diligently like so many emmets,
sometimes two or three to a stone, we brought them all away and built
our little wharf. The next morning the workmen were surprised at
missing the stones, which were found in our wharf. Inquiry was made
after the removers; we were discovered and complained of; several of
us were corrected by our fathers, and though I pleaded the usefulness
of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not
honest.
I continued thus employed in my father's business for two years, that
is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John, who was bred to
that business, having left my father, married, and set up for himself
at Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I was destined to
supply his place and become a tallow-chandler. But my dislike to the
trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions that if he did not
find one for me more agreeable, I should break away and get to sea, as
his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. He therefore sometimes
took me to walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners,
braziers, etc., at their work, that he might observe my inclination,
and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other on land. It has ever
since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools;
and it has been useful to me, having learnt so much by it as to be
able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman could not
readily be got, and to construct little machines for my experiments,
while the intention of making the experiment was fresh and warm in my
mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler's trade, and my uncle
Benjamin's son Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, being
about that time established in Boston, I was sent to be with him some
time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me displeasing my
father, I was taken home again.
From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came
into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the 'Pilgrim's
Progress,' my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate
little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's
'Historical Collections'; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap,
40 or 50 in all. My father's little library consisted chiefly of books
in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often
regretted that at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more
proper books had not fallen in my way, since it was now resolved I
should not be a clergyman. Plutarch's Lives there was, in which I read
abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage.
There was also a book of De Foe's, called 'An Essay on Projects,' and
another of Dr. Mather's, called 'Essays To Do Good,' which perhaps
gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the
principal future events of my life.
This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a
printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession. In
1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters,
to set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of
my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the
apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to
have me bound to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last was
persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve years
old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of
age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last year.
In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became
a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books. An
acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes
to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean.
Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when
the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the
morning, lest it should be missed or wanted.
I proceeded on my journey on foot, having fifty miles to Burlington,
where I was told I should find boats that would carry me the rest of
the way to Philadelphia.
It rained very hard all the day; I was thoroughly soaked, and by noon
a good deal tired; so I stopt at a poor inn, where I stayed all night,
beginning now to wish that I had never left home. I cut so miserable a
figure too that I found, by the questions asked me, I was suspected to
be some runaway servant, and in danger of being taken up on that
suspicion. However, I proceeded the next day, and got in the evening
to an inn within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by one Dr.
Brown. He entered into conversation with me while I took some
refreshment; and finding I had read a little, became very sociable and
friendly. Our acquaintance continued as long as he lived. He had been,
I imagine, an itinerant doctor, for there was no town in England or
country in Europe of which he could not give a very particular
account. He had some letters, and was ingenious, but much of an
unbeliever, and wickedly undertook, some years after, to travestie the
Bible in doggrel verse, as Cotton had done Virgil. By this means he
set many of the facts in a very ridiculous light, and might have hurt
weak minds if his work had been published, but it never was.
At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reached
Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular boats
were gone a little before my coming, and no other expected to go
before Tuesday, this being Saturday; wherefore I returned to an old
woman in the town, of whom I had bought ginger-bread to eat on the
water, and asked her advice. She invited me to lodge at her house till
a passage by water should offer; and being tired with my
foot-traveling, I accepted the invitation. She, understanding I was a
printer, would have had me stay at that town and follow my business,
being ignorant of the stock necessary to begin with. She was very
hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox-cheek with great good-will,
accepting only of a pot of ale in return; and I thought myself fixed
till Tuesday should come. However, walking in the evening by the side
of the river, a boat came by, which I found was going towards
Philadelphia, with several people in her. They took me in, and as
there was no wind, we rowed all the way; and about midnight, not
having yet seen the city, some of the company were confident we must
have passed it, and would row no farther; the others knew not where we
were; so we put toward the shore, got into a creek, landed near an old
fence, with the rails of which we made a fire,—the night being cold,
in October,—and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the
company knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above
Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and
arrived there about eight or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and
landed at the Market Street wharf.
I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and
shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your
mind compare such unlike beginnings with the figure I have since made
there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come round
by sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out with
shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for
lodging. I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest; I
was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch
dollar and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of
the boat for my passage, who at first refused it, on account of my
rowing, but I insisted on their taking it; a man being sometimes more
generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty,
perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.
Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till near the market-house
I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and inquiring
where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to,
in Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in
Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I
asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not
considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater
cheapness nor the names of his bread, I bade him give me threepenny
worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I
was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and having no room in my
pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm and eating the other.
Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the
door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the
door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward,
ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street and
part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and coming round
found myself again at Market Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to
which I went for a draught of the river water; and being filled with
one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came
down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.
Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had
many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I
joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the
Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and after looking
round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labor
and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and
continued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to
rouse me. This was therefore the first house I was in, or slept in, in
Philadelphia.
I now began to think of getting a little money beforehand, and
expecting better work, I left Palmer's to work at Watts's, near
Lincoln's Inn Fields, a still greater printing-house. Here I continued
all the rest of my stay in London.
At my first admission into this printing-house I took to working at
press, imagining I felt a want of the bodily exercise I had been used
to in America, where presswork is mixed with composing. I drank only
water; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were great guzzlers of
beer. On occasion, I carried up and down stairs a large form of types
in each hand, when others carried but one in both hands. They wondered
to see, from this and several instances, that the Water American, as
they called me, was stronger than themselves, who drank strong
beer! We had an alehouse boy, who attended always in the house to
supply the workmen. My companion at the press drank every day a pint
before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his bread and cheese, a
pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint in the
afternoon about six o'clock, and another when he had done his day's
work. I thought it a detestable custom; but it was necessary, he
supposed, to drink strong beer that he might be strong to labor. I
endeavored to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer
could only be in proportion to the grain or flour of the barley
dissolved in the water of which it was made; that there was more flour
in a pennyworth of bread; and therefore, if he would eat that with a
pint of water, it would give him more strength than a quart of beer.
He drank on, however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his
wages every Saturday night for that muddling liquor; an expense I was
free from. And thus these poor devils keep themselves always under.
Watts after some weeks desiring to have me in the composing-room, I
left the pressmen: a new bien venu or sum for drink, being five
shillings, was demanded of me by the compositors. I thought it an
imposition, as I had paid below: the master thought so too, and
forbade my paying it. I stood out two or three weeks, was accordingly
considered as an excommunicate, and had so many little pieces of
private mischief done me, by mixing my sorts, transposing my pages,
breaking my matter, etc., etc., if I were ever so little out of the
room,—and all ascribed to the chappel ghost, which they said ever
haunted those not regularly admitted,—that notwithstanding the
master's protection I found myself obliged to comply and pay the
money, convinced of the folly of being on ill terms with those one is
to live with continually.
I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon acquired considerable
influence. I proposed some reasonable alterations in their chappel
laws, and carried them against all opposition. From my example, a
great part of them left their muddling breakfast of beer and bread and
cheese, finding they could with me be supplied from a neighboring
house with a large porringer of hot water-gruel sprinkled with pepper,
crumbed with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the price of a pint
of beer; viz., three half-pence. This was a more comfortable as well
as cheaper breakfast, and kept their heads clearer. Those who
continued sotting with beer all day were often, by not paying, out of
credit at the alehouse, and used to make interest with me to get beer;
their light, as they phrased it, being out. I watched the
pay-table on Saturday night, and collected what I stood engaged for
them, having to pay sometimes near thirty shillings a week on their
account. This, and my being esteemed a pretty good rigile,—that is,
a jocular verbal satirist,—supported my consequence in the society.
My constant attendance (I never making a St. Monday) recommended me to
the master; and my uncommon quickness at composing occasioned my being
put upon all work of dispatch, which was generally better paid. So I
went on now very agreeably.
Eat and drink such an exact quantity as the constitution of thy
body allows of, in reference to the services of the mind.
They that study much ought not to eat as much as those
that work hard, their digestion being not so good.
The exact quantity and quality being found out, is to be kept
to constantly.
Excess in all other things whatever, as well as in meat and
drink, is also to be avoided.
Youth, age, and sick require a different quantity.
And so do those of contrary complexions; for that which is too
much for a phlegmatic man, is not sufficient for a choleric.
The measure of food ought to be (as much as possibly may
be) exactly proportionable to the quality and condition of the
stomach, because the stomach digests it.
That quantity that is sufficient, the stomach can perfectly concoct
and digest, and it sufficeth the due nourishment of the body.
A greater quantity of some things may be eaten than of others,
some being of lighter digestion than others.
The difficulty lies in finding out an exact measure; but eat
for necessity, not pleasure: for lust knows not where necessity
ends.
Wouldst thou enjoy a long life, a healthy body, and a vigorous
mind, and be acquainted also with the wonderful works of
God, labor in the first place to bring thy appetite to reason.
Courteous reader, I have heard that nothing gives an author so great
pleasure as to find his works respectfully quoted by others. Judge,
then, how much I must have been gratified by an incident I am going to
relate to you. I stopped my horse lately where a great number of
people were collected at an auction of merchants' goods. The hour of
the sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the
times; and one of the company called to a plain, clean old man with
white locks: "Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the times? Will
not these heavy taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we ever be
able to pay them? What would you advise us to?" Father Abraham stood
up and replied, "If you would have my advice, I will give it you in
short; for 'A word to the wise is enough,' as Poor Richard says." They
joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and gathering round him, he
proceeded as follows:—
"Friends," said he, "the taxes are indeed very heavy, and if those
laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might
more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more
grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness,
three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly;
and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by
allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and
something may be done for us: 'God helps them that help themselves,'
as Poor Richard says....
"Beware of little expenses: 'A small leak will sink a great ship,' as
Poor Richard says; and again, 'Who dainties love, shall beggars
prove;' and moreover, 'Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them.'
"Here you are all got together at this sale of fineries and
knick-knacks. You call them goods; but if you do not take care, they
will prove evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap,
and perhaps they may, for less than they cost; but if you have no
occasion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what Poor
Richard says: 'Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt
sell thy necessaries.' And again, 'At a great pennyworth pause a
while.' He means that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only and not
real; or the bargain, by straitening thee in thy business, may do thee
more harm than good. For in another place he says, 'Many have been
ruined by buying good pennyworths.' Again, 'It is foolish to lay out
money in a purchase of repentance;' and yet this folly is practiced
every day at auctions, for want of minding the Almanack. Many a one,
for the sake of finery on the back, have gone with a hungry belly and
half starved their families. 'Silks and satins, scarlet and velvets,
put out the kitchen fire,' as Poor Richard says.
"These are not the necessaries of life; they can scarcely be called
the conveniences: and yet, only because they look pretty, how many
want to have them! By these and other extravagances the genteel are
reduced to poverty, and forced to borrow of those whom they formerly
despised, but who through industry and frugality have maintained their
standing; in which case it appears plainly that 'A plowman on his legs
is higher than a gentleman on his knees,' as poor Richard says.
Perhaps they have had a small estate left them, which they knew not
the getting of; they think, 'It is day, and will never be night;' that
a little to be spent out of so much is not worth minding; but 'Always
taking out of the meal-tub and never putting in, soon comes to the
bottom,' as Poor Richard says; and then, 'When the well is dry, they
know the worth of water.' But this they might have known before, if
they had taken his advice. 'If you would know the value of money, go
and try to borrow some: for he that goes a-borrowing goes
a-sorrowing,' as Poor Richard says; and indeed, so does he that lends
to such people, when he goes to get it in again. Poor Dick further
advises and says:—
'Fond pride of dress is sure a very curse;
Ere fancy you consult, consult your purse.'
And again, 'Pride is as loud a beggar as Want, and a great deal more
saucy.' When you have bought one fine thing, you must buy ten more,
that your appearance may be all of a piece; but Poor Dick says, 'It is
easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow
it.' And it is as truly folly for the poor to ape the rich, as for the
frog to swell in order to equal the ox.
'Vessels large may venture more,
But little boats should keep near shore.'
It is however a folly soon punished; for, as Poor Richard says, 'Pride
that dines on vanity, sups on contempt. Pride breakfasted with Plenty,
dined with Poverty, and supped with Infamy.' And after all, of what
use is this pride of appearance, for which so much is risked, so much
is suffered? It cannot promote health nor ease pain; it makes no
increase of merit in the person; it creates envy; it hastens
misfortune.
"But what madness must it be to run in debt for these superfluities!
We are offered by the terms of this sale six months' credit; and that
perhaps has induced some of us to attend it, because we cannot spare
the ready money, and hope now to be fine without it. But ah! think
what you do when you run in debt: you give to another power over your
liberty. If you cannot pay at the time, you will be ashamed to see
your creditor; you will be in fear when you speak to him; you will
make poor, pitiful, sneaking excuses, and by degrees come to lose your
veracity and sink into base downright lying; for 'The second vice is
lying, the first is running in debt,' as Poor Richard says: and again
to the same purpose, 'Lying rides upon Debt's back;' whereas a
free-born Englishman ought not to be ashamed nor afraid to see or
speak to any man living. But poverty often deprives a man of all
spirit and virtue. 'It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.'
"What would you think of that prince or of that government who should
issue an edict forbidding you to dress like a gentleman or a
gentlewoman, on pain of imprisonment or servitude? Would you not say
that you were free, have a right to dress as you please; and that such
an edict would be a breach of your privileges, and such a government
tyrannical? And yet you are about to put yourself under such tyranny,
when you run in debt for such dress! Your creditor has authority, at
his pleasure, to deprive you of your liberty by confining you in jail
till you shall be able to pay him. When you have got your bargain, you
may perhaps think little of payment; but as Poor Richard says,
'Creditors have better memories than debtors; creditors are a
superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times.' The day
comes round before you are aware, and the demand is made before you
are prepared to satisfy it; or if you bear your debt in mind, the
term which at first seemed so long will, as it lessens, appear
extremely short. Time will seem to have added wings to his heels as
well as his shoulders. 'Those have a short Lent who owe money to be
paid at Easter.' At present, perhaps, you may think yourselves in
thriving circumstances, and that you can bear a little extravagance
without injury, but—
'For age and want save while you may;
No morning sun lasts a whole day.'
Gain may be temporary and uncertain, but ever while you live,
expense is constant and certain; and 'It is easier to build two
chimneys than to keep one in fuel,' as Poor Richard says; so,
'Rather go to bed supperless than rise in debt.'
'Get what you can, and what you get hold;
'Tis the stone that will turn all your lead into gold.'
And when you have got the Philosopher's Stone, sure you will
no longer complain of bad times or the difficulty of paying
taxes.
"This doctrine, my friends, is reason and wisdom: but after all, do
not depend too much upon your own industry and frugality and prudence,
though excellent things; for they may all be blasted, without the
blessing of Heaven; and therefore ask that blessing humbly, and be not
uncharitable to those that at present seem to want it; but comfort and
help them. Remember, Job suffered and was afterwards prosperous.
"And now, to conclude, 'Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will
learn in no other,' as Poor Richard says, and scarce in that; for it
is true, 'We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.' However,
remember this: 'They that will not be counseled, cannot be helped;'
and further, that 'If you will not hear Reason, she will surely rap
your knuckles,' as Poor Richard says."
Thus the old gentleman ended his harangue. The people heard it and
approved the doctrine; and immediately practiced the contrary, just as
if it had been a common sermon; for the auction opened and they began
to buy extravagantly. I found the good man had thoroughly studied my
Almanacks, and digested all I had dropped on these topics during the
course of twenty-five years. The frequent mention he made of me must
have tired any one else; but my vanity was wonderfully delighted with
it, though I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my
own, which he had ascribed to me, but rather the gleanings that I had
made of the sense of all ages and nations. However, I resolved to be
the better for the echo of it; and though I had at first determined to
buy stuff for a new coat, I went away resolved to wear my old one a
little longer. Reader, if thou wilt do the same, thy profit will be as
great as mine. I am, as ever, thine to serve thee,
Richard Saunders.
Mr. President:
The small progress we have made, after four or five weeks'
close attendance and continual reasons with each other, our
different sentiments on almost every question, several of
the last producing as many Noes as Ayes, is, methinks, a
melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding.
We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom,
since we have been running all about in search of it. We have
gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined
the different forms of those republics, which, having been
originally formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now
no longer exist; and we have viewed modern States all round
Europe, but find none of their constitutions suitable to our circumstances.
In this situation of this assembly, groping as it were in the
dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it
when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have
not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of
Lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of
the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we
had daily prayers in this room for the Divine protection. Our
prayers, sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All
of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent
instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To
that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting
in peace on the means of establishing our future national
felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? or
do we imagine we no longer need its assistance? I have lived,
sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing
proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of
men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his
notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?
We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that "except
the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." I
firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring
aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the
builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our little partial local
interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall
become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. And
what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate
instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom,
and leave it to chance, war, and conquest.
I therefore beg leave to move,—
That henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven
and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this assembly
every morning before we proceed to business; and that one or
more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that
service.
I agree with you perfectly in your disapprobation of war. Abstracted
from the inhumanity of it, I think it wrong in point of human
prudence; for whatever advantage one nation would obtain from another,
whether it be part of their territory, the liberty of commerce with
them, free passage on their rivers, etc., it would be much cheaper to
purchase such advantage with ready money than to pay the expense of
acquiring it by war. An army is a devouring monster; and when you have
raised it, you have, in order to subsist it, not only the fair charges
of pay, clothing, provisions, arms, and ammunition, with numberless
other contingent and just charges to answer and satisfy, but you have
all the additional knavish charges of the numerous tribe of
contractors to defray, with those of every other dealer who furnishes
the articles wanted for your army, and takes advantage of that want to
demand exorbitant prices. It seems to me that if statesmen had a
little more arithmetic, or were more accustomed to calculation, wars
would be much less frequent. I am confident that Canada might have
been purchased from France for a tenth part of the money England spent
in the conquest of it. And if instead of fighting with us for the
power of taxing us, she had kept us in good humor by allowing us to
dispose of our own money, and now and then giving us a little of hers,
by way of donation to colleges, or hospitals, or for cutting canals,
or fortifying ports, she might have easily drawn from us much more by
our occasional voluntary grants and contributions than ever she could
by taxes. Sensible people will give a bucket or two of water to a dry
pump, that they may afterwards get from it all they have occasion for.
Her ministry were deficient in that little point of common-sense; and
so they spent one hundred millions of her money and after all lost
what they contended for.
Mortified at the barbarous resolution pronounced by you so positively
yesterday evening,—that you would remain single the rest of your
life, as a compliment due to the memory of your husband,—I retired to
my chamber. Throwing myself upon my bed, I dreamt that I was dead, and
was transported to the Elysian Fields.
I was asked whether I wished to see any persons in particular; to
which I replied that I wished to see the philosophers.—"There are two
who live here at hand in this garden; they are good neighbors, and
very friendly towards one another."—"Who are they?"—"Socrates and
Helvétius."—"I esteem them both highly; but let me see Helvétius
first, because I understand a little French, but not a word of Greek."
I was conducted to him: he received me with much courtesy, having
known me, he said, by character, some time past. He asked me a
thousand questions relative to the war, the present state of religion,
of liberty, of the government in France. "You do not inquire, then,"
said I, "after your dear friend, Madame Helvétius; yet she loves you
exceedingly: I was in her company not more than an hour ago." "Ah,"
said he, "you make me recur to my past happiness, which ought to be
forgotten in order to be happy here. For many years I could think of
nothing but her, though at length I am consoled. I have taken another
wife, the most like her that I could find; she is not indeed
altogether so handsome, but she has a great fund of wit and good
sense; and her whole study is to please me. She is at this moment gone
to fetch the best nectar and ambrosia to regale me; stay here awhile
and you will see her." "I perceive," said I, "that your former friend
is more faithful to you than you are to her; she has had several good
offers, but refused them all. I will confess to you that I loved her
extremely; but she was cruel to me, and rejected me peremptorily for
your sake." "I pity you sincerely," said he, "for she is an excellent
woman, handsome and amiable. But do not the Abbé de la Roche and the
Abbé Morellet visit her?"—"Certainly they do; not one of your friends
has dropped her acquaintance."—"If you had gained the Abbé Morellet
with a bribe of good coffee and cream, perhaps you would have
succeeded: for he is as deep a reasoner as Duns Scotus or St. Thomas:
he arranges and methodizes his arguments in such a manner that they
are almost irresistible. Or if by a fine edition of some old classic
you had gained the Abbé de la Roche to speak against you, that would
have been still better; as I always observed that when he recommended
anything to her, she had a great inclination to do directly the
contrary." As he finished these words the new Madame Helvétius entered
with the nectar, and I recognized her immediately as my former
American friend Mrs. Franklin! I reclaimed her, but she answered me
coldly:—"I was a good wife to you for forty-nine years and four
months,—nearly half a century; let that content you. I have formed a
new connection here, which will last to eternity."
Indignant at this refusal of my Eurydice, I immediately resolved to
quit those ungrateful shades, and return to this good world again, to
behold the sun and you! Here I am: let us avenge ourselves!
You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent that happy
day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I
stopped a little in one of our walks, and stayed some time behind the
company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little
fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told,
were bred and expired within the day. I happened to see a living
company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation.
You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues. My too great
application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the
little progress I have made in your charming language. I listened
through curiosity to the discourse of these little creatures; but as
they in their natural vivacity spoke three, or four together, I could
make but little of their conversation. I found however by some broken
expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on
the merit of two foreign musicians, one a cousin, the other a
moscheto; in which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as
regardless of the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living
a month. Happy people! thought I; you are certainly under a wise,
just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to
complain of, nor any subject of contention but the perfections and
imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old
gray-headed one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to
himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in
hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the
most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly
harmony.
"It was," said he, "the opinion of learned philosophers of our race
who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world,
the Moulin Joly, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours;
and I think there was some foundation for that opinion, since by the
apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to all nature,
and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the
ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be
extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in
cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and
destruction. I have lived seven of those hours, a great age, being no
less than four hundred and twenty minutes of time. How very few of us
continue so long! I have seen generations born, flourish, and expire.
My present friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends
of my youth, who are now, alas, no more! And I must soon follow them;
for by the course of nature, though still in health, I cannot expect
to live above seven or eight minutes longer. What now avails all my
toil and labor in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot
live to enjoy? What the political struggles I have been engaged in for
the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my
philosophical studies for the benefit of our race in general? for in
politics, what can laws do without morals? Our present race of
ephemeræ will in a course of minutes become corrupt, like those of
other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched. And in
philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art is long and life is
short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name they say I
shall leave behind me; and they tell me I have lived long enough to
nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera who no
longer exists? and what will become of all history in the eighteenth
hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to
its end, and be buried in universal ruin?"
To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures now remain but
the reflection of a long life spent in meaning well, the sensible
conversation of a few good lady ephemeræ, and now and then a kind
smile and a tune from the ever amiable Brillante.
No one can more sincerely rejoice than I do, on the reduction of
Canada; and this is not merely as I am a colonist, but as I am a
Briton. I have long been of opinion that the foundations of the
future grandeur and stability of the British empire lie in America;
and though like other foundations they are low and little now, they
are nevertheless broad and strong enough to support the greatest
political structure that human wisdom ever yet erected. I am therefore
by no means for restoring Canada. If we keep it, all the country from
the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi will in another century be filled
with British people. Britain itself will become vastly more populous,
by the immense increase of its commerce; the Atlantic sea will be
covered with your trading ships; and your naval power, thence
continually increasing, will extend your influence round the whole
globe, and awe the world! If the French remain in Canada they will
continually harass our colonies by the Indians, and impede if not
prevent their growth; your progress to greatness will at best be
slow, and give room for many accidents that may forever prevent it.
But I refrain, for I see you begin to think my notions extravagant,
and look upon them as the ravings of a mad prophet.
You desire, you say, my impartial thoughts on the subject of an early
marriage, by way of answer to the numberless objections that have been
made by numerous persons to your own. You may remember, when you
consulted me on the occasion, that I thought youth on both sides to be
no objection. Indeed, from the marriages that have fallen under my
observation, I am rather inclined to think that early ones stand the
best chance of happiness. The temper and habits of the young are not
become so stiff and uncomplying as when more advanced in life; they
form more easily to each other, and hence many occasions of disgust
are removed. And if youth has less of that prudence which is necessary
to manage a family, yet the parents and elder friends of young married
persons are generally at hand to afford their advice, which amply
supplies that defect; and by early marriage, youth is sooner formed to
regular and useful life; and possibly some of those accidents or
connections that might have injured the constitution or reputation, or
both, are thereby happily prevented.
Particular circumstances of particular persons may possibly sometimes
make it prudent to delay entering into that state; but in general,
when nature has rendered our bodies fit for it, the presumption is in
nature's favor, that she has not judged amiss in making us desire it.
Late marriages are often attended, too, with this further
inconvenience: that there is not the same chance that the parents will
live to see their offspring educated. "Late children," says the
Spanish proverb, "are early orphans." A melancholy reflection to
those whose case it may be! With us in America, marriages are
generally in the morning of life; our children are therefore educated
and settled in the world by noon: and thus, our business being done,
we have an afternoon and evening of cheerful leisure to ourselves;
such as our friend at present enjoys. By these early marriages we are
blessed with more children; and from the mode among us, founded by
nature, every mother suckling and nursing her own child, more of them
are raised. Thence the swift progress of population among us,
unparalleled in Europe.
In fine, I am glad you are married, and congratulate you most
cordially upon it. You are now in the way of becoming a useful
citizen; and you have escaped the unnatural state of celibacy for
life, the fate of many here who never intended it, but who, having too
long postponed the change of their condition, find at length that it
is too late to think of it, and so live all their lives in a situation
that greatly lessens a man's value. An odd volume of a set of books
bears not the value of its proportion to the set. What think you of
the odd half of a pair of scissors? It cannot well cut anything; it
may possibly serve to scrape a trencher.
Pray make my compliments and best wishes acceptable to your bride. I
am old and heavy, or I should ere this have presented them in person.
I shall make but small use of the old man's privilege, that of giving
advice to younger friends. Treat your wife always with respect: it
will procure respect to you, not only from her, but from all that
observe it. Never use a slighting expression to her, even in jest; for
slights in jest, after frequent bandyings, are apt to end in angry
earnest. Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be
industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate,
and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will be
happy: at least, you will, by such conduct, stand the best chance for
such consequences. I pray God to bless you both; being ever your
affectionate friend.
We have an English proverb that says, "He that would thrive must ask
his wife." It was lucky for me that I had one as much disposed to
industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my
business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing
old linen rags for the paper-makers, etc., etc. We kept no idle
servants; our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the
cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk
(no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a
pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, and make a
progress, in spite of principle: being called one morning to
breakfast, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver! They
had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost
her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty shillings, for which she had
no other excuse or apology to make but that she thought her husband
deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his
neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and china in our
house, which afterward, in a course of years, as our wealth increased,
augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value.
I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and though some of
the dogmas of that persuasion, such as the eternal decrees of God,
election, reprobation, etc., appeared to me unintelligible, others
doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of
the sect (Sunday being my studying day), I never was without some
religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of
the Deity; that he made the world, and governed it by his Providence;
that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man;
that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished and
virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteemed the
essentials of every religion; and being to be found in all the
religions we had in our country, I respected them all, though with
different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mixed with
other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote, or
confirm morality, served principally to divide us and make us
unfriendly to one another. This respect to all, with an opinion that
the worst had some good effects, induced me to avoid all discourse
that might tend to lessen the good opinion another might have of his
own religion; and as our province increased in people, and new places
of worship were continually wanted, and generally erected by voluntary
contribution, my mite for such purpose, whatever might be the sect,
was never refused.
Though I seldom attended any public worship, I had still an opinion of
its propriety, and of its utility when rightly conducted, and I
regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only
Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Philadelphia. He used to
visit me sometimes as a friend, and admonish me to attend his
administrations; and I was now and then prevailed on to do so, once
for five Sundays successively. Had he been in my opinion a good
preacher, perhaps I might have continued, notwithstanding the occasion
I had for the Sunday's leisure in my course of study; but his
discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explications of
the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry,
uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was
inculcated or enforced; their aim seeming to be rather to make us
Presbyterians than good citizens.
At length he took for his text that verse of the fourth chapter of
Philippians, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest,
just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue or any
praise, think on these things." And I imagined, in a sermon on such a
text, we could not miss of having some morality. But he confined
himself to five points only, as meant by the Apostle, viz.:—1.
Keeping holy the Sabbath day. 2. Being diligent in reading the holy
Scriptures. 3. Attending duly the public worship. 4. Partaking of the
Sacrament. 5. Paying a due respect to God's ministers.—These might be
all good things; but as they were not the kind of good things that I
expected from that text, I despaired of ever meeting with them from
any other, was disgusted, and attended his preaching no more. I had
some years before composed a little liturgy, or form of prayer, for my
own private use (viz., in 1728), entitled 'Articles of Belief and Acts
of Religion.' I returned to the use of this, and went no more to the
public assemblies. My conduct might be blamable, but I leave it,
without attempting further to excuse it; my present purpose being to
relate facts, and not to make apologies for them.
It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of
arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any
fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural
inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or
thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might
not always do the one and avoid the other....
I made a little book in which I allotted a page for each of the
virtues. I ruled each page with red ink so as to have seven columns,
one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for
the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the
beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues,
on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little
black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been
committed respecting that virtue upon that day.
And conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought it right
and necessary to solicit his assistance for obtaining it; to this end
I formed the following little prayer, which was prefixed to my tables
of examination, for daily use:—
"O powerful Goodness! bountiful Father! merciful Guide! Increase
in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen
my resolutions to perform what that wisdom dictates. Accept my
kind offices to thy other children as the only return in my power for
thy continual favors to me."
I used also sometimes a little prayer which I took from Thomson's
Poems, viz.:—
"Father of light and life, thou Good supreme!
O teach me what is good; teach me thyself!
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit; and fill my soul
With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure;
Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss!"
I entered upon the execution of this plan for self-examination, and
continued it with occasional intermissions for some time. I was
surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined;
but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish.
My scheme of Order gave me the most trouble; and I found that though
it might be practicable where a man's business was such as to leave
him the disposition of his time,—that of a journeyman printer, for
instance,—it was not possible to be exactly observed by a master, who
must mix with the world, and often receive people of business at their
own hours. Order, too, with regard to places for things, papers,
etc., I found extremely difficult to acquire. I had not been early
accustomed to it; and having an exceeding good memory, I was not so
sensible of the inconvenience attending want of method. This article,
therefore, cost me so much painful attention, and my faults in it
vexed me so much, and I made so little progress in amendment, and had
such frequent relapses, that I was almost ready to give up the
attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that respect;
like the man who in buying an axe of a smith, my neighbor, desired to
have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge. The smith
consented to grind it bright for him if he would turn the wheel; he
turned, while the smith pressed the broad face of the axe hard and
heavily on the stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. The
man came every now and then from the wheel to see how the work went
on, and at length would take his axe as it was without farther
grinding. "No," said the smith, "turn on, turn on; we shall have it
bright by-and-by; as yet, it is only speckled." "Yes," says the man,
"but I think I like a speckled axe best." And I believe this may
have been the case with many who, having for want of some such means
as I employed, found the difficulty of obtaining good and breaking bad
habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle
and concluded that "a speckled axe was best": for something that
pretended to be reason was every now and then suggesting to me that
such extreme nicety as I exacted of myself might be a kind of foppery
in morals, which if it were known would make me ridiculous; that a
perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being
envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults
in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.
In truth, I found myself incorrigible with respect to order; and now I
am grown old, and my memory bad, I feel very sensibly the want of it.
But on the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been
so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the
endeavor, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been
if I had not attempted it; as those who aim at perfect writing by
imitating the engraved copies, though they never reach the wished-for
excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavor, and
is tolerable while it continues fair and legible.
It may be well my posterity should be informed that to this little
artifice, with the blessing of God, their ancestor owed the constant
felicity of his life down to his 79th year, in which this is written.
What reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of Providence;
but if they arrive, the reflection on past happiness enjoyed ought to
help his bearing them with more resignation. To Temperance he ascribes
his long-continued health, and what is still left to him of a good
constitution; to Industry and Frugality, the early easiness of his
circumstances and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge
that enabled him to be a useful citizen, and obtained for him some
degree of reputation among the learned; to Sincerity and Justice, the
confidence of his country, and the honorable employs it conferred upon
him; and to the joint influence of the whole mass of the virtues, even
in the imperfect state he was able to acquire them, all that evenness
of temper, and that cheerfulness in conversation, which makes his
company still sought for, and agreeable even to his younger
acquaintance. I hope therefore that some of my descendants may follow
the example and reap the benefit.
It will be remarked that though my scheme was not wholly without
religion, there was in it no mark of any of the distinguishing tenets
of any particular sect. I had purposely avoided them; for being fully
persuaded of the utility and excellency of my method, and that it
might be serviceable to people in all religions, and intending some
time or other to publish it, I would not have anything in it that
should prejudice any one of any sect against it.
In this piece it was my design to explain and enforce this doctrine:
that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but
forbidden because they are hurtful, the nature of man alone
considered; that it was therefore every one's interest to be virtuous,
who wished to be happy even in this world; and I should from this
circumstance (there being always in the world a number of rich
merchants, nobility, States, and princes who have need of honest
instruments for the management of their affairs, and such being so
rare) have endeavored to convince young persons that no qualities were
so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity and
integrity.
My list of virtues contained at first but twelve: but a Quaker friend
having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my
pride showed itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content
with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing
and rather insolent, of which he convinced me by mentioning several
instances;—I determined endeavoring to cure myself, if I could, of
this vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my list,
giving an extensive meaning to the word.
I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this
virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it.
I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments
of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbid myself,
agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the use of every word or
expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as
certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I adopted, instead of them, I
conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine a thing to be so or so; or it
so appears to me at present. When another asserted something that I
thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting him
abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his
proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain
cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present
case there appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc. I soon
found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations I
engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed
my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction;
I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I
more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join
with me when I happened to be in the right.
And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural
inclination, became at length so easy and so habitual to me, that
perhaps for these fifty years past no one has ever heard a dogmatical
expression escape me. And to this habit (after my character of
integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early so much
weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed new institutions, or
alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils when
I became a member; for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent,
subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in
language: and yet I generally carried my points.
In reality, there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to
subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle
it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will
every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it perhaps
often in this history; for even if I could conceive that I had
completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.
MUSIC, SCIENCE AND ART.
Photogravure from a Painting by Francois Lafon.
