Ran away from his Master, Mr. Josiah Franklin, of Boston, Tallow-Chandler, on the first of this instant July, an Irish Man-servant, named William Tinsley, about 20 Years of Age, of a middle Stature, black Hair, lately cut off, somewhat fresh-coloured Countenance, a large lower Lip, of a mean Aspect, large Legs, and heavy in his Going. He had on, when he went away, a felt Hat, a white knit Cap, striped with red and blue, white Shirt, and neck-cloth, a brown coloured Jacket, almost new, a frieze Coat, of a dark Colour, grey yarn Stockings, leather Breeches, trimmed with black, and round to'd Shoes. Whoever shall apprehend the said runaway Servant, and him safely convey to his above said Master, at the blue Ball, in Union street, Boston, shall have forty Shillings Reward, and all necessary Charges paid.
Ran away from his Master, Mr. Josiah Franklin, of Boston, Tallow-Chandler, on the first of this instant July, an Irish Man-servant, named William Tinsley, about 20 Years of Age, of a middle Stature, black Hair, lately cut off, somewhat fresh-coloured Countenance, a large lower Lip, of a mean Aspect, large Legs, and heavy in his Going. He had on, when he went away, a felt Hat, a white knit Cap, striped with red and blue, white Shirt, and neck-cloth, a brown coloured Jacket, almost new, a frieze Coat, of a dark Colour, grey yarn Stockings, leather Breeches, trimmed with black, and round to'd Shoes. Whoever shall apprehend the said runaway Servant, and him safely convey to his above said Master, at the blue Ball, in Union street, Boston, shall have forty Shillings Reward, and all necessary Charges paid.
As this advertisement was continued for three successive weeks, we are at liberty to conclude that William Tinsley was not "apprehended."
Let the reader be glad that he did not live in those days. The best of all ages is now.
"And so you have begun life as a printer?" said Uncle Benjamin. "A printer's trade is one after my own heart. It develops thought. If I could have only kept my pamphlets until now, you would have printed the notes that I made. One of them says that what people want is not favors or patronage of any kind, butjustice. Remember that, Ben. What the world wants is justice. You may become a printer in your own right some day."
"I want to become one, uncle. That is just what is in my heart. I can see success in my mind."
"But you can do it if you will. Everything goes down before 'I will!' The Alps fell before Hannibal. Have a deaf ear, Ben, toward all who say 'Youcan't!' Such men don't count with those in the march; they are stragglers. Don't you be laughed down by anybody. Hold your head high; there is just as much royal blood in your veins as there is in any king on earth. There is no royal blood but that which springs from true worth. I put that down in my documents years ago.
"Life is too short to stop to quarrel with any one by the way. If a man calls you a fool, you need not come out under your own signature and deny it. Your life should do that. I am quoting from my pamphlets again.
"If you meet old Mr. Calamity in your way, the kind of man who tells you that you have no ground of expectation, and that everything in the world is going to ruin, just whistle, and luck will come to you, my boy. I only wish that I hadmy documents—my pamphlets, I mean. I would have left them to you in my will. In the present state of society one must save or be a slave—that also I wrote down in my documents. It is a pity that it is so, but it is. Save what you can while you are young, and it will give your mind leisure to work when you are older.Thatwas in my pamphlets. I hope that I may live to see you the best printer in the colonies."
The boy absorbed the spirit of these proverbial sayings. They were to his liking and bent of mind. But there came into his young face a shadow.
"Uncle Ben, I know what you say is true. I have listened to you; now I would like you to hear me. You saw the boys going to the Latin School this morning?"
"Yes, Ben."
"I can not go there."
"O Ben! that is hard," said Jenny, who was by his side.
"But you can go to school, Ben," said Uncle Benjamin.
"Where, uncle?"
"To life—and graduate there as well as any of them."
"I would like to study Latin."
"Well, what is to hinder you, Ben? One only needs to learn the alphabet to learn all that can be known through books. You knowthatnow."
"I would like to learn French. Other boys can; I can not."
"The time will come when you can. The gates open before a purpose. You can study French later in life, and, it may be, make as good use of French as any of them."
"Why can not I do as other boys?"
"You can, Ben. You can so live that the Boston Latin School to which you can not go now will honor you some day."
"I would be sorry to see another boy feel as I have felt when I have seen the boys going to that school with happy faces to learn the things that I want to know. But father has done the best that he can for me."
"Yes, Ben, he has, and you only need to do the best that you can for yourself to graduate at the head of all in the school of life. I know how to feel for you, Ben. I have stood in shoes like yours many times. When you have done as I have told you, then think of me. The world may soon forget me. I want you so to live that it will not as soon forget you."
The cloud passed from the boy's face. Hope came to him, and he was merry again. He locked Jenny in his arms, whirled her around, and said:
"I am glad to hear the bells ring for other boys, even if I must go to my trade."
"I like the spirit of what you say," said Uncle Benjamin. "You have the blood of Peter Folger and of your Great-uncle Tom in your veins. Peter gave his heart to the needs of the Indians, and to toleration; your Great-uncle Tom started the subscription for the bells of Nottingham, and became a magistrate, and a just one. You may not be able to answer the bell of the Latin School, but if you are only true to the best that is in you, little Ben, you may make bells ring for joy. I can hear them now in my mind's ear. Don't laughat your old uncle; you can do it, little Ben—can't he Jenny?"
"He just can—I can help him. Ben can do anything—he may make the Latin School bell ring for others yet—like Uncle Tom. He is the boy to do it, and I am the sister to help him to do it—ain't I, Uncle Benjamin?"
Thatwas a charmed life that little Ben Franklin led in the early days of his apprenticeship. He always thought of provincial Boston as his "beloved city." When he grew old, the Boston of his boyhood was to him a delightful dream.
He and his father were on excellent terms with each other. His father, though a very grave, pious man, whose delight was to go to the Old South Church with his large family, allowed little Ben to crack his jokes on him.
He was accustomed to say long graces at meals, at which the food was not overmuch, and the hungry children many. One day, after he had salted down a large quantity of meat in a barrel, he was surprised to hear Ben ask:
"Father, why don't you say grace over it now?"
"What do you mean, Ben?"
"Wouldn't it be saving of time to say grace now over the whole barrel of provisions, and then you could omit it at meals?"
But the strong member of the Old South Church had no such ideas of religious economy as revealed his son's mathematical mind.
The Franklin family must have presented a lively appearanceat church in old Dr. Joseph Sewell's day. They heard some sound preaching there, and Dr. Sewell lived as he preached. He was offered the presidency of Harvard College, but honors were as bubbles to him, and he refused it for a position of less money and fame, but of more direct spiritual influence, and better in accord with the modest views of his ability. He began to preach in the Old South Church when Ben was seven years of age; he preached a sermon there on his eightieth birthday.
These were fine old times in Boston town. Some linen spinners came over from Londonderry, in Ireland, and they established a spinning school. They also brought with them the potato, which soon became a great luxury.
Josiah Franklin probably pastured his cows on the Common, and little Ben may often have sat down under the old elm by the frog pond and looked over the Charles River marshes, which were then where the Public Garden now is.
But the delight of the boy's life was still Uncle Benjamin, the poet. The two read and roamed together. Now Ben had a poetic vein in him, a small one probably inherited from his grandfather Folger, and it began to be active at this time.
There were terrible stories of pirates in the air. They kindled the boy's lively imagination; they represented the large subject of retributive justice, and he resolved to devote his poetic sense to one of these alarming characters.
There was a dreadful pirate by the name of Edward Teach, but commonly called "Blackbeard." He was born in Bristol, England. He became the terror of the Atlantic coast, and had many adventures off the Carolinas. He was at length captured and executed.
One day little Ben came to his brother James with a paper.
"James, I have been writing something, and I have come to read it to you."
"What?"
"Poetry."
"Like Uncle Ben's?"
"No; it is on Blackbeard."
James thought that a very interesting subject, and prepared to listen to his poet brother.
Little Ben unfolded the paper and began to read his lines, which were indeed heroic.
"Come, all you jolly sailors,You all so stout and brave!"
"Good!" said James. "That starts off fine."
Ben continued:
"Come, hearken and I'll tell youWhat happened on the wave."
"Better yet—I like that. Why, Uncle Ben could not excel that. What next?"
"Oh, 'tis of that bloody BlackbeardI'm going now to tell,And as how, by gallant Maynard,He soon was sent tohell,With a down, down, down, derry down!"
James lifted his hands at this refrain after the old English ballad style.
"Ben, I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll print the verses for you, and you shall sell them on the street."
The poet Arion at his coronation at Corinth could not havefelt prouder than little Ben at that hour. He would be both a poet and bookseller, and his brother would be his publisher.
He may have cried on Boston street:
"Blackboard—broadside!" or something like that. It would have been honorable advertising.
His success as a poet was instantaneous. His poem sold well. Compliments fell upon him like a sun shower. He wrote another poem of like value, and it sold "prodigiously." He thought indeed he was a great poet, and had started out on Shakespeare's primrose way to fame and glory. Alas! how many under like circumstances have been deceived. He lived to call his ballads "wretched stuff." How many who thought they were poets have lived to take the same view of their work!
His second poem was called the Light-House Tragedy. It related to a recent event, and set the whole town to talking, and the admiration for the young poet was doubled.
In the midst of the great sale of his poems by himself, and of all the flatteries of the town, he went for approval to his father. The result was unexpected; the rain of sunshine changed into a winter storm indeed.
"Father, you have heard that I have become a poet?"
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Josiah, in his paper cap and leather breeches. "Like your Uncle Ben, my boy, and he amounted to nothing at all as a poet. A poet—my stars!"
"I thought that you looked upon Uncle Ben as the best man in all the world. The people love him. When he enters the Old South Church there is silence."
"That is all very true, my boy, but he lives between theheavens and the earth, and can not get up to the one or down to the other. Poets are beggars, in some way or other. They live in garrets among the mice and bats. Their country is the imagination, and that is the next door to nowhere. You a poet! What puckers my face up—so?"
"But my poetry sells, father," looking into his father's droll face, his heart sinking.
"Your poetry! It sells, my boy, because you are a little shaver and appear to be smart, and also because your rhymes refer to events in which everybody is interested. But, my son, your poetry, as you call it, has no merit in itself. It is full of all kinds of errors. It is style that makes a poem live; yours has no style."
"But, father, many people do not think so."
"But they will. You will think so some day."
"But isn't there something good in it?"
"Nothing, Ben. You never was born to be a poet. You have the ability to earn a living, same as I have done. Poets don't have that kind of ability; they beg. There are not many men who can earn a living by selling their fancies, which is mostly moonshine."
This was unsympathetic. Ben looked at the soap kettles and candle molds and wondered if these things had not blinded his father's poetic perceptions. There was no Vale of Tempe here.
But Josiah Franklin had hard common sense. Little Ben's dreams of poetic fame came down from the skies at one arrow. That was a bitter hour.
"If I can not be a poet," he thought, "I can still be useful,"and he reverted from heroic ballads to stern old Cotton Mather's Essays to do Good. The fated poet is always left a like resource.
Yet many people who have not become poets, but who have risen to be eminent men, have had poetic dreams in early life; they have had the poetic mind. A little poetry in one's composition is no common gift; it is a stamp of superiority in some direction. Josiah Franklin was a wise man, but his views of poetry as such were of a low standard. Poetry is the highest expression of life, the noblest exercise of the spiritual faculties.
So poor little Ben had soared to be laughed at again. But there was something out of the common stirring in him, and he would fly again some day. The victories of the vanquished are the brightest of all.
Franklin, after having been thus given over to the waste barrel by his father, now resolved to acquire a strong, correct, and impressive prose style of writing. He found Addison's Spectator one of the best of all examples of literary style, and he began to make it a study. In works of the imagination he read De Foe and Bunyan.
This good resolution was his second step up on the ladder of life.
Others were contributing to his brother James's paper, why should not he? But James, after the going out of the poetic meteor, might not be willing to consider his plain prose.
Benjamin Franklin has now written an article in plain prose, which he wishes to appear in his brother's paper. If it were accepted, he would have to put it into type himself,and probably to deliver the paper to its patrons. He is sixteen years old. He has become a vegetarian, and lives by himself, and seeks pleasure chiefly in books.
It is night. There are but few lamps in the Boston streets. With a manuscript hidden in his pocket Benjamin walks slyly toward the office of James Franklin, Printer, where all is dark and still. He looks around, tucks his manuscript suddenly under the office door, turns and runs. Oh, how he does glide away! Is he a genius or a fool? He wonders what his brother will say of the manuscript, when he reads it in the morning.
In the morning he went to his work.
Some friends of James came into the office.
"I have found something here this morning," said James, "that I think is good. It was tucked under the door. It seems to me uncommonly good. You must read it."
He handed it to one of his friends.
"That is the best article I have read for a long time," said one of the callers. "There is force in it. It goes like a song that whistles. It carries you. I advise you to use it. Everybody would read that and like it. I wonder who wrote it? You should find out. A person who can write like that should never be idle. He was born to write."
James handed it to another caller.
"There are brains in that ink. The piece flows out of life. Who do you think wrote it?"
"I have no idea," said James.—"Here, Ben, set it up. Here's nuts for you. If I knew who wrote it I would ask the writer to send in other articles."
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and Charles Dickens'snovels have had a sale equaled by a few books in the world. The two authors began their literary life in a like manner, by tucking their manuscripts under the editor's door at night and running away. They both came to wonder at themselves at finding themselves suddenly people of interest. Still, we could hardly say to the literary candidate, "Fling your article into the editor's room at night and run," though modesty, silence, and prudence are commendable in a beginner, and qualities that win.
What pen name did Ben Franklin sign to this interesting article? It was one that implies his purpose in life; you may read his biography in it—Silence Dogood.
The day after the name of Silence Dogood had attracted the attention of Boston town, Benjamin said to Jane, his sympathetic little sister:
"Jenny, let's go to walk this evening upon Beacon Hill. I have something to tell you."
They went out in the early twilight together, up the brow of the hill which the early settlers seem to have found a blackberry pasture, to the tree where they had gone with Uncle Benjamin on the showery, shining midsummer Sunday.
"Can you repeat what Uncle Benjamin said to us here, two years ago?" asked Ben.
"No; it was too long. You repeat it to me again and I will learn it."
"He said, 'More than wealth, or fame, or anything, is the power of the human heart, and that that power is developed in seeking the good of others.' Jenny, what did father say when he read the piece by Silence Dogood in the Courant?"
"He clapped his hand on his leather breeches so that they rattled; he did, Ben, and he exclaimed, 'That is a good one!' and he read the piece to mother, and she asked him who he supposed wrote it, and she shook her head, and he said, 'I wish that I knew.'"
"Would you like to know who wrote it, Jenny?"
"Yes. Do you know?"
"Iwrote it. Jenny, you must not tell. I am writing another piece. James does not know. I tucked the manuscript under the door. I am going to put another one under the door at night."
"O Ben, Ben, you will be a great man yet, and I hope that I will live to see it. But why did you take the name ofSilence Dogood?"
"That carries out Uncle Ben's idea. It stands for seeking the good of others quietly. That name is what I would like to be."
"It is what you will be, Ben. Uncle would say that the Franklin heart is in that name. If you should ever become a big man, Ben, and I should come to see you when we are old, I will say, 'Silence Dogood, more than wealth, more than fame, and more than anything else, is the power of the human heart.' There, I have quoted it correctly now. Maybe the day will come. Maybe we will live to be old, and you will write things that everybody will read, and I will take care of father and mother while you go out into the world."
"Wherever I may go, and whatever I may become or fail to be, my heart will always be true to you, Jenny."
"And I will do all I can for father and mother; I will beyour heart to them, so that you may give your time to your pen. Every one in a family should seek to do for the family what others lack or are not able to do. You can write; I can not, but, Ben, I can love."
She walked about the wild rose bushes, where the red-winged blackbirds were singing.
"O Ben," she continued, "I am so glad that you wrote that piece, and that father liked it so well! I would not have been more glad had you received a present from a king. Maybe you will receive a present from a king some day, if you write as well as that."
"You will keep the secret, Jenny?"
"Yes, Ben, I will look for the paper to-morrow. How glad Uncle Ben would be if he knew it. Why, Ben, that name, Silence Dogood, is a piece in itself. It is a picture of your heart. You are just like Uncle Ben, Silence Dogood."
The name of Silence Dogood became famous in Boston town. Jenny obtained Ben's permission to tell Uncle Benjamin the great secret, and Uncle Benjamin's heart was so delighted that he went to his room and told the secret "to the Lord."
The three hearts were now very, very happy for a time. Jenny was growing up a beautiful girl, and her thoughts were much given to her hard-working parents and to laughed-at, laughing little Ben.
When Uncle Benjamin had heard of Ben's failure as a poet and success as Silence Dogood, he took him down to Long Wharf again.
"I am an old man," he said. "But here I have a lessonfor you. If you are conscious that you have any gift, even in small degree, never let the world laugh it away. See 'that no man take thy crown,' the Scripture says. Every one who has contributed anything to the progress of the world has been laughed at. Stick a pin in thee, Ben.
"Now, Ben, you may not have the poet's imagination or art, but if you have the poetical mind do not be laughed out of an attempt to express it. You may not become a poet; I do not think that you ever will. Perhaps you will write proverbs, and proverbs are a kind of poems. I am going to reprove Brother Josiah for what he has said. He has given over your education to me, and it is my duty to develop you after your own gifts.
"Let us go back to the shop. I want to have a talk with Josiah; but, before we leave, I have a short word to say to you.
"Hoi, Ben, hoi!—I don't know what makes me repeat these words; they are not swear words, Ben, but they come to me when my feelings are awakened.
"It is hard, hard for one to see what he wants to be and to be kept back. I wanted to be a philosopher and a poet. Don't you laugh, Ben. I did; I wanted to be both, and I was so poor that I was obliged to write my thoughts on the margin of the leaves of my pamphlets, which I sold to come to teach you. Ben, Ben, listen: I can never be a philosopher or a poet, but you may. Don't laugh, Ben. Don't let any one laugh you out of your best ideas, Ben. You may. The world will never read what I wrote. They may read what you will write, and if you follow my ideas and they are read, you will be content. Hoi, Ben, hoi!"
They went to the candle shop.
"Josiah, you do wrong to try to suppress Ben's gift at rhyme. A man without poetry in his soul amounts to no more than a chopping block. The world just hammers itself on him, and that is all. You would not make Ben a dunce!"
"No, brother, no; but a goose is not a nightingale, and the world will not stop to listen if she mounts a tree and attempts to sing."
"No, Brother Josiah, but a goose that would like to sing like a nightingale would be no common goose; she would find better pasture than other geese. Small gifts are to be prized. 'A little diamond is worth a mountain of glass,' as the proverb says."
"Well, if you must write poetry, don't publish it until it is called for."
"Well, Brother Josiah, your advice will do for me, for I am an old man; but I must teach Ben never to be laughed out of any good idea that may come to him. Is not that right, brother?"
"Yes, Uncle Ben. But you can't make a hen soar to the skies like an eagle. If you are not a poet, you have a perfect character, and that is why I leave the training of Ben to you. If you can make a man of him, the world will be better for him; and if you can make something else of him besides a poet out of his poetical gift, I shall be very glad. Your poetry has not helped you in life, has it, Benjamin?"
"I don't know. You think it is that that has made me a burden to you."
Josiah looked his brother in the face.
"A burden? No, brother. One of the greatest joys of my lifewas to have you come here, and it will be the greatest blessing to my life if you can make the life of little Ben a blessing to the world. I am not much of a musician, but I like to sound the fiddle, and if you have any poetic light, let it shine—but as a tallow dip, like my fiddling. You are right, brother, in teaching little Ben never to be laughed down. I don't blame any one for crying his goods if he has anything to sell. But if he has not, he had better be content to warm his hands by his own fire."
"Brother Josiah, listen to me. Little Ben here has something to sell.—Hoi, Ben, hoi! you listen.—There have thoughts come to me that I know did not rise out of the dust. I have been too poor to publish them. You may laugh at me, and call me a poor philosopher and say that my philosophy has kept me poor. But Benjamin here is going to give my thoughts to the world, and the things that I put into my pamphlets are going to live. It was not you that gave Ben to me: it was Heaven. A veil hangs over us in this world, and if a man does good in his heart, the hand behind that veil moves all the events of his life for good.
"Don't laugh at us, Josiah; we are weaving together thoughts that will feed the world. That we are.—Hoi, Ben, hoi!"
"Well, Brother, your faith makes you a happy old man. I hope that you will be able to make something of Ben, and that he may do credit to your good name. It may be so. Faith sees.
"I love to see you go into the South Church, Brother. As soon as your face appears all the people look very happy,and sit still. The children all sit still. The tithingman stands still; he has nothing to do for a time.
"It is something, Brother Ben, to be able to cast such an influence as that—something that money can not buy. I am sorry if I have hurt your feelings. Heaven be praised for such men as you are, Brother Ben! I hope that I may live to see all that you see by faith. I think I may, Brother Ben. 'Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles,' but they do gather grapes of grapes and figs of figs. I hope that Ben will be the book of your life, and make up for the pamphlets. It would be a good book for men to read."
"Hoi, Ben, hoi!" said the old man, "I can see that it will."
One Sunday, after church, in summer, Uncle Ben the poet and Silence Dogood went down on Long Wharf to enjoy the breezes from the sea. Uncle Ben was glad to learn more of the literary successes of Silence Dogood.
"To fail in poetry is to succeed in prose," said the fine old man. "But much that we call prose is poetry; rhymes are only childish jingles. The greatest poetry in the world is written without rhyme. It is the magic spirit and the magic words that make true poetry. The book of Job, in my opinion, is the greatest poetry ever written. Poetry is not made, it exists; and one who is prepared to receive it catches it as it flows. Ben, you are going to succeed in prose. You are going to become a ready writer. Study Addison more and more."
"Uncle Ben, do you not think that it is the hardest thing in life for one to be told that he can not do what he most wants to do?"
"Yes, Ben, that is the hardest thing in life. It is a cruel thing to crush any one in his highest hope and expectation."
"Was Solomon a poet? Are the Proverbs poetry?"
"Yes, yes. The book of Proverbs is a thousand poems."
"Then, Uncle Ben, I may be a poet yet. That kind of little poems come to me."
"Ha! ha! ha!"
A voice rang out behind them.
It was Jamie the Scotchman.
"Well, Ben, it is good to fly high. I infer that you expect to become a proverb poet, after the manner of Solomon. The people here will all be quoting you some day. It may be that you will be quoted in England and France. Ha! ha! ha! What good times," he added, "you two have together—dreaming! Well, it costs nothing to dream. There is no toll demanded of him who travels in the clouds. Move along, young Solomon, and let me sit down on the sea wall beside you. When you write a book of proverb poetry I hope I'll be living to read it. One don't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear—there's a proverb for you!—nor gather wisdom except by experience—there's another; and some folks do not get wisdom even from experience." He looked suspiciously toward Uncle Ben.
"Experience keeps a dear school," said Uncle Ben in a kindly way.
"And some people can learn of no other," added Silence Dogood.
"And some folks not even there," said Jamie the Scotchman.
The loons came semicircling along the sea wall, their necks aslant, and uttering cries in a mocking tone.
"Well, I declare, it makes the loons laugh—and no wonder!" said Jamie the Scotchman. He lighted his pipe, whose bowl was a piece of corncob, and whiffed away in silence for a time, holding up one knee in his clasped hands.
Silence Dogood surveyed his surroundings, which were ship cargoes.
"The empty bags do not stand up," he said.
"Well, what do you infer from that?" asked Jamie.
Silence Dogood did not answer, but the thought in his mind was evident. It was simply this: that, come what would in life, he would not fail. He put his hand on Uncle Benjamin's shoulder, for who does not long to reach out his hand toward the fire in the cold, and to touch the form that entemples the most sympathetic heart? He dreamed there on the sea wall, where the loons seemed to laugh, and his dreams came true. Every attainment in life is first a dream.
Silence Dogood, dream on! Add intelligence to intelligence, virtue to virtue, benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith, for so ascends the ladder of life.
Uncle Benjamin was right. Let no man be laughed out of ideals that are true, because they do not reach their development at once.
Many young people stand in the situation in which we find young Franklin now. Many older people do in their early work. England laughed at Boswell, but he came to be held as the prince of biographers, and his methods as the true manner of picturing life and making the past live in letters.
People with a purpose who have been laughed at are many in the history of the world. From Romulus and the builders of the walls of Jerusalem to Columbus, ridicule makes a long record, and the world does not seem to grow wiser by its mistakes. Even Edison, in our own day, was ridiculed, when a youth, for his abstractions, and his efforts were ignored by scientists.
Two generations ago a jeering company of people, uttering comical jests under the cover of their hands, went down to a place on the banks of the Hudson to see, as they said, "a crazy man attempt to move a boat by steam." They returned with large eyes and free lips.That boat moved.
In the early part of the century a young Scotchman named Carlyle laid before the greatest of English scholars and critics a manuscript entitled Sartor Resartus. The great critic read the manuscript and pronounced it "the stupidest stuff that he ever set eyes on." He laughed at a manuscript that became one of the literary masterpieces of the century. A like experience had Milton, when he once said that he would write a poem that should be the glory of his country.
A young graduate named Longfellow wrote poems that came to him amid the woods and fields, and published them in newspapers and magazines, and gathered them into a book. The book fell into the hands of one then held to be supreme as a literary judge—Edgar Allen Poe. It was laughed at in ink that made the literary world laugh. The poet Longfellow's bust now holds an ideal place in Westminster Abbey, between the memorials of Dryden and Chaucer, and at the foot of the tombs of England's kings.
Keats was laughed at; Wordsworth was deemed a fool.
A number of disdainful doctors met on October 16, 1846, in the amphitheater of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, to see a young medical student try to demonstrate that a patient upon whom a surgical operation was to be performed could be rendered insensible to pain. The sufferer was brought into the clear light. The young student touched his face with an unknown liquid whose strange odor filled the room. He was in oblivion. The knives cut and the blood flowed, and he knew it not. Pain was thus banished from the room of surgery. That young medical student and dentist was Dr. W. T. G. Morton, whose monument may be seen in the Boston Public Garden, and in whose honor the semicentennial of the discovery of anæsthesia has but recently been celebrated.
"So, with a few romantic boys and crazy girls you expect to see the world converted," said a wise New York journal less than a century ago, as the first missionaries began to sail away. But the song still arose over the sea—
"In the desert let me labor,On the mountain let me till"—
until there came a missionary jubilee, whose anthems were repeated from land to land until they encircled the earth.
When Browning first published Sordello, the poem met with common ridicule. Even Alfred Tennyson is said to have remarked that "there were but two lines in it that he could understand, and they were both untrue." The first line of the poem was, "Who will,mayhear Sordello's story told"; and the last line of the poem was, "Who would,hasheard Sordello'sstory told." Yet the poem is ranked now among the intellectual achievements of the century in the analysis of one of the deeper problems of life.
Samuel F. B. Morse was laughed at. McCormick, whose invention reaps the fields of the world, was ridiculed by the London Times, "the Thunderer." "If that crazy Wheelwright calls again, do not admit him," said a British consul to his servant, of one who wished to make new ports and a new commerce for South America, and whose plans are about to harness the Andes with railways. William Wheelwright's memory lives in grateful statues now.
Columbus was not only laughed at by the Council of Salamanca, but was jeered at by the children in the streets, as he journeyed from town to town holding his orphan boy by the hand. He wandered in the visions of God and the stars, and he came to say, after the shouts of homage that greeted him as the viceroy of isles, "God made me the messenger of the new heavens and new earth, and told me where to find them!"
Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, presents a picture of the unfortunate condition of many lives of whom the world expected nothing, and for whom it had only the smile of incredulity when in them the Godlike purpose appeared. He says:
"Hannibal had but one eye; Appius Claudius and Timoleon were blind, as were John, King of Bohemia, and Tiresais the prophet. Homer was blind; yet who, saith Tully, made more accurate, lively, or better descriptions with both his eyes! Democritus was blind, yet, as Laertius writes of him, he saw more than all Greece besides. . . . Æsop was crooked, Socratespurblind, Democritus withered, Seneca lean and harsh, ugly to behold; yet show me so many flourishing wits, such divine spirits. Horace, a little, blear-eyed, contemptible fellow, yet who so sententious and wise? Marcilius Ficinus, Faber Stapulensis, a couple of dwarfs; Melanchthon, a short, hard-favored man, yet of incomparable parts of all three; Galba the emperor was crook-backed; Epictetus, lame; the great Alexander a little man of stature; Augustus Cæsar, of the same pitch; Agesilaus,despicabili forma, one of the most deformed princes that Egypt ever had, was yet, in wisdom and knowledge, far beyond his predecessors."
Why do I call your attention to these struggles in this place in association of an incident of a failure in life that was ridiculed?
It has been my lot, in a somewhat active life in the city of Boston for twenty-five years, to meet every day an inspiring name that all the world knows, and that stands for what right resolution, the overcoming of besetting sins in youth, and persevering energy may accomplish against the ridicule of the world. There have been many books written having that name as a title—Franklin.
I have almost daily passed the solemn, pyramidal monument in the old Granary Burying Ground, between the Tremont Building and Park Street Church, that bears the names of the Franklin family, in which the parents have found eternal honor by the achievements of their son.
As I pass the Boston City Hall there appears the Franklin statue.
As I face the Old South Church and its ancient neighborhoodI am in the place of the traditions of the birth of Benjamin Franklin and of his baptism. It may be that I will return by the way of Franklin Street, or visit the Franklin School, or go to the Mechanics' Building, where I may see the primitive printing press at which Franklin worked, and which was buried in the earth at Newport, Rhode Island, at the time of the Revolutionary War.
If I go to the Public Library, I may find there two original portraits of Franklin and a Franklin gallery, and a picture of him once owned by Thomas Jefferson.
If I go to the Memorial Hall at Harvard College, I will there see another portrait of the philosopher in the grand gallery of noble men. Or I may go to Boston's wide pleasure ground, the Franklin Park, by an electric car made possible by the discoveries of Franklin.
Nearly all of Franklin's early efforts were laughed at, but he would not be laughed down. Time is the friend of every true purpose.
Boys with a purpose, face the future, do good in silence, and trust. You will find some Uncle Benjamin and sister Jenny to hold you by the hand. Be in dead earnest, and face the future, and forward march! The captains of industry and the leaders of every achievement say, "Guide right! Turn to the right, and advance!"
Thesewere fine old times, but they were English times; English ideas ruled Boston town. There was little liberty of opinion or of the press in those days. The Franklins belonged to a few families who hoped to find in the province freedom of thought. James Franklin was a testy man, but he breathed free air, and one day in his paper, the Courant, he published the following simple sentences, the like of which any one might print anywhere in the civilized world to-day: "If Almighty God will have Canada subdued without the assistance of those miserable Savages, in whom we have too much confidence, we shall be glad that there will be no sacrifices offered up to the Devil upon the occasion; God alone will have all the glory."
What had he done? He had protested against the use of Indians in the war then being waged against Canada.
He was arrested on a charge that the article in which this paragraph appeared, and some like articles, "contained reflections of a very high nature." He was sentenced to a month's imprisonment and forbidden to publish the paper. So James went to jail, and he left the management of the paper to Benjamin.
This incident gives us a remarkable view of the times. But Boston was only following the English law and custom.
The printing office was now carried on in Benjamin's name. Little Ben grew and flourished, until his popularity excited the envy of his brother. One day they quarreled, and James, almost in the spirit of Cain, struck his bright, enterprising apprentice. Benjamin had a proud heart. He would not stand a blow from James without a protest. What was he to do?
He resolved to leave the office of his brother James forever. He did so, and tried to secure work elsewhere. His brother's influence prevented him from doing this. His resentment against his brother grew more bitter, and blinded him to all besides. This was conduct unworthy of a young philosopher. In his resentment he does not seem to have regarded the feelings of his good father, or the heart of his mother that would ache and find relief in tears at night, nor even of Jenny, whom he loved. He took a sloop for New York, and bade good-by to no one. The sail dipped down the harbor, and the three hills of Boston faded from his view.
He was now on the ocean, and out in the world alone. We are sorry to say that he faced life with such a deep resentment toward his brother in his heart. He afterward came to regard his going away in this manner as one of the mistakes of his life which he would wish to correct. His better heart came back again, true to his home.
He was not popular in Boston in his last days there. New influences had come into his life. He had loved argument and disputation, and there is a subtile manner of discussion called the "Socratic method," which he had found in Xenophon,in which one confuses an opponent by asking questions and never making direct assertions himself, but using the subjunctive mood. It is an art of entanglement. The boy had delighted in "twisting people all up," and making them contradict themselves after a perversion of the manner described by Xenophon in his Life of Socrates.
As religion and politics formed the principal subjects of these discussions, and he liked to take the unpopular view in order to throw his mental antagonist, he had fallen into disfavor, to which disesteem his brother's charges against him had added. These things made Jenny's heart ache, but she never ceased to believe in Ben.
Few boys ever left the city in provincial times with less promise of any great future, so far as public opinion is concerned. But, notwithstanding these errors of judgment, he still carried with him a purpose of being a benefactor, and his dream was to help the world. The star of this purpose ever shone before him in the deserts of his wanderings.
But how was he to succeed, after thus following his own personal feeling in matters like these? By correcting his own errors as soon as he saw them, and never repeating them again. This he did; he openly acknowledged his faults, and tried to make amends for them. He who confesses his errors, and seeks to retrieve them, has a heart and purpose that the public will love. But it is a higher and nobler life not to fall into such errors.
This was about the year 1723. A curious incident happened on the voyage to New York. Young Franklin had become a vegetarian—that is, he had been convinced that it waswrong to kill animals for food, and wrong to eat flesh of any kind.
The ship became becalmed, and the sailors betook themselves to fishing. Franklin loved to argue still, notwithstanding his unhappy experiences.
"Fishing is murder," said he. "Why should these inhabitants of the sea be deprived of their lives and opportunities of enjoyment? They have never done any one harm, and they live the lives for which Nature made them. They have the same right to liberty that they have to life."
This indicated a true heart. But when the steward began to cook the fish that the sailors had caught, the frying of them did have a savory smell.
Young Franklin now began to be tempted from theory by appetite. How could he get over his principles and share the meal with the sailors? The cook seized a large fish to prepare it for the frying-pan. As he cut off its head and opened him he found in him a little fish.
"So you eat fish," said Franklin, addressing the prize; "then why may I not eatyou?" He did so, and from this time left off his vegetarian habits, which habits, like his aspiration to be a poet, did credit to his heart.
His argument in this case had no force. The fish had not a moral nature, and because an animal or reptile without such a nature should eat other animals or reptiles would furnish no reason why a being governed by laws outside of himself should do the same.
October found him in New York, a Dutch town of less than ten thousand inhabitants. He was about eighteen years ofage. New York then had little in common with the city of to-day. Its streets were marked by gable ends and cobble stones. Franklin applied for work to a printer there, and the latter commended him to go to Philadelphia. He followed the advice, going by sea, friendless and forlorn, with only a few shillings in his pocket.
He helped row the boat across the Delaware. He offered the boatman his fare.
"No," said the boatman, "I ought to take nothing; you helped row."
Franklin had just one silver dollar and a shilling in copper coin. He insisted that the ferryman should take the coin. He said of this liberal sense of honor afterward that one is "sometimes more generous when he has little money than when he has plenty."
Philadelphia, the city of Penn, now rose before him, and he entered it a friendless lad, whom none knew and few could have noticed. Would any one then have dreamed that he would one day become the governor of the province?
Benjamin Franklin had now found the world indeed, and his brother James had lost the greatest apprentice that the world ever had. Both were blind. Each had needed that early training that develops the spiritual powers, and makes it a delight to say "No" to all the lower passions of human nature.
Josiah and Abiah Franklin had had great hopes of little Ben. The boy had a large brain and a tender heart. From their point of view they had trained him well. They had sent him to the Old South Church and had made him the subject of their daily prayers. In fact, these good people had done theirbest to make him a "steady boy," according to their light. The education of the inner life was like a sealed book to them. But they were yet people upon whom a larger light was breaking. The poor old soap and candle maker went on with his business at the Blue Ball with a heavy heart.
"Gone, gone," said Jamie the Scotchman. "He'll find proverbs enough on his way of life. This is a hard world, but he has a heart to return to the right. I pity good Abiah Franklin, but we often have to trust where we can not see."
Franklin'sfirst day in Philadelphia is well known to the world. He has related it in Addisonian English, and it has been read almost as widely as the adventures of Robinson Crusoe or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
We must give a part of the narrative here in his own language, for a merry girl is about to laugh at the Boston boy as she sees him pass, and he will cause this lovely girl to laugh with him many times in his rising career and in different spirit from that on the occasion when she first beheld him, the awkward and comical-looking boy wandering he knew not where on the street.
Let us follow him through his own narrative until he meets the eyes of Deborah Read, a fair lass of eighteen.
On his arrival at Philadelphia, he tells us, he was in his working dress; his best clothes were to come by sea. He was covered with dirt; his pockets were filled with shirts and stockings. He was unacquainted with a single soul in the place, and knew not where to seek for a lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and having passed the night without sleep, he was extremely hungry, and all his money consisted of a Dutch dollarand about a shilling's worth of coppers, which latter he gave to the boatman for his passage.
He walked toward the top of the street, looking eagerly on both sides, till he came to Market Street, where he met with a child with a loaf of bread. Often he had made his dinner on dry bread. He inquired of the child where he had bought the bread, and went straight to the baker's shop which the latter pointed out to him. He asked for some biscuits, expecting to find such as they had in Boston; but they made, it seems, none of that sort in Philadelphia. He then asked for a threepenny loaf. They made no loaves of that price. Finding himself ignorant of the prices as well as of the different kinds of bread, he desired the baker to let him have threepenny worth of bread of some kind or other. The baker gave him three large rolls. He was surprised at receiving so much; he took them, however, and having no room in his pockets, he walked on with a roll under each arm, eating the third. In this manner he went through Market Street to Fourth Street, and passed the house of Mr. Read, the father of his future wife. The girl was standing at the door, observed him, and thought with reason that he made a very singular and grotesque appearance, and laughed merrily. We repeat the many-times-told tale in nearly his own words.
So here we find our young adventurer laughed at again. We can fancy the young girl standing on her father's doorsteps on that mellow autumn day. There comes up the street a lad with two rolls of bread under his arm, and eating a third roll, his pockets full of the simpler necessities of clothing, which must have made him look like a ragman; everything about him wasqueer and seemingly wrong. She may have seen that he was just from the boat, and a traveler, but when did ever a traveler look so entirely out of his senses as this one did?
Never mind, Ben Franklin. You will one day stand in Versailles in the velvet robes of state, and the French king will give you his portrait framed in four hundred and eight diamonds.
"I then turned the corner," he continues, "and went through Chestnut Street, eating my roll all the way; and having made this round, I found myself again on Market Street Wharf, near the boat in which I arrived. I stepped into it to take a draught of river water, and finding myself satisfied with my first roll, I gave the other two to a woman and her child who had come down the river with us in the boat and was waiting to continue her journey. Thus refreshed, I regained the street, which was now full of well-dressed people, all going the same way. I joined them, and was thus led to a large Quakers' meeting-house near the market-place. I sat down with the rest, and, after looking round me for some time, hearing nothing said, and being drowsy from my last night's labor and want of rest, I fell into a sound sleep. In this state I continued till the assembly dispersed, when one of the congregation had the goodness to wake me. This was consequently the first house I entered or in which I slept at Philadelphia.
"I began again to walk along the streets by the riverside, and, looking attentively in the face of every one I met with, I at length perceived a young Quaker whose countenance pleased me. I accosted him, and begged him to inform me where a stranger might find a lodging. We were then near the sign ofthe Three Mariners. 'They receive travelers here,' said he, 'but it is not a house that bears a good character. If you will go with me I will show you a better one.' He conducted me to the Crooked Billet, in Water Street. There I ordered something for dinner, and during my meal a number of curious questions were put to me, my youth and appearance exciting the suspicion of my being a young runaway. After dinner my drowsiness returned, and I threw myself upon a bed without taking off my clothes, and slept till six o'clock in the evening, when I was called to supper. I afterward went to bed at a very early hour, and did not awake till the next morning.
"As soon as I got up I put myself in as decent a trim as I could, and went to the house of Andrew Bradford, the printer. I found his father in the shop, whom I had seen at New York. Having traveled on horseback, he had arrived at Philadelphia before me. He introduced me to his son, who received me with civility and gave me some breakfast, but told me he had no occasion at present for a journeyman, having lately procured one. He added that there was another printer newly settled in the town, of the name of Keimer, who might perhaps employ me, and that in case of refusal I should be welcome to lodge at his house. He would give me a little work now and then till something better should be found.
"The old man offered to introduce me to the new printer. When we were at his house, 'Neighbor,' said he, 'I bring you a young man in the printing business; perhaps you may have need of his services.'
"Keimer asked me some questions, put a composing stickin my hand to see how I could work, and then said that at present he had nothing for me to do, but that he should soon be able to employ me. At the same time taking old Bradford for an inhabitant of the town well disposed toward him, he communicated his project to him and the prospect he had of success. Bradford was careful not to discover that he was the father of the other printer; and from what Keimer had said, that he hoped shortly to be in possession of the greater part of the business of the town, led him, by artful questions and by starting some difficulties, to disclose all his views, what his hopes were founded upon, and how he intended to proceed. I was present and heard it all. I instantly saw that one of the two was a cunning old fox and the other a perfect novice. Bradford left me with Keimer, who was strangely surprised when I informed him who the old man was.
"I found Keimer's printing materials to consist of an old, damaged press and a small font of worn-out English letters, with which he himself was at work upon an elegy upon Aquilla Rose, an ingenious young man and of excellent character, highly esteemed in the town, Secretary to the Assembly and a very tolerable poet. Keimer also made verses, but they were indifferent ones. He could not be said to write in verse, for his method was to set the lines as they followed from his muse; and as he worked without copy, had but one set of letter cases, and as the elegy would occupy all his types, it was impossible for any one to assist him. Iendeavoredto put his press in order, which he had not yet used, and of which indeed he understood nothing; and, having promised to come and work off his elegy as soon as it should be ready,I returned to the house of Bradford, who gave me some trifles to do for the present, for which I had my board and lodging.
"In a few days Keimer sent for me to print off his elegy. He had now procured another set of letter cases, and had a pamphlet to reprint, upon which he set me to work.
"The two Philadelphia printers appeared destitute of every qualification necessary in their profession. Bradford had not been brought up to it, and was very illiterate. Keimer, though he understood a little of the business, was merely a compositor, and wholly incapable of working at press. He had been one of the French prophets, and knew how to imitate their supernatural agitations. At the time of our first acquaintance he professed no particular religion, but a little of all upon occasion. He was totally ignorant of the world, and a great knave at heart, as I had afterward an opportunity of experiencing.
"Keimer could not endure that, working with him, I should lodge at Bradford's. He had indeed a house, but it was unfurnished, so that he could not take me in. He procured me a lodging at Mr. Read's, his landlord, whom I have already mentioned. My trunk and effects being now arrived, I thought of making, in the eyes of Miss Read, a more respectable appearance than when chance exhibited me to her view, eating my roll and wandering in the streets.
"From this period I began to contract acquaintance with such young people as were fond of reading, and spent my evenings with them agreeably, while at the same time I gained money by my industry, and, thanks to my frugality, lived contentedly. I thus forgot Boston as much as possible, and wishedevery one to be ignorant of the place of my residence, except my friend Collins, to whom I wrote, and who kept my secret.
"An accident, however, happened which sent me home much sooner than I proposed. I had a brother-in-law, of the name of Robert Holmes, master of a trading sloop from Boston to Delaware. Being at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, he heard of me, and wrote to inform me of the chagrin which my sudden departure from Boston had occasioned my parents, and of the affection which they still entertained for me, assuring me that, if I would return, everything should be adjusted to my satisfaction; and he was very pressing in his entreaties. I answered his letter, thanked him for his advice, and explained the reasons which had induced me to quit Boston with such force and clearness that he was convinced I had been less to blame than he had imagined.
"Sir William Keith, Governor of the province, was at Newcastle at the time. Captain Holmes, being by chance in his company when he received my letter, took occasion to speak of me and showed it to him. The Governor read it, and appeared surprised when he learned of my age. He thought me, he said, a young man of very promising talents, and that of consequence I ought to be encouraged; that there were at Philadelphia none but very ignorant printers, and that if I were to set up for myself he had no doubt of my success; that, for his own part, he would procure me all the public business, and would render me every other service in his power. My brother-in-law related all this to me afterward at Boston, but I knew nothing of it at the time. When, one day, Keimer and Ibeing at work together near the window, we saw the Governor and another gentleman, Colonel French, of Newcastle, handsomely dressed, cross the street and make directly for our house. We heard them at the door, and Keimer, believing it to be a visit to himself, went immediately down; but the Governor inquired for me, came upstairs, and, with a condescension and politeness to which I had not at all been accustomed, paid me many compliments, desired to be acquainted with me, obligingly reproached me for not having made myself known to him on my arrival in the town, and wished me to accompany him to a tavern, where he and Colonel French were going to have some excellent Madeira wine.
"I was, I confess, somewhat surprised, and Keimer appeared thunderstruck. I went, however, with the Governor and the colonel to a tavern at the corner of Third Street, where he proposed to me to establish a printing house. He set forth the probabilities of success, and himself and Colonel French assured me that I should have their protection and influence in obtaining the printing of the public papers of both governments; and as I appeared to doubt whether my father would assist me in this enterprise, Sir William said that he would give me a letter to him, in which he would represent the advantages of the scheme in a light which he had no doubt would determine him. It was thus concluded that I should return to Boston by the first vessel with the letter of recommendation from the Governor to my father. Meanwhile the project was to be kept secret, and I continued to work for Keimer as before.
"The Governor sent every now and then to invite me todine with him. I considered this a very great honor, and I was the more sensible of it as he conversed with me in the most affable, familiar, and friendly manner imaginable.
"Toward the end of April, 1724, a small vessel was ready to sail for Boston. I took leave of Keimer upon the pretext of going to see my parents. The Governor gave me a long letter, in which he said many flattering things of me to my father, and strongly recommended the project of my settling at Philadelphia as a thing which could not fail to make my fortune."
What is there prophetic of a great life in this homely narrative? Read over again the incident of the three rolls, one of which he ate, and two of which he gave to the poor woman and her child who needed them more than he. All his money on that day was one silver dollar. In that incident we see the heart and the persistent purpose to do good. He had made mistakes, but the resolution that he had made on reading Cotton Mather's meaty book was unshaken. He would correct his errors and yield to his better nature, and this purpose to help others would grow, and so he would overcome evil with good.
He who helps one helps two. The poor woman may never have been heard of in public, except in this story, but that act of sharing the rolls, with one for the little child, made Ben Franklin a larger man. "The purpose of life is to grow."
Benjamin Franklin is now a seed in the wind, but he is a good seed in the wind—good at heart, with a right purpose. The stream of life is turned aside, but it will flowtrue again toward the great ocean of that which is broadest and best.
For this little Jenny at home is hoping, and Abiah Franklin praying, and Josiah Franklin keeping silence in regard to his family affairs.
These were hard days for Uncle Benjamin and his philosophy, and for Jenny and her human faith.