Whatkind of a man was Governor Sir William Keith? There are not many such, but one such may be found in almost every large community. He desired popularity, and he loved to please every one. He was constantly promising what he was not able to fulfill. He had a lively imagination, and he liked to think what he would do if he could for every bright person he met; and these things which he would like to do he promised, and his promises often ended indisappointment. It delighted him to see faces light up with hope. Did he intend to deceive? No. He had a heart to bless the whole world. He was for a time a very popular Governor, but he who had given away expectations that but disappointed so many hearts was at last disappointed in all his expectations. He was greatly pleased with young Benjamin Franklin when he first met him, just as he had been with many other promising young men. He liked a young man who had the hope of the future in his face. This young printer who had entertained Boston under the name of Silence Dogood won his heart on a further acquaintance, and so he used to invite him to his home. He there showed him how essential a good printer would be to the province; how such a young man as he would make a fortune;and he urged him to go back to his father in Boston and borrow money for such an enterprise. He gave him a long letter of commendation to his father, a droll missive indeed to carry to clear-sighted, long-headed Josiah Franklin.
With this grand letter and twenty-five pounds in silver in his pocket and a gold watch besides, and his vision full of rainbows, he returned to the Puritan town. He went to the printing office, which was again under the charge of his brother James. He was finely dressed, and as he had come back with such flattering prospects he had a grain of vanity.
He entered James's office. The latter looked at him with wide eyes, then turned from him coldly.
But Silence Dogood was not to be chilled. The printers flocked around him with wonder, as though he had been a returning Sindbad, and he began to relate to them his adventures in Philadelphia. James heard him with envy, doubtful of the land "where rocs flew away with elephants." But when Benjamin showed the men his watch, and finally shared with them a silver dollar in hospitalities, he fancied that his brother had come there to insult him, and he felt more bitterly toward him than ever before. Benjamin had much to learn in life. He and his brother, notwithstanding their good Quaker-born mother, had not learned the secret of the harmony of Abraham and Lot.
But one of these lessons of life our elated printer was to learn, and at once.
He returned to his home at the Blue Ball. His parents had not heard from him since he went away some seven months before, and they, though grieved at his conduct, received him joyfully. There was always an open door in Abiah Folger's heart.The Quaker blood of good Peter Folger never ceased to course warm in her veins.
Ben told his marvelous story. After the literary adventures of Silence Dogood in Boston, his parents could believe much, but when he came to tell of his intimacy with Sir William Keith, Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania, successor to the great William Penn, they knew not what to think. Either Sir William must be a singular man, or they must have underrated the ability of young Silence Dogood.
"This is great news indeed. But what proof do you bring of your good fortune, my son?" asked the level-headed Josiah, lifting his spectacles upon his forehead and giving his son a searching look.
Young Benjamin took from his pocket the letter of Sir William and laid it before his father. It indeed had the vice-royal seal of the province.
His father put down his spectacles from his forehead, and his wife Abiah drew up her chair beside him, and he read the letter to himself and then reviewed it aloud.
The letter told him what a wonderfully promising young man Benjamin was; how well he was adapted to become the printer of the province, and how he only needed a loan wherewith to begin business to make a fortune.
Josiah Franklin could not doubt the genuineness of the letter. He sat thinking, drumming on a soap shelf.
"But why, my boy, if you are so able and so much needed does not Governor Keith lend you the money himself?"
Ben sat silent. Not all the arts of the Socratic method could suggest any answer to this question.
"I am glad that you have an influential patron," said Josiah, "but to a man of hard sense it would seem very strange that he should not advance the money himself to help one so likely to become so useful to the province to begin business. People are seldom offered something for nothing in this world, and why this man has made himself your patron I can not see, even through my spectacles."
"He wishes, father, to make me a printer for the advancement of the province."
"Then why, my son, should not a governor of a rich province himself provide you with means to become a printer for the advancement of the province?"
Socrates himself could not have answered this question.
"Did you tell him that your father was an honest, hard-working soap boiler and candle maker?"
"No," said the young man.
"Benjamin, I have a large family, and I am unable to lend you the money that the Governor requests. But even if I had the money I should hesitate to let you have it for such a purpose. You are too young to start in business, and your character is not settled. That troubles me, Ben. Your character is not settled. You have made some bad mistakes already. You went away without bidding your mother good-by, and now return to me with a letter from the Governor of Pennsylvania who asks me to loan you money to set you up in business, because you are so agreeable and promising. O Ben, Ben, did you not think that I had more sense than that?"
Josiah lifted his spectacles up to his forehead, and lookedhis finely dressed son fully in the face. The pride of the latter began to shrink. He saw himself as he was.
But Abiah pleaded for her large-brained boy—Abiah, whose heart was always open, in whom lived Peter Folger still. Jenny had but one thing to say. It was, "Ben, don't go back, don't go back."
"I will tell you what I will do," said Josiah. "I will write a letter to Governor Keith, telling him the plain truth of my circumstances. That is just right. If when you are twenty years of age you will have saved a part of the money to begin business, I will do what I can for you."
With this letter Silence Dogood returned to Philadelphia in humiliation. We think it was this Silence Dogood who wrote the oft-quoted proverb, "A good kick out of doors is worth all the rich uncles in the world."
Young Franklin presented his father's letter to Governor Keith.
"Your father is too prudent," said the latter. "He says that you are too young and unsettled for business. Some people are thirty years old at eighteen. It is not years that are to be considered in this case, but fitness for work. I will start you in business myself."
Silence Dogood rejoiced. Here was a man who was "better than a father"—the "best man in all the world," he thought.
"Make out an inventory of the things that you need to begin the business of a printer, and I will send to London for them."
Benjamin did so, an inventory to the amount of one hundredpounds. He brought it to the Governor, who greatly surprised him by a suggestion.
"Perhaps," said Sir William, "you would like to go to London and get the machinery yourself. I would give you a letter of credit."
Was it raining gold?
"I would like to go to London," answered the young printer.
"Then I will provide for your journey. You shall go with Captain Annis." This captain sailed yearly from Philadelphia to London.
Waiting the sailing of the ship months passed away. Governor Keith entertained the young printer at his home. The sailing time came. Franklin went to the office of the Governor to receive the letter of credit and promised letters of introduction.
"All in good time, my boy," said the Governor's clerk, "but the Governor is busy and can not see you now. If you will call on Wednesday you will receive the letters."
Young Franklin called at the office on the day appointed.
"All in good time, my boy," said the clerk. "The Governor has not had time to fix them up and get them ready. They will be sent to you on board the ship with the Governor's mail."
So Franklin went on board the ship. As the Governor's mail came on board he asked the captain to let him see the letters, but the latter told him that he must wait until the ship got under way.
Out at sea the Governor's letters were shown to him. Therewere several directed to people "in the care of Benjamin Franklin." He supposed these contained notes of introduction and the letter of credit, so he passed happily over the sea.
He reached London December 24, 1724. He rushed into the grand old city bearing the letters directed in his care. He took the one deemed most important to the office of the gentleman to whom it was directed. "This letter is from Governor Keith, of the Province of Pennsylvania," said Franklin.
"I know of no such person," said the man. The latter opened the letter. "Oh, I see," said he, "it is from one Riddleson. I have found him out to be a rascal, an exile, and refuse to entertain any communication from him."
Franklin's face fell. His heart turned heavy. He went out wondering. "Was his father's advice sound, after all?"
The rest of the letters that had been directed in his care were not written by Governor Keith, but by people in the province to their friends, of which he had been made a postboy. There were in the mail no letters of introduction from Governor Keith to any one, and no letter of credit.
He found himself alone in London, that great wilderness of homes. Of Keith's conduct he thus speaks in his autobiography:
"What shall we think of a Governor playing such pitiful tricks, and imposing so grossly upon a poor ignorant boy? It was a habit he had acquired; he wished to please everybody, and having little to give, he gave expectations. He was otherwise an ingenuous, sensible man, a pretty good writer, and a good Governor for the people, though not for his constituents, the Proprietaries, whose instructions he sometimes disregarded.Several of our best laws were of his planning, and passed during his administration."
He found work as a journeyman printer in London, and we are sorry to say lived like most journeymen printers there. But Silence Dogood had to make himself useful even among these unsettled people. He instituted new ways of business and life of advantage to journeymen printers, and so kept the chain of his purpose lengthening.
There was a series of curious incidents that happened during the last part of this year of residence in London that came near changing his career. It was in 1726; he was about twenty years old. He had always loved the water, to be on it and in it, and he became an expert swimmer when he was a lad in Boston town.
He had led a temperate life among the London apprentices, and had kept his physical strength unimpaired. He drank water while they drank beer. They laughed at him, but he was able to carry up stairs a heavier case of type than any of them. They called him the "American water-drinker," but there came a day when he performed a feat that became the admiration of the young London printers. He loved companionship, and had many intimate friends, and among them there was one Wygate, who went swimming with him, probably in the Thames, and whom he taught to swim in two lessons.
One day Wygate invited him to go into the country with him and some of his friends. They had a merry time and returned by water. After they had embarked from Chelsea, a suburb which was then some four and a half miles from St. Paul's Cathedral, Wygate said to him:
"Are you going to swim back to London?""Are you going to swim back to London?"
"Franklin, you are a water boy; let us see how well you can swim."
Franklin knew his strength and skill. He took off his clothing and leaped into the river, and probably performed all the old feats that one can do in the water.
His dexterity delighted the party, but it soon won their applause.
He swam a mile.
"Come on board!" shouted they. "Are you going to swim back to London?"
"Yes," came a voice as if from a fish in the bright, sunny water.
He swam two miles.
The wonder of the party grew.
Three miles.
They cheered.
Four miles to Blackfriars Bridge. Such a thing had never been known among the apprentice lads. The swim brought young Franklin immediate fame among these apprentices, and it spread and filled London.
Sir William Wyndham, once Chancellor of the Exchequer, heard of this exploit, and desired to see him. He had two sons who were about to travel, to whom he wished Franklin to teach swimming. But the two boys were detained in another place, and Franklin never met them. It was proposed to Franklin that he open a swimming school.
But while he was favorable to such agreeable employment, there occurred one of those incidents that seem providential.
He met one day at this shifting period Mr. Denham, the uprightmerchant, whose integrity came to honor his profession and Philadelphia. This man had failed in business at Bristol, and had left England under a cloud. But he had an honest soul and purpose, and he resolved to pay every dollar that he owed. To this end he put all the energies of his life into his business. He went to America to make a fortune, and he made it. He then returned to Bristol, which he had left in sorrow and humiliation.
He gave a banquet, and invited to it all the merchants and people whom he owed. They responded to the unexpected invitation, and wondered what would happen. When they had seated themselves at the table, and the time to serve the meal came, the dinner plates were lifted, and each one found before him the full amount of the money due to him. The banquet of honor made the name of the merchant famous.
Mr. Denham was a friend to men in need of good influences. He saw Franklin's need of advice, and he said to him:
"My young friend, you should return to Philadelphia. It is the place of opportunity."
"But I have not the means."
"I have the means for you. I am about to return to America with a cargo of merchandise. You must go back with me. Your place in life is there."
Should he go?
It was early summer. He went out on London Bridge one night. It grew dark late. But at last there gleamed in the dark water the lights of London like stars. Many voices filled the air as the boats passed by. The nine o'clock bells rang. It may be that he heard the Bow bells ring, the bells that said,"Come back! come back! come back!" to young Dick Whittington when he was running away from his place in life. If so, he must have been reminded of all that this man accomplished by heeding the voice of the bells, and of how King Henry had said, after all his benefactions, "Did ever a prince have such a subject?"
He must have thought of Uncle Tom and the bells of Nottingham on this clear night of lovely airs and out-of-door merriments. Over the great city towered St. Paul's under the rising moon. Afar was the Abbey, with the dust of kings.
Then he thought of Uncle Benjamin's pamphlets. It seemed useless for one to look for books in this great city of London.
Franklin never saw ghosts, except such as arise out of conscience into the eye of the mind. But the old man's form and his counsels now came into the view of the imagination. His old Boston home came back to his dreams; Jenny came back to him, and the face of the young woman whom he had learned to love in Philadelphia.
He resolved to return. America was his land, and he must build with her builders. He sailed for America with his good adviser, the honest merchant, July 21, 1726, and left noblemen's sons to learn to swim in the manner that he himself had mastered the water.
Did he ever see Governor Keith again? Yes. After his return to Philadelphia he met there upon the street one who was becoming a discredited man. The latter recognized him, but his face turned into confusion. He did not bow; nor did Franklin. It was Governor Keith. This GovernorPlease-Everybody died in London after years of poverty, at the age of eighty.
Silence Dogood may have thought of his father's raised spectacles when he met Sir William that day on the street, and when they did not wish to recognize each other, or of Jenny's words, "Ben, don't go back."
He had learned some hard lessons from the book of life, and he would henceforth be true to the most unselfish counsels on earth—the heart and voice of home.
Benjaminbecame a printer again. By the influence of friends he opened in Philadelphia an office in part his own.
Benjamin Franklin had no Froebel education. The great apostle of the education of the spiritual faculties had not yet appeared, and even Pestalozzi, the founder of common schools for character education, could not have been known to him. But when a boy he had grasped the idea that was to be evolved by these two philosophers, that the end of education is character, and that right habits become fixed or automatic, thus virtue must be added to virtue, intelligence to intelligence, benevolence to benevolence, faith to faith.
One day, when he was very poor, there came into his printing office a bustling man.
"See here, my boy, I have a piece for you; there's ginger in it, and it will make a stir. You will get well paid for giving it to the public; all Philadelphia will read it."
"I am glad to get something to give the paper life," said Franklin. "I will read the article as soon as I have time to spare."
"I will call to-morrow," said the man. "It is running water that makes things grow. That article will prove very interestingreading to many people, and it will do them good. It is a needed rebuke. You'll say so when you read it."
Franklin at this time did a great part of the work in the office himself, and he was very busy that day. At last he found time to take up the article. He hoped to find it one that would add to the circulation of the paper. He found that it was written in a revengeful spirit, that it was full of detraction and ridicule, that it would answer no good purpose, that it would awaken animosities and engender bitter feelings and strife. But if used it would be read, laughed at, increase the sale of the paper, and secure him the reputation of publishing asmartpaper.
Should he publish an article whose influence would be harmful to the public for the sake of money and notoriety?
He here began in himself as an editor that process of moral education which tends to make fixed habits of thought, judgment, and life. He resolvednotto print the article.
But the author of it would laugh at him—might call him puritanic; would probably say that he did not know when he was "well off"; that he stood in his own light; that he had not the courage to rebuke private evils.
The young printer had the courage to rebuke wrong, but this article was a sting—a revengeful attempt to make one a laughing stock. It had no good motive. But it haunted him. He turned the question of his duty over and over in his mind.
Night came, and he had not the money to purchase a supper or to secure a bed. Should he not print the lively article, and make for himself better fare on the morrow?
No. Manhood is more than money, worth more thanwealth. He went to the baker's and bought a twopenny roll; he ate it in his office, and then lay down on the floor of his office and went to sleep.
The boy's sleep was sweet. He had decided the matter in his own heart, and had given himself a first lesson in what we would to-day call the new education. In this case it was an editorial education.
It was a lovely winter morning. There was joy in all Nature; the air was clear and keen; the Schuylkill rippled bright in the glory of the sun. He rose before the sun, and went to his work with a clear conscience, but probably dreading the anger of the patron when he should give him his decision.
When the baker's shop opened he may have bought another twopenny roll. He certainly sat down and ate one, with a dipper of water.
In the later hours of the morning the door opened, and the patron came in with a beaming face.
"Have you read it?"
"Yes, I have read the article, sir."
"Won't that be a good one? What did you think of it?"
"That I ought not to use it."
"Why?" asked the man, greatly astonished.
"I can not be sure that it would not do injustice to the person whom you have attacked. There are always two sides to a case. I myself would not like to be publicly ridiculed in that manner. Detraction leads to detraction, and hatred begets hate."
"But you must have money, my Boston lad. Have you thought of that?" was the suggestion.
Franklin drew himself up in the strength and resolution of young manhood, and made the following answer, which we give, as we think, almost in his very words:
"I am sorry to say, sir, that I think the article is scurrilous and defamatory. But I have been at a loss, on account of my poverty, whether to reject it or not. I therefore put it to this issue. At night, when my work was done, I bought a twopenny loaf, on which I supped heartily, and then wrapping myself in my greatcoat slept very soundly on the floor until morning, when another loaf and a mug of water afforded a pleasant breakfast. Now, sir, since I can live very comfortably in this manner, why should I prostitute my press to personal hatred or party passion for a more luxurious living?"
This experience may be regarded as temporizing, but it was inward education in the right direction, a step that led upward. It shows the trend of the way, the end of which is the "path of the just, that leads more and more unto the perfect day."
A young man who was willing to eat a twopenny roll and to sleep on the floor of his pressroom for a principle, had in him the power that lifts life, and that sustains it when lifted. He who puts self under himself for the sake of justice has in him the gravitation of the skies. Uncle Ben's counsels were beginning to live in him. Jenny's girl's faith was budding in his heart, and it would one day bloom. He was turning to the right now, and he would advance. There are periods in some people's lives when they do not write often to their best friends; such a one had just passed with Ben. During the Governor Keith misadventures he had not written home often, as the reader may well imagine. But now that he had comeback to Philadelphia and was prosperous, the memory of loving Jenny began to steal back into his heart.
He had heard that Jenny, now at sweet sixteen, was famous for her beauty. He may have been jealous of her, we do not know; but he was apprehensive that she might become vain, and he regarded modesty, even at his early age of twenty-one or twenty-two, as a thing very becoming a blooming girl.
One day he wrote to her, "Jenny, I am going to send you a present by the next ship to Boston town."
The promise filled the girl's heart with delight. Her faith in him had never failed, nor had her love for him changed.
What would the present be?
She went to her mother to help her solve this riddle.
"Perhaps it will be a ring," she said. "I would rather have that from Ben than any other thing."
"But he would not send a ring by ship," said her mother, "but by the post chaise."
"True, mother; it can not be that. It may be a spinet. I think it is a spinet. He knows how we have delighted in father's violin. He might like to send me a harp, but what is a spinet but a harp in a box?"
"I think it may be that, Jenny. He would send a spinet by ship, and he knows how much we all love music."
"Yes, and he must see how many girls are adding the music of the spinet to their accomplishments."
"Wouldn't a spinet be rather out of place in a candle shop?" asked the mother.
"Not out of place in the parlor of a candle shop," said Jenny with dignity.
"Do you think that you could learn to play the spinet, Jenny?"
"I would, if Ben were to send me one. I have been true to Ben all along. I have never given him up. He may get out of place in life, but he is sure to get back again. A true heart always does. I am sure that it is a spinet that he will send. I dreamed," she added, "that I heard a humming sound in the air something like a harp. I dreamed it in the morning, and morning dreams come true."
"A humming sound," said Josiah Franklin, who had come within hearing; "there are some things besides spinets that make humming sounds, and Ben must know how poor we are. I am glad that his heart is turning home again, after hisscatteringadventures with the Governor. It is not every one who goes to sea without a rudder that gets back to port again."
Jenny dreamed daily of the coming ship and present. The ship came in, and one evening at dark an old sailor knocked at the door. He presently came in and announced that they had a "boxed-up" thing for one Jane Franklin on board the ship. Should he send it by the cartman to the house?
"Yes, yes!" cried Jenny. "Now I know it is a spinet I heard humming—I told you about it, mother."
The girl awaited the arrival of the gift with a flushed cheek and a beating heart. It came at last, and was brought in by candlelight.
It was indeed a "boxed-up" thing.
The family gathered around it—the father and mother, the boys and the girls.
Josiah Franklin broke open the box with his great claw hammer, which might have pleased an Ajax.
"O Jenny!" he exclaimed, "that will make a humming indeed. Ben has not lost his wits yet—or he has found them again."
"What is it? What is it, father?"
"The most sensible thing in all the world. See there, it is a spinning-wheel!"
Jane's heart sank within her. Her dreams vanished into the air—the delights of the return of Sindbad the Sailor were not to be hers yet. The boys giggled. She covered her face with her hands to hide her confusion and to gain heart.
"I don't care," she said at last, choking. "I think Ben is real good, and I willforgive him. I can spin. The wheel is a beauty."
The gift was accompanied by a letter. In it Benjamin told her that he had heard that she had been much praised for her beauty, but that it was industry and modesty that most merited commendation in a young girl. The counsel was as homely as much of that that Uncle Benjamin used to give little Benjamin, but she choked down her feelings.
"Benjamin was thinking of you as well as of me when he sent me that present," she said to her mother. "I will make music with the wheel, and the humming will make us all happy. I think that Ben is real good—and a spinet would have been out of place here. I will write him a beautiful letter in return, and will not tell him how I had hoped for a spinet. It is all better as it is. That is best which will do the most good."
If Franklin sent a practical spinning-wheel to Jenny when she was a girl, with much advice in which there was no poetry, such a sense of homely duties soon passed away. He came to send her beautiful presents of fabrics, "black and purple gowns," wearing apparel of elegant texture, and ribbons. When he became rich it was his delight to make happy the home of Jane Mecom—his poetic, true-hearted sister "Jenny," whose heart had beat to his in every step of his advancing life.
She became the mother of a large family of children, and when one of them ran away and went to sea she took all the blame of it to herself, and thought that if she had made his home pleasanter for him he would not have left it. In her self-blame she wrote to her brother to confess how she had failed in her duty toward the boy. Franklin read her heart, and wrote to her that the boy was wholly to blame, which could hardly have been comforting. Jenny would rather have been to blame herself. There was but little wrong in this world in her eyes, except herself.
She saw the world through her own heart.
Therewas a fine, busy old gentleman that young Franklin met about the time that he opened his printing office, whose course it will be interesting to follow. Almost every young man sometimes meets a man of this type and character. He is certain to be found, as are any of the deterrent people in the Pilgrim's Progress. He is the man in whose eyes there is ruin lurking in every form of prosperity, who sees only the dark side of things—to whom, as we now say, everything "is going to the dogs."
We will call him Mr. Calamity, for that name represents what he had come to be as a prophet.[B]
One day young Franklin heard behind him the tap, tap, tap of a cane. It was a time when Philadelphia was beginning to rise, and promised unparalleled prosperity. The cane stopped with a heavy sound.
"What—what is this I hear?" said Mr. Calamity. "You are starting a printing office, they say. I am sorry, sorry."
"Why are you sorry, sir?" asked the young printer.
"Oh, you are a smart, capable young man, one who in the right place would succeed in life. I hate to see you throw yourself away."
"But is not this the right place?"
"What, Philadelphia?"
"Yes, it is growing."
"That shows how people are deceived. Haven't you any eyes?"
"Yes, yes."
"But what were they made for? Can't you see what is coming?"
"A great prosperity, sir."
"Oh, my young man, how you are deceived, and how feather-headed people have deceived you! Don't you know that this show of prosperity is all delusion; that people of level heads are calling in their bills, and that this is a hard time for creditors? The age of finery has gone, and the age of rags has come. Rags, sir, rags!"
"No, sir, no. I thought the people were getting out of debt. See how many people are building."
"They are building to be ready for the crash—they do not know what else to do with their money; calamity is coming."
"But how do you know, sir?"
"Know? It requires but little wit to know. I can feel it in my head. The times are not what they used to be. William Penn is dead, and none of his descendants are equal to him. Look at the Quakers, see how worldly they are becoming! Most people are living beyond their means! Property," he added, "is all on the decline. In a fewyears you will see people moving away from here. You will hear that the Proprietors have failed. Young man, don't go into business here. Let me tell you a secret, though I hate to do it, as your heart is bent upon setting up the printing business here; listen to me now—the whole province is going to fail. Before us is bankruptcy. Do you hear it—that awful, awful wordbankruptcy?The Governor himself, in my opinion, is on the way to bankruptcy now. The town will have to all go out of business, and then there will be bats and owls in the garrets, and the wharves will rot. I sometimes think that I will have to quit my country."
"Do other folks think as you do?"
"Ay, ay, don't they? All that have any heads with eyes. Some folks have eyes for the present, some for the past, and some for the future. I am one of those that have eyes for the future. I expect to see grass growing in the streets before I die, and I shall not have to live long to pluck buttercups under the King's Arms. I pity young chickens like you that will have no place to run to."
"But, sir," said young Franklin, "suppose things do take another turn. The young settlers are all building; the old people are enlarging their estates. It is easy to borrow money, and it looks to me that we will have here twice as many people in another generation as we have now. If the city should grow, what an opening there is for a printer! I shall take the risk."
"Risk—risk? Jump off a ship on the high sea with an iron ball on your feet! Go down, and stick there. Business, I tell you, is going to die here, and who would want to read what a stripling like you would write outside of business? Youwould print that this one had failed, that that one had failed, and one don't collect bills handy from people who have failed. I tell you that the whole province is about to fail, and Philadelphia is going to ruin, and I advise you to turn right about and pack up, and go to some other place. There will never be any chance for you here."
Tap, tap, tap, went his cane, and he moved away.
Young Franklin started to go to his work with a heavy heart. The cane stopped. Old Mr. Calamity looked around.
"I've warned you," said he with a flourish of the cane. "I tell you, I tell you everything is going back to the wilderness, and I pity you, but not half so much as you will pity yourself if you embark in the printing business, and print failures for nothing, to fail yourself some day. This is the age of rags, rags!"
Tap, tap, tap, went on the cane, and the old gentleman chuckled.
Young Franklin went on in his business. What was he to do? He saw everything with hopeful eyes. But he was young. His heart told him to go on in his undertaking, and he went on.
He had been laughed at in Boston, and old Mr. Calamity had risen up here to laugh at him again.
He knew not how it was, but it was in him to become a printer. As the young waterfowl knows the water as soon as it toddles from his nest, so young Franklin from his boyhood saw his life in this new element; the press was to be the source of America's rise, power, and glory, the throne of the republic; it was to make and mold and fulfill by its influence publicopinion; the same public opinion was to rule America, and the young printer of Philadelphia was to lead the way now, and to reap the fruits of his spiritual resolution after he was seventy years of age. He saw it, he felt it, he knew his own mind. So he left behind old Mr. Calamity for the present, but he was soon to meet him again.
He had now taken a third step on the ladder of life. His business should be built upon honor.
The next time that he met Mr. Calamity, the old gentleman gave him a view of the prospects of a printer.
"If you think that you are going to get your foot on the ladder of life by becoming a printer, you will find that you have mistaken your calling. None of the great men of old were printers, were they? Homer was no printer, was he?"
"I have never heard that he was."
"Nor did you hear of any one who ever printed the Iliad or the Odyssey. No printer was ever heard of among the immortals. A printer just prints—that is all. Solomon never printed anything, did he?"
"I never read that he did, sir."
"Nor Shakespeare?"
"I never heard that he did, sir."
"A printer has no chance to rise; he just builds the ark for Noah to sail in, and is left behind himself."
"I hope to print some of my own thoughts, sir."
"You do? Ha! ha! ha! Who do you think is going to read them? Your own thoughts—that does give me a stitch in the side, and makes me laugh so loud and swing my cane so high that it sets the cats and dogs to running. See them goover the garden fence! I shall watch your course, and when you begin to scatter your ideas about in the world, I hope I will be living to gather some of them up. I hope they will never lead a revolution!"
Franklin's "Ça Ira" were the words that led the French Revolution.
Atthe age of fifteen Franklin had avowed himself a deist, or theist, which must have grieved his parents, who were people of positive Christian faith. He loved to argue, and when he had learned the Socratic art of asking questions so as to lead one to confuse himself, and of answering questions in the subjunctive mood, he sought nothing more than disputations in the stanch Puritan town. His intimate friends were deists, but they came to early failure through want of faith or any positive moral conviction. Governor Keith was a deist.
The reader may ask what we mean by a deist here. A deist or theist in Franklin's time was one who believed in a God, but questioned the Christian faith and system. He was not an atheist. He held that a personal governing power directed all things after his own will and purpose. Under the providence of this Being things came and went, and man could not know how or why, but could simply believe that all that was was for the good of all.
At the age of twenty-two young Franklin began to see that life without faith had no meaning, but was failure. In the omnipotence of spiritual life and power the soul must share ordie. Negations or denials did not satisfy him. This was a positive world, governed by spiritual law. To disobey these laws was loss and death.
He had been doing wrong. He had done wrong in yielding to his personal feelings in leaving home in the manner which he did. He had committed acts of social wrong. He had followed at times the law of the lower nature instead of the higher. He had become intimate with two friends who had led him into unworthy conduct, and over whom his own influence had not been good. He saw that the true value of life lies in its influence. There were things in his life that tended to ruin influence. There were no harvests to be expected from the barren rocks of negation and denials of faith in the highest good. Sin gives one nothing that one can keep. He must change his life, he must obey perfectly the spiritual laws of his being. He saw it, and resolved to begin.
Now began a struggle between Benjamin Franklin the natural man and Benjamin Franklin the spiritual man that lasted for life. It became his purpose to gain the spiritual mastery, and to obey the laws of regeneration and eternal life.
Here are his first resolutions:
"Those who write of the art of poetry teach us that, if we would write what may be worth reading, we ought always, before we begin to form a regular plan and design of our piece; otherwise we shall be in danger of incongruity. I am apt to think it is the same as to life. I have never fixed a regular design in life, by which means it has been a confused variety of different scenes. I am now entering upon a new life; let me, therefore, make some resolutions, and form some scheme ofaction, that henceforth I may live in all respects like a rational creature.
"1. It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time, till I have paid what I owe.
"2. To endeavor to speak truth in every instance, to give nobody expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim at sincerity in every word and action; the most amiable excellence in a rational being.
"3. To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of growing suddenly rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty.
"4. I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever, not even in a matter of truth; but rather by some means excuse the faults I hear charged upon others, and, upon proper occasions, speak all the good I know of everybody."
But there must be a personal God, since he himself had personality, and he must seek a union of soul with his will beyond these mere moral resolutions.
At the age of twenty-two he composed a litany after the manner of the Episcopal Church, but adapted to his own conditions. In this he prays for help in the points where he had found himself to be morally and spiritually weak.
These petitions and resolutions show his inward struggles. They reveal his ideals, and to fulfill these ideals became the end of his life. For the acts of wrong which he had done in his period of adventures, and the unworthy life that he had then led, he tried to make reparation. The spiritual purpose of Benjamin Franklin had obtained the mastery over the natural man.Honor was his star, and more spiritual light was his desire and quest.
He married Miss Read, the young woman who had laughed at him when he had entered Philadelphia eating his penny roll, with two rolls of bread under his arm, and his superfluous clothing sticking out of his pocket. He had neglected her during his adventures abroad, but she forgave him, and he had become in high moral resolution another man now.
As a printer in Philadelphia his paper voiced the public mind and heart on all which were then most worthy. To publish a paper that advocates the best sentiments of a virtuous people is the shortest way to influence in the world. Franklin found it so. The people sought in him the representative, and from the printing office he was passed by natural and easy stages to the halls of legislation.
So these resolutions to master himself may be regarded as another step on the ladder of life. To benefit the world by inventions is a good thing, but to lift it by an example of self-control and an unselfish life is a nobler thing, and on this plane we find young Franklin standing now. Franklin is the master of Franklin, and the influence of Silence Dogood through the press is filling the province of Pennsylvania. The paper which he established in Philadelphia was called the Pennsylvania Gazette. In connection with this he began to publish a very popular annual called Poor Richard's Almanac, about which we will tell you in another chapter.
Right doing is the way to advancement—Franklin had this resolution; a newspaper that voices the people is a way to advancement—such a one Franklin had founded; and good humoris a way to advancement, and of this Franklin found an expression in Poor Richard's Almanac which has not yet ceased to be quoted in the world. It was the means of conveying Silence Dogood's special messages to every one. It made the whole world happier. Franklin, on account of the wise sayings in the almanac, himself came to be called "Poor Richard."
Franklinis now a man of character, benevolence, wisdom, and humor. He is a printer, a publisher, a man whose thoughts are influencing public opinion. He is a very prosperous man; he is making money and reputation, but it is not the gaining of either of these that is true success, but of right influence. It is not the answer to the question, What are you worth? or What is your popularity? but What is your influence? that determines the value of a man.
He had founded life on right principles, and he had well learned the trade in his youth that leads a poor young man of right principles and nobility to success. He took the right guideboard, and the "Please-everybody" Governor did him a good service when he showed him that to become a printer in Philadelphia would bring him influence, fame, and fortune. People who are well meaning, beyond the ability to fulfill their intentions, sometimes reveal to others what may be of most use to them. It was not altogether an unfortunate day when the wandering printer boy met Governor Keith.
In the midst of his prosperity Silence Dogood was constantly seeking out inventions to help people. When he was about thirty-four years of age, in the Poor Richard days,he saw that the forests were disappearing, and that there would be a need for the people to practice economy in the use of fuel. The fireplaces in the chimneys were great consumers of wood, and in many of them, to use the housewife's phrase, "the heat all went up the chimney." But that was not all; many of the chimneys of the good people smoked, and in making a fire rooms would be filled with smoke, or, to use again the housewife's term, "the smoke would all come out into the room."
When this was so the people would all flee to cold rooms with smarting eyes. New houses in which chimneys smoked were sometimes taken down or altered to make room for new chimneys that would draw. Franklin sought to bring relief to this sorry condition of affairs.
He invented the Franklin stove, from which the heat would go out into the room, and not "up the chimbly," to use a provincial word. This cheerful stove became a great comfort to the province, and to foreign countries as well. It saved fuel, and brought the heat of the fire into the room.
He long afterward began to study chimneys, and after much experiment found that those that smoked need not be taken down, but that only a draught was needed to cause the smoke to rise in rarefied air. The name of the Franklin stove added very greatly to Poor Richard's wisdom, in making for Franklin an American reputation, which also extended to Europe. His fame arose along original ways. Surely no one ever walked in such ways before.
He formed a club called the Junto, which became very prosperous, and gave strength to his local reputation. He also begana society for the study of universal knowledge, which was called the Philosophical Society.
A man can do the most when he is doing the most. One thing leads to another; one thing feeds another, and one does not suffer in health or nerves from the many things that one loves to do. It is disinclination or friction that wears one down. People who have been very busy in what they most loved to do have usually lived to be old, and come down to old age in the full exercise of their powers.
While Franklin was thus seeking how he could make himself useful to every one in many ways—for a purpose of usefulness finds many paths—his attention was called to a very curious discovery that had been made in the Dutch city of Leyden, in November, 1745. It was an electrical bottle called the Leyden jar.
Nature herself had been discharging on a stupendous scale her own Leyden jars through all generations, but no one seems to have understood these phenomena until this memorable year brought forth the magical little bottle which was a flashlight in the long darkness of time.
The Greeks had found that amber when rubbed would attract certain light substances, and the ancient philosophers and doctors had discovered the value of an electric shock from a torpedo in rheumatic complaints; that sparks would follow the rubbing of the fur of animals in cold air had also been noticed, but of magnetism, and of electricity, which is a current of magnetism, the world was ignorant, except as to some of its more common and obvious effects.
In 1600 Dr. Gilbert, of England, discovered that many othersubstances besides amber could be made to develop an attractive power. He also discovered that there are many substances that can not be electrically excited.
In 1650 Otto von Guericke, the inventor of the air-pump, made a machine which looked like a little grindstone—a wheel of sulphur mounted on a turning axle, which being used with friction produced powerful electrical sparks and lights. He found by experiments with this machine that bodies thus exerted by friction may impart electricity to other bodies, and that bodies so electrified may repel as well as attract.
Sir Isaac Newton made an electrical machine of glass, and Stephen Gray, in 1720, said that if a large amount of electricity could bestored, great results might be expected from it.
Charles François Dufay detected that there were two kinds of electricity, which he called "vitreous" and "resinous."
A great discovery was coming. The first beams of a new planet were rising. How did there come into existence the "magical bottle" known as the Leyden jar?
At Leyden three philosophers were experimenting in electricity. "We can produce electrical effects," said one. "If we could accumulate and retain electricity we would have power."
They electrified a cannon suspended by silk cords. A few minutes after ceasing to turn the handle of the electrical machine which supplied the cannon with fluid, the charge was gone.
"If we could surround an electrified body with a nonconducting substance," said Professor Musschenbroek, "we could imprison it; we could accumulate and store it." He added:"Glass is a nonconductor of electricity, and water is a good conductor. If I could charge with electricity water in a bottle, I could possess it and control it like other natural powers."
He attempted to do this. He suspended a wire from a charged cannon to the water in a bottle, but for a time no result followed.
One day, however, Mr. Cuneus, one of the scientists, while engaged in this experiment, chanced to touch the conductor with one hand and the electrified bottle with the other. It was a mere accident. He leaped in terror. What had happened? He had received an electric shock. What did it mean? A revolution in the use of one of the greatest of the occult forces of Nature.
Terror was followed by amazement. Mr. Cuneus told Professor Musschenbroek what had happened.
The professor repeated the experiment, with the same result.
If electricity could be secured, accumulated, and discharged, what might not follow as the results of further experiments?
It was several days before the professor recovered from the shock. "I would not take a second shock," he said, "for the kingdom of France!"
Thus the Leyden jar came into use. The news of the experiment flew over Germany and Europe. Scientific people everywhere went to making Leyden jars and imprisoning electricity.
Society took up the invention as a wonder toy. Gunpowder was discharged from the point of the finger by persons charged on an insulating stool. Electrical kisses passed from bold lips to lips in social circles. Even timid people mounted up oncakes of resin that their friends might see their hair stand on end. Sir William Watson, of London, completed the electrical fountain by coating the bottle in and out with tinfoil.
The great news reached America. Franklin heard of it; no ears were more alert than his to profit by suggestions like this.
Mr. Peter Collinson, of London, sent to him an account of Professor Musschenbroek's magical bottle.
He told his friends of the Junto Club of the invention, and set them all to rubbing electric substances for sparks.
He had invented many useful things. A new force had fallen under the control of man. He must investigate it; he must experiment with it; he too must have a magical bottle.
"I never," he wrote in 1747, "was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and time as this has lately done; for what with making experiments when I can be alone, and repeating them to my friends and acquaintances who from the novelty of the thing come continually in crowds to see them, I have during some months past had little leisure for anything else."
What was magnetism? What was electricity? What secrets of Nature might the magical bottle reveal? To what use might the new power which might be stored and imprisoned be put? Silence Dogood, ponder night and day over the curious toy. The world waits for you to speak, for Nature is about to reveal one of her greatest secrets to you—you who gave two penny rolls to the poor woman and child on the street, after Deborah Read, your wife now, had had her good laugh. Your good wife will laugh again some day, when youhave further poked around among electrical tubes and bottles, and have brought your benevolent mind to bear upon some of the secrets contained in the magical bottle. You have added virtue to virtue; you are adding intelligence to intelligence; such things grow. Discoveries come to those who are prepared to receive them.
Therecame from Europe to America at this time some electrical tubes, which being rubbed produced surprising results. To the curious they were toys, but to Franklin they were prophecies. There were three Philadelphians who joined with Franklin in the study of the effects that could be produced by these tubes and the Leyden vial.
Franklin's son William was verging on manhood. He was beyond the years that we find him experimenting with his father in the old pictures. He became the last royal Governor of New Jersey some years afterward, and a Tory, and his politics at that period was a sore grief to his father's heart. But he was a bright, free-hearted boy now, nearly twenty, and his father loved him, and the two were harmonious and were companions for each other.
Franklin, we may suppose, interested the boy in the bristling tubes and the magical bottle. The stored electricity in the latter was like the imprisoned genii of the Arabian Nights. Let the fairy loose, he suddenly mingled with native elements, and one could not gather him again. But another could be gathered.
The Philadelphia philosophers wondered greatly at the new effects that Franklin was able to produce from the tubes and the bottle. Did not the genii in the vial hold the secret of the earth, and might not the earth itself be a magnet, and might not magnetism fill interstellar space?
The wonder grew, and its suggestions. One of the Philadelphia philosophers, Philip Sing, invented an electrical machine. A like machine had been made in Europe, but of this Mr. Sing did not know.
The Philadelphia philosophers discovered the power of metallic points to draw off electricity.
"Electricity is not created by friction," observed one of these men. "It is only collected by it."
"And all our experiments show," argued Franklin, "that electricity is positive and negative."
During the winter of 1746-'47 these men devoted as much of their time as they could spare to electrical experiments.
"William," said one of the philosophers to the son of Franklin one day, "you have brought your friends here to see the vial genii; he is a lively imp. Let me show you some new things which I found he can do."
He brought out a bottle of spirits and poured the liquid into a plate. "Stand up on the insulating stool, my boy, and let me electrify you, and see if the imp loves liquor."
The lively lad obeyed. He pointed his finger down to the liquor in the plate. It burst into flame, startling the audience.
"Now," said another of the philosophers, "let me ask you to give me a magic torch."
He presented to his finger a candle with an alcoholic wick. The candle was at once lighted, emitting sparks as it began to burn.
"Hoi, hoi!" said the philosopher to the young visitors, "what do you think of a young man whose touch is fire? We have a Faust among us, sure!"
"Now, girls, which of you would like to try an experiment?" we may suppose Father Franklin to say, in the spirit of Poor Richard.
William stepped down, and an adventurous girl took his place on the experimental stool.
"You have all heard of the electric kiss," said Poor Richard. "Let this young lady give you one. I will prepare her for it."
He did.
Another girl stepped up to receive it. She expected to receive a spark from her friend's lips; but instead of a spark she received a shock that caused her to leap and to bend double, and to utter a piercing cry.
"I don't think that the kissing of young men and young women in public is altogether in good taste," said the philosophers, "but if any of you young men want to salute this lively young lady in that way, there will be in this case no objections."
But none of the young men cared to be thrown into convulsions by the innocent-looking lass, who seemed to feel no discomfort.
Experiments like these filled the city and province with amazement. The philosopher made a spider of burned corkthat wouldrun, and cause other people to run who had not learned the wherefore of the curious experiment.
The wonderful Leyden vial became Franklin's companion. He liked ever to be experimenting in what the new force would do. What next? what next? How like lightning was this electricity! How could he increase electrical force?
He says at the end of a long narrative:
"We made what we called anelectrical battery, consisting of eleven panes of large sash-glass, armed with thin leaden plates pasted on each side, placed vertically, and supported at two inches distance on silk cords, with thick hooks of leaden wire, one from each side, standing upright, distant from each other, and convenient communications of wire and chain, from the giving side of one pane to the receiving side of the other, that so the whole might be charged together."
Franklin at this time was a stanch royalist. He made a figure of George II, with a crown, and so arranged it that the powerful electrical force might be stored in thecrown.
"God bless him!" said the philosopher.
A young man seeing that the crown was very attractive, attempted to remove it. It was a thing that the philosopher had expected.
The youth touched the crown. He reeled, and started back with a stroke that filled him with amazement.
"So be it with all of King George's enemies!" said the philosophers. "Never attempt to discrown the king."
"God bless him!" said Franklin. His son always continued to say this, but Franklin himself came to see that he who discrowns kings may be greater than kings, and that it becamethe duty of a people to discrown tyrannical kings, and to make a king of the popular will.
Franklin now resolved to give up his business affairs to others, to refuse political office, and to devote himself to science. The latter resolution he did not keep. He went to live on a retired spot on the Delaware, where he had a large garden, and could be left to his experiments and thoughts upon them. With him went the magical bottle and his interesting son William.
The power of metallic points to draw off lightning now filled his mind. "Could the lightning be controlled?" he began to ask. "Could the power of the thunderbolt be disarmed?"
Every element can be made to obey its own laws. Water will bear up iron if the iron be hollow. But deeply and more deeply must the thoughts engage the mind of the philosopher. "Is lightning electricity? Does electricity fill all space?" He wrote two philosophical papers at this critical period of his life, when he sought to give up money-making and political life for the study of that science which would be most useful to man. He who gives up gains. He who is willing to deny himself the most shall have the most. He that loseth his life shall save it. He who seeketh the good of others shall find it in himself.
One of these papers was entitled "Opinions and Conjectures concerning the Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter, and the Means of preserving Ships and Buildings from Lightning, arising from Experiments and Observations at Philadelphia in 1749."
In this treatise, which at last made his fame, he shows the similarity of electricity to lightning, and gives a description of an experiment in which a little lightning-rod had drawn away electricity from an artificial storm cloud. He says:
"If these things are so, may not the knowledge of this power of points be of use to mankind in preserving houses, churches, ships, etc., from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix on the highest part of those edifices upright rods of iron made sharp as a needle, and gilt to prevent rusting, and from the foot of those rods a wire down the outside of the building into the ground, or down round one of the shrouds of a ship, and down her side till it reaches the water? Would not these pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief?"
A great discovery was at hand.