"In what Franklin is, and in what he imparts, there is nothing peculiar, nothing exciting, nothing surprising, nothing mysterious, nothing brilliant nor dazzling; it is the water of life, the water which all creatures stand in need of." (Here it was written on the margin,—Deep springs are yet to be bored for, and to be found here) "The man of the past eighteenth century had no idea of the people, could have none, for it was wrung and refined out of the free thinking that prevailed even to the very end of the century, even to the revolution.
"He who creates anew stands in a strange and hostile, or, at least, independent attitude towards that which already exists.
"Franklin is the son of this age; he recognizes only the in-born worth of men, not the inherited. (Deeper boring is yet to be done here)."
With paler ink, evidently later, it was written,—
"It is not by chance, that this first not only free-thinking,—for many philosophers were this,—but also free-acting man was a printer.
"In the sphere of books lies not the heroism,—I believe that the period of heroic development is past,—but the manhood of the new age.
"Because our influence is exerted through books, there can be no longer any grand, personal manifestation of power." (Here were two interrogation-points and two exclamation-points in brackets, and there was written in pencil across this last remark,—"This can be better said.")
Then at the conclusion there was written in blue ink,—
"Abstract rules can form no character, no human being, and can create no work of art. The living man, and the concrete work of art contain all rules, as language contains all grammar, and these are the good and the beautiful.
"He who knows the real men who have preceded him, so that they live again in him, enters into their circle; he sets his foot upon the holy ground of existence, he is consecrated through the predecessors who trode it before him."