Here the governor caught Ben in his arms as a delighted father would his son, calling out at the same time to the captain, "How greatly am I obliged to you, sir, for bringing me to an acquaintance with this charming boy? O! what a delightful thing it would be for us old fellows to converse with sprightful youth if they were but all like him!—But the d——l of it is, most parents are as blind as bats to the true glory and happiness of their children. Most parents never look higher for their sons than to see them delving like muckworms for money; or hopping about like jay-birds, in fine feathers. Hence their conversation is generally no better than froth and nonsense."
After several other handsome compliments on Ben, and the captain expressing a wish to be going, the governor shook hands with Ben, begging at the same time that he would for ever consider him as one of his fastest friends, and also never came to New-York without coming to see him.
CHAPTER XX.
On returning to the tavern, he hastened into his chamber, where he found his drunken comrade, poor Collins, in a fine perspiration, and considerably sobered, owing to the refrigerating effects of a pint of strong sage tea, with a tea-spoonful of saltpetre, which Ben, before he set out to the governor's, had pressed on him as a remedy he had somewhere read, much in vogue among the London topers, to cool off after a rum fever. Collins appeared still to have enough of brandy in him for a frolic; but when Ben came to tell him of the amiable governor Burnet, in whose company, at his own palace, he had spent a most delightful evening; and also to remind him of the golden opportunity he had lost, of forming an acquaintance with that noble gentleman, poor Collins wept bitterly.
Ben was exceedingly affected to see him in tears, and endeavoured to comfort him. But he refused comfort. He said, "if this had been the first time, he should not himself think much of it; but he candidly confessed, that for a long time he had been guilty of it, though till of late he had always kept it to himself, drinking in his chamber. But now he felt at times," he said, "an awful apprehension that he was a lost man. His cravings for liquor were so strong on the one hand, and on the other his powers of resistance so feeble, that it put him fearfully in mind of the dismal state of a poor wretch, within the fatal attraction of a whirlpool, whose resistless suction, in spite of all his feeble efforts, was hurrying him down to sure and speedy destruction."
Collins, who was exceedingly eloquent on every subject, but especially on one so nearly affecting himself, went on deploring his misfortune in strains so tender and pathetic, that Ben, whose eyes were fountains ever ready to flow at the voice of sorrow, could not refrain from weeping, which he did most unfeignedly for a long esteemed friend now going to ruin. He could bear, he said, to see the brightest plumed bird, charmed by the rattle-snake, descending into the horrid sepulchre of the monster's jaws. He could bear to see the richest laden Indiaman, dismasted and rudderless, drifting ashore on the merciless breakers; because made of dust, these things must at any rate return to dust, again. But to see an immortal mind stopped in her first soarings, entangled and limed in the filth of so brutal a vice as drunkenness—that was a sight he could not bear. And as a mother looking on her child that is filleted for the accursed Moloch, cannot otherwise than shed tears, so Ben, when he looked on poor Collins, could not but weep when he saw him the victim of destruction.
However, as a good wit turns every thing to advantage, this sudden and distressing fall of poor Collins, set Ben to thinking: and the result of his thoughts noted down in his journal of that day, deserves the attention of all young men of this day; and even will as long as human nature endures.
"Wit," says he, "in young men, is dangerous, because apt to breed vanity, which, when disappointed, brings them down, and by depriving them of natural cheerfulness, drives them to the bottle for that which is artificial.—And learning also is dangerous, when it is aimed at as an end and not a mean. A young man who aspires to be learned merely for fame, is in danger; for, familiarity breeding contempt, creates an uneasy void that drives him to the bottle. Hence so many learned men with red noses. But when a man from a benevolent heart, seeks learning for the sublime pleasure of imitating the Deity in doing good, he is always made so happy in the spirit and pursuit of this godlike object, that he needs not the stimulus of brandy."
This one hint, if duly reflected on by young men, would render the name of Franklin dear to them for ever.
CHAPTER XXI.