Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 15

by Unknown

Franklin's place in literature as a writer has not been generally appreciated, probably because with him writing was only a means, never an end, and his ends always dwarfed his means, however effective. He wrote to persuade others, never to parade his literary skill. He never wrote a dull line, and was never nimious. The longest production of his pen was his autobiography, written during the closing years of his life. Nearly all that he wrote besides was in the form of letters, which would hardly average three octavo pages in length. And yet whatever the subject he touched upon, he never left the impression of incompleteness or of inconclusiveness. Of him may be said, perhaps with as much propriety as of any other man, that he never said a word too soon, nor a word too late, nor a word too much. Tons of paper have been devoted to dissuasives from dueling, but the argument was never put more effectively than Franklin put it in these dozen lines of a letter to a Mr. Percival, who had sent him a volume of literary and moral dissertations.

"A gentleman in a coffee-house desired another to sit further from him. 'Why so?'—'Because you stink.'—'That is an affront, and you must fight me.'—'I will fight you if you insist upon it, but I do not see how that will mend the matter. For if you kill me, I shall stink too; and if I kill you, you will stink, if possible, worse than at present.' How can such miserable sinners as we are, entertain so much pride as to conceit that every offense against our imagined honor merits death? These petty princes, in their opinion, would call that sovereign a tyrant who should put one of them to death for a little uncivil language, though pointed at his sacred person; yet every one of them makes himself judge in his own cause, condemns the offender without a jury, and undertakes himself to be the executioner."

Some one wrote him that the people in England were abusing the Americans and speaking all manner of evil against them. Franklin replied that this was natural enough:

"They impute to us the evil they wished us. They are angry with us, and speak all manner of evil of us; but we flourish notwithstanding. They put me in mind of a violent High Church factor, resident in Boston when I was a boy. He had bought upon speculation a Connecticut cargo of onions which he flattered himself he might sell again to great profit; but the price fell, and they lay upon his hands. He was heartily vexed with his bargain, especially when he observed they began to grow in his store he had filled with them. He showed them one day to a friend. 'Here they are,' said he, 'and they are growing too. I damn them every day, but I think they are like the Presbyterians; the more I curse them, the more they grow.'"

Mr. Jefferson tells us that Franklin was sitting by his side in the convention while the delegates were picking his famous declaration of Independence to pieces, and seeing how Jefferson was squirming under their mutilations, comforted him with the following stories, the rare excellence of which has given them a currency which has long since worn off their novelty:—

"'I have made it a rule,' said he, 'whenever in my power, to avoid becoming the draftsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you.

"'When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprenticed hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome sign-board with the proper inscription. He composed it in these words: John Thompson, Hatter, makes and sells Hats for ready Money, with a figure of a hat subjoined. But he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word hatter tautologous, because followed by the words makes hats, which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word makes might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats; if good and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third said he thought the words for ready money were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit: every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, John Thompson sells hats. "Sells hats," says his next friend; "why, nobody will expect you to give them away. What then is the use of that word?" It was stricken out, and hats followed, the rather as there was one painted on the board. So his inscription was ultimately reduced to John Thompson, with the figure of a hat subjoined.'"

When the members were about to sign the document, Mr. Hancock is reported to have said, "We must be unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we must all hang together." "Yes," replied Franklin, "we must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

The Doric simplicity of his style; his incomparable facility of condensing a great principle into an apologue or an anecdote, many of which, as he applied them, have become the folk-lore of all nations; his habitual moderation of statement, his aversion to exaggeration, his inflexible logic, and his perfect truthfulness,—made him one of the most persuasive men of his time, and his writings a model which no one can study without profit. A judicious selection from Franklin's writings should constitute a part of the curriculum of every college and high school that aspires to cultivate in its pupils a pure style and correct literary taste.

There was one incident in Franklin's life, which, though more frequently referred to in terms of reproach than any other, will probably count for more in his favor in the Great Assize than any other of his whole life. While yet in his teens he became a father before he was a husband. He never did what men of the loftiest moral pretensions not unfrequently do,—shirk as far as possible any personal responsibility for this indiscretion. On the contrary, he took the fruit of it to his home; gave him the best education the schools of the country then afforded. When he went abroad, this son accompanied him, was presented as his son wherever he went, was presented in all the great houses in which he himself was received; he entered him at the Inns of Court, and in due time had him admitted to the English bar; made him his private secretary, and at an early age caused him to be appointed by the Crown, Governor of New Jersey. The father not only did everything to repair the wrong he had done his son, but at a time when he was at the zenith of his fame and official importance, publicly proclaimed it as one of the great errors of his life. The world has always abounded with bastards; but with the exception of crowned heads claiming to hold their sceptres by Divine right, and therefore beyond the reach of popular criticism or reproach, it would be difficult to name another parent of his generation of anything like corresponding eminence with Franklin, who had the courage and the magnanimity to expiate such a wrong to his offspring so fully and effectively.