"My son," said that mother, "is endowed with more than ordinary talent, and he shall enter one of the professions, perhaps the ministry."
The family was then very poor, the elder Franklin having no ambition beyond that of making a bare competence as a ship-chandler. Encouraged by his mother, however, young Benjamin "took to books" with such ardor that before he was ten years old his mother spoke of him as "our little professor," and added:
"He shall serve either humanity or his country; the one as a minister of the Gospel, the other as a diplomat."
The first John Jacob Astor said: "Whatever I have accomplished through thrift is due to the teachings of my mother. She trained me to the habit of early rising; she made me devote the first waking hours to reading the Bible. Those habits have continued through my life, and have been to me a source of unfailing comfort. Her death was the greatest grief of my existence."
WHEN THACKERAY WENT ON STRIKE.
In a Letter Written to the Publisher of an English Magazine, the Famous Novelist Demanded
as Good Pay as That of the "Monthly Nurse."
There are authors' clubs and authors' societies in nearly every national literary center in the world, but up to the present time the trade of authorship has not been formally affiliated with that of any kind of trade-unionism. For this very reason, authors are compelled to make their demands individually.
This was the situation that confronted William Makepeace Thackeray at a time when his writings were first beginning to win popularity in England. It was in 1837, the year after his marriage to Isabella Shawe—a chronological sequence which perhaps accounts for his increased need of money. He was contributing "The Yellowplush Papers" to the successive issues of Fraser's Magazine, and he had made up his mind that his work ought to yield him a more satisfactory financial return. The result was he went on strike, as may be seen by the following letter which he wrote to James Fraser, the proprietor of the magazine:
Boulogne, Monday, February.