To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures now remain, but the reflection of a long life spent in meaning well, the sensible conversation of a few good lady ephemeræ, and now and then a kind smile and a tune from the ever amiable Brillante.
The Whistle, too, was addressed to Madame Brillon and is also one of the most celebrated of Franklin's bagatelles, but is scarcely equal, we think, to the best of them.
In his opinion, Franklin said, they might all draw more good from the world than they did if they would take care not to give too much for whistles. With this foreword, he tells his story. When a child of seven years of age, his friends on a holiday filled his pocket with coppers, and, being charmed with the sound of a whistle that he met by the way in the hands of another boy, he voluntarily offered, and gave all his money for one. He then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with his whistle, but disturbing the entire family. But his brothers and sisters told him that he had given four times as much for the whistle as it was worth, put him in mind of what good things he might have bought with the rest of the money and laughed at him so much for his folly that he cried with vexation. The lesson, however, was of use to him, so that often, when he was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, he said to himself, "Don't give too much for the whistle," and he saved his money. And so, when he grew up, came into the world and observed the actions of men, he thought he met with many, very many who gave too much for the whistle.
He then mentions who some of these men were, the man ambitious of court favor, the man covetous of political popularity, the miser, the slave of pleasure, the devotee of fashion, the beautiful, sweet-tempered girl, married to an ill-natured brute of a husband, and, after the mention of each, comes the running comment, "This man gives too much for his whistle," or its equivalent.
Yet [Franklin concludes], I ought to have charity for these unhappy people, when I consider, that, with all this wisdom of which I am boasting, there are certain things in the world so tempting, for example, the apples of King John, which happily are not to be bought; for if they were put to sale by auction, I might very easily be led to ruin myself in the purchase, and find that I had once more given too much for the whistle.
The reader has already had occasion to know what kind of fruit these apples of King John were, and in whose orchard they grew.
To realize what an indifferent poet Franklin was, and yet at the same time what a master of prose, one has but to first read his petite chanson à boire beginning,
"Fair Venus calls; her voice obey,"
and then his letter to the Abbé Morellet on wine. The letter was written to repay the Abbé for some of his excellent drinking songs.
"In vino veritas," said the sage, [is the way Franklin begins]. Before Noah, when men had nothing but water to drink, they could not find the truth, so they went astray, and became abominably wicked, and were justly exterminated by the water that they were fond of drinking. Good man Noah, seeing that this bad drink had been the death of all his contemporaries, contracted an aversion to it, and God to quench his thirst, created the vine, and revealed to him the art of making wine. With its aid, Noah discovered many and many a truth, and, since his time, the word "divine" has been in use, meaning originally to discover by means of wine.... Since that time, too, all excellent things, even deities themselves, have been called divine or divinities.