The Life of Benjamin Franklin

Here Collins interrupted him, asking very sarcastically, if in this fine flourish in favour of the ladies he was really in earnest.

Never more so in all my life, replied Ben, rather nettled.

What, that the women are as capable of studying the sciences as the men?

Yes, that the women are as capable of studying the sciences as the men.

And pray, sir, continued Collins, tauntingly, do you know of any young woman of your acquaintance that would make a Newton?

And pray, sir, answered Ben, do you know any young man of your acquaintance that would? But these are no arguments, sir,—because it is not every young man or woman that can carry the science of astronomy so high as Newton, it does not follow that they are incapable of the science altogether. God sees fit in every age to appoint certain persons to kindle new lights among men.—And Newton was appointed greatly to enlarge our views of celestial objects. But we are not thence to infer that he was in all respects superior to other men, for we are told that in some instances he was far inferior to other men. Collins denied that Newton had ever shown himself, in any point of wit inferior to other men.

No, indeed, replied Ben; well what do you think of that anecdote of him, lately published in the New England Courant from a London paper?

And pray what is the anecdote? asked Collins.

Why it is to this effect, said Ben.—Newton, mounted on the wings of astronomy, and gazing at the mighty orbs of fire above, had entirely forgotten the poor little fire that slumbered on his own hearth below, which presently forgot him, that is in plain English, went out. The frost piercing his nerves, called his thoughts home, when lo! in place of the spacious skies, the gorgeous antichamber of the Almighty, he found himself in his own little nut-shell apartment, cold and dark, comparatively, as the dwelling of the winter screech-owl. He rung the bell for his servant, who after making a rousing fire, went out again. But scarcely had the servant recovered his warm corner in the kitchen, before the vile bell, with a most furious ring, summoned him the second time. The servant flew into his master's presence. Monster! cried Newton with a face inflamed as if it had been toasting at the tail of one of his comets, did you mean to burn me alive? push back the fire! for God's sake push back the fire, or I shall be a cinder in an instant!

Push back the fire! replied the servant with a growl, zounds, sir, I thought you might have had sense enough to push back your chair!

Collins swore that it was only a libel against Sir Isaac.

Ben contended that he had seen it in so many different publications, that he had no sort of doubt of its truth; especially as Sir Hans Sloan had backed it with another anecdote of Newton, in the same style; and to which he avers he was both eye and ear witness.

And pray what has that butterfly philosopher to say against the immortal Newton? asked Collins, quite angrily.

Why, replied Ben, it is this: Sloan, stepping in one day, to see Sir Isaac, was told by his servant that he was up in his study, but would be down immediately; for there, sir, you see is his dinner, which I have just set on the table.—It was a pheasant so neatly browned in the roasting, and withal so plump and inviting to the eye, that Sloan could not resist the temptation; but venturing on his great intimacy with the knight, sat down and picked the delicious bird to the bone; having desired the cook in all haste to clap another to the spit. Presently down came Sir Isaac—was very glad to see his friend Sloan—how had he been all this time? and how did he leave his good lady and family? you have not dined?

No.

Very glad of it indeed; very glad. Well then, come dine with me.—Turning to the table, he sees the dish empty, and his plate strewed with the bones of his favourite pheasant.—Lord bless me! he exclaimed, clasping his forehead, and looking betwixt laughing and blushing, at Sloan—what am I good for? I have dined, as you see, my dear friend, and yet I had entirely forgot it!

I don't believe a syllable of it, said Collins; not one syllable of it, sir.

No, replied Ben; nor one syllable, I suppose, of his famous courtship, when sitting by an elegant young lady, whom his friends wished him to make love to, he seized her lily white hand. But instead of pressing it with rapture to his bosom, he thrust it into the bowl of his pipe that he was smoking; thus making a tobacco stopper of one of the loveliest fingers in England; to the inexpressible mortification of the company, and to the most dismal scolding and screaming of the dear creature!

'Tis all a lie, sir, said Collins, getting quite mad, all a confounded lie. The immortal Newton, sir, was never capable of acting so much like a blockhead. But supposing all this slang to be true, what would you infer from it, against that prince of philosophy?—Why I would infer from it, replied Ben, that though a great man, he was but a man. And I would also infer from it in favour of my fair clients, that though they did not make Sir Isaac's discoveries in astronomy, they are yet very capable of comprehending them. And besides, I am astonished, Mr. Collins, how any gentleman that loves himself, as I know you do, can thus traduce the ladies. Don't you consider, sir, that in proportion as you lessen the dignity of the ladies, you lessen the dignity of your affections for them, and consequently, your own happiness in them, which must for ever keep pace with your ideas of their excellence.—This was certainly a home thrust; and most readers would suppose, that Ben was in a fair way to crow over his antagonist; but, Collins was a young man of too much pride and talents to give up so easily. A spirited retort, of course, was made; a rejoinder followed, and thus the controversy was kept up until the watchman bawling twelve o'clock, reminded our stripling orators that it was time for them to quit the old school-house; which with great reluctance they did, but without being any nearer the end of their argument than when they began.

CHAPTER IX

The shades of midnight had parted our young combatants, and silent and alone, Ben had trotted home to his printing-office; but still in his restless thoughts the combat raged in all its fury: still burning for victory, where truth and the ladies were at stake, he fell to mustering his arguments again, which now at the drum-beat of recollection came crowding on him so thick and strong that he felt equally ashamed and astonished that he had not utterly crushed his antagonist at once. He could see no reason on earth why Collins had made a drawn battle of it, but by his vastly superior eloquence. To deprive him of this advantage, Ben determined to attack him with his pen. And to this he felt the greater inclination, as they were not to meet again for several nights. So, committing his thoughts to paper, and taking a fair copy, he sent it to him. Collins, who, "was not born in the woods to be scared by an owl," quickly answered, and Ben rejoined. In this way several vollies had passed on both sides, when good old Josias chanced to light upon them all; both the copies of Ben's letters to Collins, and the answers. He read them with a deep interest, and that very night sent for Ben that he might talk with him on their contents. "So Ben!" said he to him as he pressed his beloved hand, "you have got into a paper war already, have you?"

Ben blushed.

I don't mean to blame you, my son, continued the old gentleman. I don't blame you; on the contrary I am delighted to see you taking such pains to improve your mind. Go on, my dear boy, go on; for your mind is the only part that is worth your care: and the more you accustom yourself to find your happiness in that, the better. The body, as I have a thousand times told you, is but nicely organized earth, that in spite of the daintiest meats and clothes, will soon grow old and withered, and then die and rot back to earth again. But the Mind, Ben, is the Heavenly part, the Immortal inhabitant, who, if early nursed with proper thoughts and affections, is capable of a feast that will endure for ever.

This your little controversy with your friend Collins is praiseworthy, because it has a bearing on that grand point, the improvement of your mind.

But let me suggest a hint or two, my son, for your better conduct of it. You have greatly the advantage of Mr. Collins in correctness of spelling and pointing; which you owe entirely to your profession as a printer; but then he is as far superior to you in other respects. He certainly has not so good a cause as you have, but, he manages it better. He clothes his ideas with such elegance of expression, and arranges his arguments with so much perspicuity and art, as will captivate all readers in his favour, and snatch the victory from you, notwithstanding your better cause. In confirmation of these remarks, the old gentleman drew from his pocket the letters of their correspondence, and read to him several passages, as strong cases in point.

Ben sensibly felt the justice of these criticisms, and after thanking his father for his goodness in making them, assured him, that as he delighted above all things in reading books of a beautiful style, so he was resolved to spare no pains to acquire so divine an art.

The next day, going into a fresh part of the town, with a paper to a new subscriber, he saw, on the side of the street, a little table spread out and covered with a parcel of toys, among which lay an odd volume, with a neat old woman sitting by. As he approached the table to look at the book, the old lady lifting on him a most pleasant countenance, said, "well my little man do you ever dream dreams?"

Ben rather startled at so strange a salutation, replied, that he had dream't in his time.—Well, continued the old woman, and what do you think of dreams; do you put any faith in 'em?

Why, no, madam, answered Ben; as I have seldom had dreams except after taking too hearty a supper, I have always looked on 'em as a mere matter of indigestion, and so have never troubled my head much about 'em.

Well now, replied the old lady, laughing, there's just the difference between you and me. I, for my part, always takes great notice of dreams, they generally turn out so true. And now can you tell what a droll dream I had last night?

Ben answered that he was no Daniel to interpret dreams.

Well, said the old lady, I dreamed last night, that a little man just like you, came along here and bought that old book of me.

Aye! why that's a droll dream sure enough, replied Ben; and pray, Madam, what do you ask for your old book?

Only four pence halfpenny, said the old lady.

Well, Madam, continued Ben, as your dreaming has generally, as you say, turned out true, it shall not be otherwise now; there's your money—so now as you have another reason for putting faith in dreams, you can dream again.

As Ben took up his book to go away, the old lady said, stop a minute, my son, stop a minute. I have not told you the whole of my dream yet. Then looking very gravely at him, she said, But though my dream showed that the book was to be bought by a little man, it did not say he was always to be little. No; for I saw, in my dream, that he grew up to be a great man; the lightnings of heaven played around his head, and the shape of a kingly crown was beneath his feet. I heard his name as a pleasant sound from distant lands, and I saw it through clouds of smoke and flame, among the tall victor ships that strove in the last battle for the freedom of the seas. She uttered this with a raised voice and glowing cheek, as though the years to come, with all their mighty deeds, were passing before her.

Ben was too young yet to suspect who this old woman was, though he felt as he had read the youthful Telemachus did, when the fire-eyed Minerva, in the shape of Mentor, roused his soul to virtue.

Farewell, Madam, said Ben with a deep sigh, as he went away; you might have spared that part of your dream, for I am sure there is very little chance of its ever coming to pass.

But though Ben went away to attend to his brother's business, yet the old woman's looks made such an impression on his mind, that he could not help going the next day to see her again; but she was not there any more.

On leaving the old woman, he opened his book, when, behold, what should it be but an odd volume of the Spectator, a book which he had not seen before. The number which he chanced to open was the vision of Mirzah; which so caught his attention that he could not take it off until he had got through. What the people thought of him for reading in that manner as he walked along the street, he knew not; nor did he once think, he was so taken up with his book. He felt as though he would give the world to write in so enchanting a style; and to that end he carried his old volume constantly in his pocket, that by committing, as it were, to memory, those sweetly flowing lines, he might stand a chance to fall into the imitation of them. He took another curious method to catch Addison's charming style; he would select some favourite chapter out of the Spectator, make short summaries of the sense of each period, and put them for a few days aside; then without looking at the book, he would endeavour to restore the chapter to its first form, by expressing each thought at full length.

These exercises soon convinced him that he greatly lacked a fund of words, and a facility of employing them; both of which he thought would have been abundantly supplied, had he but continued his old trade of making verses. The continual need of words of the same meaning, but of different lengths, for the measure; or of different sounds, for the rhyme, would have obliged him to seek a variety of synonymes. From this belief he took some of the papers and turned them into verse; and after he had sufficiently forgotten them, he again converted them into prose.

On comparing his Spectator with the original, he discovered many faults; but panting, as he did, for perfection in this noble art, nothing could discourage him. He bravely persevered in his experiments, and though he lamented that in most instances he still fell short of the charming original, yet in some he thought he had clearly improved the order and style. And when this happened, it gave him unspeakable satisfaction, as it sprung the dear hope that in time he should succeed in writing the English language in the same enchanting manner.

CHAPTER X

About this time, which was somewhere in his sixteenth year, Ben lighted on a very curious work, by one Tryon, recommending vegetable diet altogether, and condemning "animal food as a great crime." He read it with all the avidity of a young and honest mind that wished to renounce error and embrace truth. "From start to pole," as the racers say, his conscience was under the lash, pointing at him as the dreadful Sarcophagist, or Meat-eater alluded to by this severe writer. He could not, without horror reflect, that, young as he was, his stomach had yet been the grave of hundreds of lambs, pigs, birds, and other little animals, "who had never injured him." And when he extended the dismal idea over the vast surface of the globe, and saw the whole human race pursuing and butchering the poor brute creation, filling the sea and land with cries and blood and slaughter, he felt a depression of spirits with an anguish of mind that strongly tempted him, not only to detest man, but even to charge God himself with cruelty. But this distress did not continue long. Impatient of such wretchedness, he set all the powers of his mind to work, to discover designs in all this, worthy of the Creator. To his unspeakable satisfaction he soon made these important discoveries. 'Tis true, said he, man is constantly butchering the inferior creatures. And it is also true that they are constantly devouring one another. But after all, shocking as this may seem, it is but dying: it is but giving up life, or returning a something which was not their own; which for the honour of his goodness in their enjoyment, was only lent them for a season; and which, therefore, they ought not to think hard to return.

Now certainly, continued Ben, all this is very clear and easy to be understood. Well then, since all life, whether of man or beast, or vegetables, is a kind loan of God, and to be taken back again, the question is whether the way in which we see it is taken back is not the best way. It is true, life being the season of enjoyment, is so dear to us that there is no way of giving it up which is not shocking. And this horror which we feel at the thought of having our own lives taken from us we extend to the brutes. We cannot help feeling shocked at the butcher killing a lamb, or one animal killing another. Nay, tell even a child who is looking with smiles on a good old family horse that has just brought a bag of flour from the mill, or a load of wood from the forest, that this his beloved horse will by and by be eaten up of the buzzards, and instantly his looks will manifest extreme distress. And if his mother, to whom he turns for contradiction of this horrid prophecy, should confirm it, he is struck dumb with horror, or bursts into strong cries as if his little heart would break at thought of the dismal end to which his horse is coming. These, though very amiable, are yet the amiable weaknesses of the child, which, it is the duty of man to overcome. This animal was created of his God for the double purpose of doing service to man, and of enjoying comfort himself. And when these are accomplished, and that life which was only lent him is recalled, is it not better that nature's scavengers, the buzzards, should take up his flesh and keep the elements sweet, than that it should lie on the fields to shock the sight and smell of all who pass by? The fact is, continued Ben, I see that all creatures that live, whether men or beasts, or vegetables, are doomed to die. Now were it not a greater happiness that this universal calamity, as it appears, should be converted into an universal blessing, and this dying of all be made the living of all? Well, through the admirable wisdom and goodness of the Creator, this is exactly the case. The vegetables all die to sustain animals; and animals, whether birds, beasts, or fishes, all die to sustain man, or one another. Now, is it not far better for them that they should be thus continually changing into each other's substance, and existing in the wholesome shapes of life and vigour, than to be scattered about dying and dead, shocking all eyes with their ghastly forms, and poisoning both sea and air with the stench of their corruption?

This scrutiny into the economy of nature in this matter, gave him such an exalted sense of nature's Great Author, that in a letter to his father, to whom he made a point of writing every week for the benefit of his corrections, he says, though I was at first greatly angered with Tryon, yet afterwards I felt myself much obliged to him for giving me such a hard nut to crack, for I have picked out of it one of the sweetest kernels I ever tasted. In truth, father, continues he, although I do not make much noise or show about religion, yet I entertain a most adoring sense of the Great First Cause; insomuch that I had rather cease to exist than cease to believe him all wise and benevolent.

In the midst, however, of these pleasing speculations, another disquieting idea was suggested.—Is it not cruel, after giving life to take it away again so soon? The tender grass has hardly risen above the earth, in all its spring-tide green and sweetness, before its beauty is all cropped by the lamb; and the playful lamb, full dressed in his snow-white fleece, has scarcely tasted the sweets of existence, before he is caught up by the cruel wolf or more cruel man. And so with every bird and fish: this has scarcely learned to sing his song to the listening grove, or that to leap with transport from the limpid wave, before he is called to resign his life to man or some larger animal.

This was a horrid thought, which, like a cloud, spread a deep gloom over Ben's mind. But his reflections, like the sunbeams, quickly pierced and dispersed them.

These cavillers, said he, in another letter, are entirely wrong. They wish, it seems, long life to the creatures; the Creator wishes them a pleasant one. They would have but a few to exist in a long time; he a great many in a short time. Now as youth is the season of gaiety and enjoyment, and all after is comparatively insipid, is it not better, before that pleasant state is ended in sorrow, the creature should pass away by a quick and generally easy fate, and appear again in some other shape? Surely if the grass could reason, it would prefer, while fresh and beautiful, to be cropped by the lamb and converted into his substance, than, by staying a little longer, to disfigure the fields with its faded foliage. And the lamb too, if he could but think and choose, would ask for a short life and a merry one, rather than, by staying a little longer, degenerate into a ragged old sheep, snorting with the rattles, and dying of the rot, or murrain.

But though Ben, at the tender age of sixteen, and with no other aid than his own strong mind, could so easily quell this host of atheistical doubts, which Tryon had conjured up; yet he hesitated not to become his disciple in another tenet. Tryon asserted of animal food, that though it gave great strength to the body, yet it contributed sadly to grossness of blood and heaviness of mind; and hence he reasoned, that all who wish for cool heads and clear thoughts should make their diet principally of vegetables. Ben was struck with this as the perfection of reason, and entered so heartily into it as a rare help for acquiring knowledge, that he instantly resolved, fond as he was of flesh and fish, to give both up from that day, and never taste them again as long as he lived. This steady refusal of his to eat meat, was looked on as a very inconvenient singularity by his brother, who scolded him for it, and insisted he should give it up. Ben made no words with his brother on this account.—Knowing that avarice was his ruling passion, he threw out a bait to James which instantly caught, and without any disturbance produced the accommodation he wished. "Brother," said he to him one day as he scolded; "you give three shillings and six pence a week for my diet at this boarding-house; give me but half that money and I'll diet myself without any farther trouble or expense to you." James immediately took him at his word and gave him in hand his week's ration, one shilling and nine pence, which after the Boston exchange, six shillings to the dollar, makes exactly thirty-seven and a half cents. Those who often give one dollar for a single dinner, and five dollars for a fourth of July dinner, would look very blue at an allowance of thirty-seven and a half cents for a whole week. But Ben so husbanded this little sum, that after defraying all the expenses of his table, he found himself at the end of the week, near twenty cents in pocket—thus expending not quite three cents a day! This was a joyful discovery to Ben—twenty cents a week, said he, and fifty-two weeks in the year; why, that is upwards of ten dollars in the twelve months! what a noble fund for books! Nor was this the only benefit he derived from it; for, while his brother and the journeymen were gone to the boarding-house to devour their pork and beef, which, with lounging and picking their teeth, generally took them an hour, he stayed at the printing-office; and after dispatching his frugal meal, of boiled potatoe, or rice; or a slice of bread with an apple; or bunch of raisins and a glass of water, he had the rest of the time for study. The pure fluids and bright spirits secreted from such simple diet, proved exceedingly favourable to that clearness and vigour of mind, and rapid growth in knowledge which his youthful soul delighted in.

I cannot conclude this chapter without making a remark which the reader has perhaps anticipated—that it was by this simple regimen, vegetables and water, that the Jewish seer, the holy Daniel, while a youth, was of Providence made fit for all the learning of the East; hence arose his bright visions into futurity, and his clear pointings to the far distant days of the Messiah, when the four great brass and iron monarchies of Media, Persia, Grecia, and Rome, being overthrown, Christ should set up his last golden monarchy of Love, which, though faint in the beginning as the first beam of the uncertain dawn, shall yet at length brighten all the skies, and chase the accursed clouds of sin and suffering from the abodes of man and beast.