THE FIRST AMERICAN MAN OF LETTERS·

BENJAMIN FRANKLINThe Avery Hopwood Address-I939

By CARL VAN DOREN

Reprinted from MICHIGA1'i' ALUMNUS QuARTERLY REVIEW, July 22, 1939, Vol. XLV, No. 24

THE FIRST AMERICAN MAN OF LETTERS·BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

The Avery Hopwood Address-I 939

By CARL VAN DOREN

[

T is a strange fact in the history of lit­erature, though only one of manystrange facts in that enormous record,

that Benjamin Franklin should so oftenhave been overlooked as a man of letterswhen he was that, on the whole, beforelllything else. His autobiography has beenmore widely read than any other. Hisproverbial sayings have passed into thesenerallanguage of mankind, in uncountedtongues. He wrote with masterly skill inthe fields of science, economics, diplomacy,politics. A great moralist, he was an equallygreat humorist. He belongs among the su­preme writers of familiar letters. Of allwriters he perhaps best combines in his5tyle a felicitous elegance with a happyvernacular, the grace of philosophers andwits and the wit of the people. If he wasnot a man of letters it is difficult to saywhat man ever was. It sometimes seemsthat literary criticism has passed Franklin:>ver because he had so many things to sayllld said them so well.

He himself knew that "prose writinghas been of great use to me in the course)f my life, and was a principal means of mytdvancement." But it must be borne innind that Franklin, like most good proseIVriters, began with verse. At twelve heIVrote ballads which, printed by his elder)rother, were sold by the boy himself in:he streets of Boston, where they made a:tir which flattered his vanity. Though he~ote no more ballads, he wrote-it is al-

'Copyright, University of Michigan, 1939.

most certain-the Elegy, recently discov­ered, which appears to be the earliestwriting of his that has survived. Like otherwriters to whom prose, with its flexiblemovements and varied harmonies, has beenmore natural than verse, Franklin wroteverse of a conventional mode, in the minornotes of such lines as these:

o what is life which we so high esteem?A bubble, vapor, shadow, fleeting dream.From sordid dust we sprang, and surely mustOr soon or late return to native dust.

But almost at once he was laughing at him­self as well as at other elegists, in his re­view of an imaginary elegy on MehitabelKitel of Salem and his Receipt to Make aNew England Funeral Elegy. He was thensixteen. He did not however, escape verseby parodying bad poems. Two years later,in Philadelphia, his three closest friendswere all poets. "Many pleasant walks wefour had together on Sundays into thewoods, near Schuykill, where we read toone an<;>ther, and conferred on what weread." Franklin had come to approve of"amusing one's self with poetry now andthen, so far as to improve one's language,but no farther," and he probably wrotefewer verses than his companions. Butthese poets were the friends he chose outof all the young men in Philadelphia, andit was with one of them that he made hisfirst voyage to London, where the prosewriter supported the poet till they quar­reled, like either poets or prose writers,over a woman.

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Then for something like twenty yearsFranklin had little to do with verse, so faras is known, except for the homely rhymeshe credited to Poor Richard in his annualalmanac. But he printed or reprinted asmuch verse as prose in Poor Richard. WhenFranklin was thirty-eight, writing to Lon­don to order books for his shop, he askedthat he be sent a dozen copies of anythingJames Thomson might publish. "I hadread no poetry for several years, and almostlost the relish of it, till I met with hisSeasons. That charming poet has broughtmore tears of pleasure into my eyes thanall I ever read before. I wish it were inmy power to return him any part of thejoy he has given me." When within a yearor so Franklin began to withdraw frombusiness and to think of the leisure towardwhich he had long been working, he turnedagain to verse in drinking songs which be­came famous in his circle.

The antediluvians were all very sober,For they had no wine and they brewed no

October;All wicked, bad livers, on mischief still thinking,For there can't be good living where there is

not good drinking.Derry-down

'Twas honest old Noah first planted the vine,And mended his morals by drinking its wine;And thenceforth justly the drinking of water

decried;For he knew that all mankind by drinking it

died.Derry-down.

So ran one of the liveliest of Franklin'ssongs, in a casual meter designed for alco­holic voices. Here as elsewhere he matchedhis art to the occasion. Nor did he forget hisbelief, founded on his own experience, thata way to learn to write prose is to writeverse. In his plan for the English schoolof the Academy which became the Uni­versity of Pennsylvania he proposed in1750 that the pupils write "sometimes inverse, not to make them poets, but for thisreason, that nothing acquaints a lad so

speedily with variety of expression as thenecessity of finding such words and phrasesas will suit with the measure, sound, andrhyme of verse, and at the same time wellexpress the sentiment."

In prose Franklin at sixteen was alreadythe most cnarming writer in America, ashe remained for the nearly seventy yearshe had yet to live. Because his amazingfaculties kept green to his old age it isoften forgotten that he had been veryprecocious. In a classic passage he tells howhe taught himself to write, by imitating theSpectator. He would read one of the papers,make a brief note on each sentence, lay theoriginal aside, and after a few days try towrite it from his notes. "Then I comparedmy Spectator with the original, discoveredsome of my faults, and corrected them."Finding his vocabulary small and notvaried enough to suit him, he "took someof the tales and turned them into verse;and, after a time, when I had pretty wellforgotten the prose, turned them backagain." Or he would jumble his notes intoconfusion, and weeks later try to arrangethem in the best order before he began towrite. "This was to teach me method inthe arrangement of thoughts." Now andthen he had "the pleasure of fancying that,in certain particulars of small import, I hadbeen lucky enough to improve the methodor the language, and this encouraged meto think I might possibly in time come tobe a tolerable English writer, of which Iwas extremely ambitious." In the Dogoodpapers, written before he was seventeen,he exhibited most of the qualities he wasto have when, maturer, he decided thatwriting should above all be "smooth, clear,and short." In the journal which Franklinkept at twenty, on his voyage from Lon­don to Philadelphia, he was all but full­grown as a writer, though he still lackedthe sharper edge and clearer freshnesswhich experience afterwards gave him andthe rich tones of his later wisdom. Comparehis entry for this last day with the entry

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DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIlIiDrawn in pencil from the "The Thumb Portrait" painted by David Martin in 1767.

~e wrote in another journal, fifty-ninevears later, on the next to the last day of1is last voyage. He wrote in 1726:

This morning we weighed anchor with a~entle breeze and passed by New Castle, whence:hey hailed us and bade us welcome. It is ex­:reme fine weather. The sun enlivens our stiffimbs with his glorious rays of warmth andlrightness. The sky looks gay, with here andhere a saver cloud. The fresh breezes from the.voods refresh us; the immediate prospect ofiberty, after so long and irksome confinement,

ravishes us. In short, all things conspire to makethis the most joyful day I ever knew.

In 1785 he wrote:

The wind springing fair last evening after acalm, we found ourselves this morning, at sun­rising, abreast of the lighthouse and betweenCapes May and Henlopen. \Ve sail into the bayvery pleasantly; water smooth, air cool, dayfair and fine. \Ve passed New Castle about sun­set and went on near Red Bank before the tideand wind failed; then came to an anchor.

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The simple perfection of Franklin ateighty was of course beyond Franklin attwenty, but the youth had outgrown mostof the self-conscious awkwardness custom­ary at his age and was beginning to writeas by second nature.

It was characteristic of Franklin thatwhen, on that youthful voyage, he drew upa plan to regulate his future conduct, hesaid: "Those who write of the art of poetryteach us that if we would write what maybe worth reading we ought always, beforewe begin, to form a regular plan and de­sign of our piece; otherwise we shall be indanger of incongr\lity. I am apt to thinkit is the same as to life." He would planhis life as he might plan a poem. Thirtyyears later he could still draw a similarimage from literature. "Life, like a dra­matic piece," he wrote to George White­field, "should not only be conducted withregularity but methinks it should finishhandsomely. Being now in the last act,"as Franklin may then have thought, thoughactually he had most of his great years stillahead of him, "I begin to cast about forsomething fit to end with. Or if mine bemore properly compared to an epigram, assome of its lines are barely tolerable, I amvery desirous of concluding with a brightpoint." And he put into the mouth of PoorRichard a saying which throws light onFranklin's constant sense of the interplayof literature and life. "If you would notbe forgotten, as soon as you are dead androtten, either write things worth reading,or do things worth the writing."

This sense of interplay between writingand doing kept Franklin from looking uponhis writing as an end in itself. Writing withhim was an applied art. In part because hedid not talk readily, and throughout hislife delivered few speeches, he made use ofwriting to gain his ends. He would writea paper for his club, the Junto, foundedwhen he was twenty-one and kept alive byhim for thirty years, to bring his ideas be­fore his friends. He would publish the

paper in his Pennsylvania Gaz.ette, takenover when he was twenty-two, and carryhis ideas further to the public. When, alongwith the other debtors, traders, and work­men of Pennsylvania, he decided that theprovince needed a new issue of paper cur­rency, he wrote-at twenty-three-his firstpublic pamphlet, on that topic. "Bills is­sued upon land," he said in the earliest ofhis memorable phrases, "are, in effect,coined land." Not only did his argumentshelp bring about the new issue, but hisgrateful friends in the legislature "thoughtfit to reward me by employing me in print­ing the money: a very profitable job and agreat help to me. This was another ad­vantage gained by my being able to write."In the neighboring province of New Jer­sey Franklin was once at Burlington whenthe legislature wanted to draft an answerto a message from the governor, but didnot trust their own skill. Franklin draftedthe answer for them, and they made himprinter for that government as well. It wasnotably by writing that he introduced andfurthered the many civic interests he wasdevoted to: the fire companies, the militia,the Academy, the Hospital. Side by sidewith these went the little satires and hoaxeswhich he wrote to entertain both friendsand public, out of the tireless energy whichflowed up in him at times in a broad, slyhumor.

Franklin's efforts for the general wel­fare included a wide range of services toliterature. With the Junto he founded thefirst permanent subscription library inAmerica. The books he gave to it on itsfirst list were a black-letter Magna Chartaand Montaigne's essays. Franklin printedits catalogue. As busy as any man in Phila­delphia, he served for three months as itslibrarian, in attendance from two to threeevery Wednesday and from ten to fouron Saturdays. Against the wishes of hisutilitarian associates he enriched the Li­brary Company's collection with earlyAmericana which few Americans besides

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oripal; t recopized rome of my f.ults and co'"rcded them I bu< J found t .... ill want of • prori­r- 01 wonIa, ia order I<l upnfa myG:lf properly,.. ..u u 01 • faciljry of recoIIdliJlg .... a6agthem, aD 01 wbicb It appear<d '0 me Ihat I mightbu. acqulr<4 bd'on tbit time, had. I COlIllDocdmy pnCIl<e 01 makiaa .me.. The pcrp<toal....., 01 warda 01 fimilat figuificalioa, but of ..,iooaIengtho ruilacllO the meat...... u ...u u of di6<fCDlI'ow>da for the my-, 'Il'OllI4 bue~ me Ie>

Ute feudled for fynoayma, would !me bedthem fa "'T bead, aad made ... rmJ1<t ollban.Ia coefcqumce 01 this ida I rook fncral ofthe ftada 01 till Spoauor, ucI.unICli them u...nrIit. Afwt r.- limo, wbm I had. complcrdy r",.ptea till orlpal, I wrote them ....... ill pro(a.

Sometima 1 miD.c1ed all .., rQlDmaria togtdIcr.aaoI &her iDurnI of. few -et4 I aldatOllftd10 them.. the bcft order. before.1 bcgaa """'- eariI'I perioda or cvmplclc the dlf-ne.Thia with • rift' to attaIa • mothool la tbe u·.....-of"'T ........... Aftcnnrda,otl coaopariar.., work 'tridt tIM orIpaI, I diM:ooerod -r Iia\IaucICC11'1'18ol1 JlatIUd~""pIcafon 01 _ la. raw panIaoIan oflittle importaDca, I Ud b-. .......................~ the -"oIl or !he~ aad rbiJ_rap! me 10 Ioope, dlar pcrIlapa I aaJPt wirla~paiaa attaIa to wriIe __ EapItl, wIlicll __

oJ tIM priDcIpaI objc& oJ "'T amIlilJ..

VIE PRlvtf.

niffed'~crirejjlob~rvlqul!,quoiquej'euuefava.dtage sur mOD antllgoniste I relatiVt~Ul.ent

i<I'ortographe et a L~ ponctuation. ce que jedeyoi. a I'imprimerie • j'~to;' fort IU-<leuolUl

de lui en elegance d'expre..ion. ell methodeet en curti!, n m'ell conninquit par pl..­aleu.. nemple•. Je oentilla julte_ de ..,.rtmllrque.; j'e'D deYim plu. Irtentif ala lin­gull, III r~$Ohu de f:tire des effort. pour per­feclionner mon atyle,

Sur cea entref:titea, it me tomba '<lUI Iamaia un yolame aepen du 'pe<:tAtelU': c'~oicIe uom6me. Je n'en lYoi. j_aia m alJCDD;je l'acltetai;. je Ie lu. et Ie. rei... : j'en etoi.enchant'; fen lrOuni Ie style excellent.et je de.irni q..'i1me f6t ~.ibIede l'imiter.POllJ' J !"'nenir , je pria quelqua· URI cIetdiKoun. je Ii. de court. lO_i~du aenade choque I.enode , je Ie. mil de ccIU pourquelques joun i IP~ quoi, 'ID' onw I.liTre , j'••IAru de r8Colllpleter lea diaco..... ,er d'esprimer roul a. W'''8 chaque penIl!e ,comfDll e11e "loit diu Ie llYN, ea emploYUltIe. ~u proprea qui se pro.eDI....rent amoeesprit. Je cOlll('arai ensnite mon SpectateurllTec l'orillinal; je recODltu. quelquet-ttMIde me. fnute- • et je lea conigeu; mail Ie

.0 TRI " .. lYATt L... 1 or

HOW DR. FRANKLIN TAUGHT HIMSELF TO WRITEAs recorded in the first editions of his famed "Autobiography." The French edition was publishedin Paris in 1791. The first English edition, which Wa!l published in London, did not appear

until two years after it appeared in French.

him then valued, though these books andpamphlets have become the proudest treas­ures of the library. Franklin chose with'what seems like prophetic tact to print hisgreat Indian treaties, between Pennsylvaniaand the Six Nations, in folios which makethem as monumental as they are impor­tant. He published James Logan's CatoMajor, the first Latin classic both trans­lated and printed in America, and Rich­ardson's Pamela, the first novel printedhere. In 1744 Franklin had in his shopwhat must have been the most distin­guished array of books on sale anywhereon the continent. That same year, in a let­ter to an English friend, he forecast therelations of English and American litera­ture. "Your authors," he said, "know butlittle of the fame they have on this side ofthe ocean. We are a kind of posterity inrespect to them. We read their works withperfect impartiality, being at too great a

distance to be biased by the factions, parties,and prejudices that prevail among you."Franklin was later to convince Hume thatthe increase of English readers in Americamust affect the future of English as a lit­erary language, and Hume's persuasionshad perhaps something to do with Gib­bon's decision to write history in Englishnot in French, as he had first intended.

In Franklin's prospectus for the Acad­emy he laid much stress on history as thesubject through which other subjects mightbe studied. It would "fix in the minds ofyouth deep impressions of the beauty andusefulness of virtue of all kinds." He in­cluded American history, then unknown toAmerican curriculums, and histories of na­ture and commerce. Far from confininghimself to merely practical education, hewanted the Academy, while training theboys to make a living, also to help thembecome literate and philosophical, with

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"that benignity of mind which shows itselfin searching and seizing every opportunityto serve and oblige, and is the foundation6f what is called good breeding." Not fornothing had the self-made Franklin learnedto read Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, andGerman, and gone through books on everysubject of interest to mankind. Though heseems to have cared less for purely imagi­native literature than for other forms, it ishardly safe to say that there was any bookhe had not read.

In the almanac which he began attwenty-five and edited for twenty-fiveyears he followed a fashion already setand already prosperous. But no otheralmanac has ever been so famous as PoorRichard, or so influential. Franklin createdthe character of his Richard Saunders asa contemporary novelist or playwrightmight have done. Poor Richard had thelook of existing outside his almanac. Hetold about his tiffs with his wife Bridget,who also seemed real. He talked about hispoverty and his profits, and admitted hecould not write good verse. His neighbors,he complained, were forever teasing himfor private astrological information. "Willmy ship return safe? Will my mare winthe race? Will her next colt be a pacer?When will my wife die? Who shall be myhusband, and how long first? When is theb~st time to cut hair, trim cocks, or sowsalads?" Poor Richard said he had ceasedto have either taste or leisure for such im­pertinences. But he never lost his tasteand leisure for the pungent sayings thatrun through his almanacs, printed in the .crowded margins wherever there was space.

Franklin is in a sense to blame if theprudential maxims have come to be thoughtof as his only ones. When, crossing theAtlantic in 1757, he wrote the preface forthe next year's almanac, he had more time~han usual on his hands and wrote at greaterlength. His preface for 1758 was long~nough to be separately printed, first asr;'ather Abraham's Speech and thereafter

as The Way to Wealth, the title it stillbears. Because Franklin himself looselyspoke of '(bringing all these scattered coun­sels thus into a focus," it has been takenfor granted by most readers that The W cryto Wealth contains the whole of his say­ings. Not a few scholars have found it easierto accept this than to go to the trouble ofhunting out the rare original almanacs andrunning through them. But whoever doesit will find that the prudential maxims areby no means the whole. Franklin in TheWay to Wealth was writing dramatically,putting his sayings in the mouth of an oldman whose specific theme was economy.Father Abraham chose Poor Richard's eco­nomical adages because they proved a point.He left out many times more than he chose.And those he left out range over wide re­gions of wit and understanding.

Who would have expected a provincialalmanac-maker to say: "Thou hadst bettereat salt with the philosophers of Greecethan sugar with the courtiers of Italy"? Or:"The brave and the wise can both pity andexcuse when cowards and fools show nomercy"? Or: "Hast thou virtue? Acquirealso the graces and beauties of virtue"?-Or: "The muses love the morning"? It wasnot Poor Richard so much as the inquiringyoung Benjamin Franklin who came to thisreasonable view of the nature of sin: "Sinis not hurtful because it is forbidden, but itis forbidden because it is hurtful." It was aFranklin on the way to becoming a greatsage who said: "Cunning proceeds fromwant of capacity." "A lie stands on one leg,truth on two" was a pointed saying, but ithad less moral weight behind it than:"Half a truth is often a great lie."

A good many of the sayings had to dowith good manners:

He is no clown that drives the plough, but hethat doth clownish things.

Having been poor is no shame, but beingashamed of it is.

He is not well bred that cannot bear ill­breeding in others.

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Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them.Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee.God helps them that help themselves (to this

one Franklin gave its final form).

'Tis hard for an empty bag to stand upright.The sleeping fox catches no poultry.The used key is always bright.Three removes is as good as a fire.

These were not Franklin's but those ofmany men before him, and had alreadybeen polished to almost abstract antithesis.Franklin's own sayings were more likelyto be based on precise images from thecommon life.

He had a knack at improving olderproverbs, which in his hands became moredirect and more graphic than they had beenbefore. There was a Scottish proverb, "Fathousekeepers make lean executors," whichhe sharpened to "A fat kitchen, a lean

The almanac was of course an anthology,and Franklin took his sayings where hefound them, as freely from books as fromhis experience or reflection. But many ofthe sayings were his own to begin with orwere made his own by the flavor he gavethem. Something of what that flavor wasappears from a comparison of certain classicmaxims of Poor Richard which Franklindid not invent with others which he appar­ently did.

Light-heeled mothers make leaden-heeleddaughters.

The most exquisite folly is made of wisdom i

spun too fine. i

\Vhat maintains one vice would bring up two !I

children.Many foxes grow grey, but few grow good.We may give advice, but we cannot give con­

duct.'Tis against some people's principle to pay

principal.The bell calls others to church, but itself

never minds the sermon.In the affairs of this world, men are saved I

not by faith but by the want of it.

I

IiI~

Poor Richard might speak of almost any­thing.

He that drinks fast pays slow.Where there's marriage without love there

will be love without marriage.The family of fools is ancient.The rotten apple spoils his companions.A countryman between two lawyers is like

a fish between two cats.W rite with the learned, pronounce with the

vulgar.The ancients tell us what is best; but we must

learn from the moderns what is fittest.Keep your eyes wide open before marriage,

half shut afterwards.He that falls in love with himself will have

no rivals.

There are sayings agaiast avarice:

Avarice and happiness never saw each other.How then should they become acquainted?

Poverty wants some things, luxury manythings, avarice all things.

Never spare the parson's wine nor the baker'spudding. .

There's more old drunkards than old doctors.An egg today is better than a hen tomorrow.

But there are also sayings about not talk­ing enough:

Sloth and silence are a fool's virtues.As we must account for every idle word, so

must we for every idle silence.

There are sayings about too much talk­Ing:

None preaches better than the ant, and shesays nothing.

The worst wheel of the cart makes the mostnOise.

Proclaim not all thQU knowest, all thou owest,all thou hast, nor all thou canst.

It is ill manners to silence a fool, and crueltyto let him go on.

\Vhat's proper is becoming; See the black­smith with his white silk apron.

There are even sayings against prudenceand economy.

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will." Another Scottish proverb, "A glovedcat was never a good hunter," had an Eng­lish variant, "A muffled cat is no goodmouser." Franklin bettered both of them:"The cat in glove catches no mice." As farback as Plautus it had been said that noguest is welcome after three days. Lyly inhis Euphues had said that "Fish and guestsin three days are stale," and Sancho Panzain Don Quixote had agreed with him, andHerrick in the Hesperides. Franklin mayhave come upon the saying in John Ray'sEnglish Proverbs (1670) as "Fresh fishand new come guests, smell by they arethree days old," or in James Kelly's Scot­tish Proverbs (1721) as "Fresh fish andpoor friends become soon ill sar'd"-thatis, ill savored. In Franklin's handling theproverb settled at last into its vernacularidiom and cadence: "Fish and visitors smellin three days." In all these improvements,it should be noted, the cadence Franklingave his sayings added as much to them ashis change of words.

While he was writing as Poor Richardwith point and edge Franklin was writingas himself with increasing grace and homelyease. Publisher, editor, citizen active in allthe affairs of Philadelphia and Pennsyl­vania, clerk and then member of the As­sembly, secretary of the American Philo­sophical Society he had organized, soldieron the frontier, postmaster-general forNorth America, author of the first planfor intercolonial union and of far-sightedplans for a new status for America in theBritish Empire, scientist renowned through­out the learned world for his discoveries inelectricity: in all these capacities Franklinwas habitually if not primarily a writer,almost always applying his art to immedi­ate ends, to communicate and persuade. Heseems to have had no impulse to create newforms. Maxims were as old as literature,and older. Newspapers had standard typesof essay, tale, dialogue, or letter (real orimaginary) to the editor. Pamphlets werecommon. Franklin practised all these forms,

content if he could give each of them, ashe did, fresh matter in fresh language.Two kinds at which he was especially adeptwere far apart. One was the hoax. He wrotea circumstantial account of a witch trial atMount Holly that had never taken place,reported a speech that no Polly Baker hadever made in defense of her unlicensedfecundity. In a letter to himself, as editorof the Gazette, he circumstantially pro­posed that if the British government per­sisted in sending convicts to the Colonies,the Colonies should pay their debt by send­ing rattlesnakes to England. It amused himto write his hoaxes with such a straight facethat readers might be taken in. There wasa strong vein of fiction in Franklin, if hehad ever worked it. But he was as excellentin his scientific papers, which were perfectlylucid and utterly honest, clear of technicaljargon, sensible, humane, and exciting.

Franklin's stylistic range was greaterthan has been realized. It is possible thathe deliberately experimented, long afterhis youth, with different styles. There is,for example, the exordium to Some Ac­count of the Pennsylvania Hospital, inwhich, without false eloquence or toploftylanguage, without in the least turning asidefrom the plain business of the narrative,

. Franklin by his sustained and linked ca­dences produced an effect of homespunsplendor.

About the end of the year 1750 some personswho had frequent opportunities of observing thedistress of such distempered poor as from timeto time came to Philadelphia for the advice andassistance of the physicians and surgeons of thatcity; how difficult it was for them to procuresuitable lodgings and other conveniences properfor their respective cases and how expensive theproviding good and careful nurses and other at­tendants for want whereof many must suffergreatly, and some probably perish, that mightotherwise have been restored to health and com­fort and become useful to themselves, their fam­ilies, and the public for many years after; andconsidering moreover th:tt even the poor inhabi­tants of this city though they had homes were

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therein but badly accommodated in sickness andcould not be so well and so easily taken care ofin their separate habitations as they might be inone convenient house, under one inspection andin the hands of skilful practitioners; and severalof the inhabitants of the province who unhappilybecame disordered in their senses wandered aboutto the terror of their neighbors, there being noplace (except the house of correction) in whichthey might be confined and subjected to propermanagement for their recovery, and that housewas by no means fitted for such purposes; didcharitably consult together and confer with theirfriends and acquaintances on the best means ofrelieving the distressed under those circum­stances.

Such a style is nearly as far apart as itcould be from that in which Franklin, in hisReflections on Courtship and Mcn-riage,described a slattern:

Let us survey the morning dress of somewomen. Downstairs they come, pulling up theirungartered, dirty stockings; slipshod, with nakedheels peeping out; no stays or other decent con­veniency, but all flip-flop; a sort of a cloutthrown about their neck, half on and half off,with the frowsy hair hanging in sweaty ring­lets, staring like Medusa with her serpents;shrugging up her petticoats, that are sweepingthe ground and scarce tied on; hand unwashed,teeth furred, and eyes crusted-but I beg yourpardon, I'll go no farther with this sluttish pic­ture, which I am afraid has already turned yourstomach.

This was as harsh as Swift, and racier.And Franklin had a third style, remote

from both these two, which he first usedin the will he wrote in 1757. The manu­script is privately owned, and hitherto un­known to scholars. When he had done withhis bequests, he wrote:

And now, humbly returning sincere Thanksto GOD, for producing me into Being, and con­ducting me hitherto thro' Life so happily, sofree from Sickness, Pain and Trouble, and withsuch a Competency of this World's Goods asmight make a reasonable Mind easy; that hewas pleased to give me such a Mind, with mod­erate Passions, or so much of his gracious As-

sistance in governing them; and to free it earlyfrom Ambition, Avarice and Superstition, com­mon Causes of much Uneasiness to Men: Thathe gave me to live so long in a Land of Liberty,with a People that I love; and rais'd me, tho'a Stranger, so many Friends among them; be­stowing on me, moreover, a loving and prudentWife and dutiful Children.-For these, and allhis other innumerable Mercies and Favours, Ibless the Being of Beings who does not disdain .to care for the meanest of his Creatures.-And I I

reflect on those Benefits received, with the greaterSatisfaction, as they give me such a Confidencein his Goodness as will, I hope, enable me al­ways in all things to submit freely to his Will,and to resign my Spirit chearfully into his Hands,whenever he shall please to call for it; reposingmyself securely in the Lap of God & Nature, asa Child in the Arms of an affectionate Parent.1

Only a few days before Franklin wrote hiswill he wrote a letter to his youngest sisterabout his oldest, then near eighty. She must,he said, be allowed to go on living in her ownhouse. When old people "have lived longin a house it becomes natural to them; theyare almost as closely connected with it as atortoise with its shell; old folks and oldtrees, if you remove them, it is ten to oneyou kill them." This was in Franklin'sfamiliar style, which he used in letters andwhich became in time his essential style: thetrue style which was the man. The letterwas the form which his art took more oftenthan any other. Most of his writings onscience were letters to his scientific friends.Though he wrote more or less formal pam­phlets for the public, his private corres­pondence is richer than they in speculationson politics, economics, religion, morals,aesthetics. He told many of his best anec­dotes in letters, and frequently wrote hisbagatelles as letters. Even his autobiogra­phy began as a long letter to his son. Hissurreptitious writings-no longer surrep­titious-were cast in that form: Advice toa Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress,A Letter to the Royal Academy of Brus­sels. Franklin, one of the greatest of public

1 Quoted by permi5Sion of Arthur Pforzheimer.

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men, had what may be called a kind of?rivate mind. He liked the sense that whatle wrote was being written for some actual:lefinite person, rather than for a generallUdience.

This accounts for the variety of his let­:ers: they were to a variety of persons. Theletters of his American years, up to 1757,were more often related to business or sci­::nce or public affairs than to pleasantfriendships. Only after he had met Cath­::rine Ray and had written her the earliest)f his famous letters to women (American,English, and French) did he fully enlargelnd enrich the uses he put letters to. In~ime he knew how to be as stately as in hissreat letter to Washington, written fromParis in 1780:

Should peace arrive after another campaignJr two, and afford us a little leisure, I shouldJe happy to see your Excellency in Europe and:0 accompany you, if my age and strength wouldJermit, in visiting some of its ancient and mostfamous kingdoms. You would, at this side of:he sea, enjoy the great reputation you havelcquired, pure and free from those little shades:hat the jealousy of a man's countrymen and:ontemporaries are ever endeavoring to cast overiving merit. Here you would know, and enjoy,what posterity will say of Washington. For a:housand leagues have nearly the same effectwith a thousand years. The feeble voice of those;rovelling passions cannot extend so far in either:ime or distance. At present I enjoy that pleas­ue for you, as I frequently hear the old generals)f this martial country (who study the maps of'\merica and mark upon them all your opera­ions) speak with sincere approbation and greatlpplause of your conduct; and join in giving'ou the character of one of the greatest captains)f the age."

Then Franklin went on in a set piece, aarge Homeric simile.

I must soon quit the scene, but you may liveo see our country flourish, as it will amazinglynd rapidly after the war is over: like a field,f young Indian corn, which long fair weathernd sunshine had enfeebled and discolored, andvhich, in that weak state, by a thunder-gust of

violent wind, hail, and rain seemed to be threat­ened with absolute destruction; yet the stormbeing past, it recovers fresh verdure, shoots upwith double vigor, and delights the eye not ofits owner only but of every observing traveller.

This was in Franklin's grand style forletters. He had another style in which hecould write like a wise imp. In 1777 hedrew up a model letter of introduction, ata time when he was unendurably harriedin Paris with requests for such letters toAmerica.

. The bearer of this, who is going to America,presses me to give him a letter of recommenda­tion, though I know nothing of him, not evenhis name. This may seem extraordinary, but Iassure you it is not uncommon here. Sometimes,indeed, one unknown person brings another,equally unknown, to recommend him; and some­times they recommend one another. As to thisgentleman, I must refer you to himself for hischaracter and merits, with which he is cer­tainly better acquainted than I can possibly be.I recommend him, however, to those civilitieswhich every stranger of whom one knows noharm has a right to; and I r.equest you will dohim all the good offices, and show him all thefavor, that on further acquaintance you shallfind him to deserve.

There is no evidence that Franklin evergave this model letter to any actual per­son. He wrote it to relieve himself, andperhaps to entertain his friends, as a poetmight have written a humorous lyric.

A still better instance of this practice ap­pears in the letter Franklin wrote to Wil­liam Strahan in July, 1775. They had beenfriends for more than thirty years, Strahanas eminent among printers in England asFranklin in America. Now Strahan was amember of Parliament, Franklin of theContinental Congress. All America wasaroused over Lexington and Concord.Franklin on the day he wrote his letter, thefifth, met with the Pennsylvania Commit­tee of Safety at six in the morning, movedon to the meeting of Congress at nine andsat till four in the afternoon. Some 'time

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~~r~~~~a/~ '/..---,..

~~.-

DR. FRANKLIN'S COMMENTS ON SCURRILOUS WRITERSFrom the original unpublished autograph letter in the William L. Clements Library.

293

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during the day, it may be guessed, hethought of writing to Strahan, to whom heowed a letter. But when he set his pen topaper Franklin did not begin with "DearFriend" or "Dear Straney" as he usuallydid but with "Mr. Strahan." His formality, .was a reproach, as hIS first sentence was."You are a member of Parliament," hebegan "and one of that majority whichhas d;omed my country to destruction. Youhave begun to burn our towns and murderour people." Suddenly Franklin's strongfeeling rose to a bitter image. "Look uponyour hands! They are stained with theblood of your relations." Then Franklinremembered: "You and I were longfriends." And at that he was himself again,and tempered his final sentence with itsdeft conclusion: "You are now my enemy,and I am Yours, B. Franklin." This wasstern, but it was in Franklin's true idiomand true form. He did not send the let­ter, of which one of his descendants stillowns the original and a copy. Two dayslater Franklin wrote Strahan a friendlyletter to which he had a friendly answer.

N at many of Franklin's letters havethe perfected structure of these three. Hewas a busy man, and in his letters hadcommonly to transact one kind of businessor another and convey information. Buthe seldom wrote a letter in which therewas not some graceful or witty turn oflanguage or sentiment. His letters are ineffect his conversations, of which fewrecords have survived. He ordinarily wrotethem straight off in his clear, running hand,without many erasures or corrections, butoften too he made first drafts and copiedthem. For Franklin was a writer who tookpains with his prose, as poets do withverse. In a letter to a friend who had askedfor advice about writing Franklin in 1789recommended the method which he himselfhad followed for a lifetime.

Before you sit down to write on any subject... spend some days in considering it, puttingdown at the same time, in short hints, every

thought which occurs to you as proper to makea part of your intended piece. When you havethus obtained a collection of the thoughts, ex­amine them carefully with this view, to findwhich of them is properest to be presented firstto the mind of the reader, that he, being p0s­

sessed of that, may the more easily understandit, and be better disposed to receive what youintend for the second; and thus I would haveyou put a figure before each thought, to marlcits future place in your composition. For so,every preceding proposition preparing the mindfor that which is to follow, and the reader oftenanticipating it, he proceeds with ease, and pleas­ure, and approbation, as seeming continually tomeet with his own thoughts. In this mode youhave a better chance for a perfect production;because, the mind attending first to the senti­ments alone, next to the method alone, eachpart is likely to be better performed, and I thinktoo in less time.

Words are the tools of a writer as wellas his materials, and good writers may al­ways be known by the care they take withthe words they choose. To the end of hislife Franklin was extremely scrupulous,both as to diction and cadence. His lastspeech in the Constitutional Conventionwas the Convention's literary masterpieceand was so considered at the time. Variouscolleagues asked Franklin for copies of it.It was printed in several states while thelegislatures were deciding whether or notto ratify. The variants show how ready hewas to better his text at any time. A copyin his own hand, now in the Library ofCornell University, shows him at work. Hebegan: "I must own that there are severalparts of this Constitution which I do notat present approve"; then he crossed outand added till the opening stood: "I con­fess that I do not entirely approve of thisConstitution"--eleven words in place ofeighteen, and simpler words. He had often,he went on, in a long life found himselfobliged "to change opinions ... which Ionce thought right, but found to be wrong."This apparently seemed to him too blunt,and he changed "wrong" to "otherwise."

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Every few lines throughout the manu­script there is some change, generallyslight, now and then considerable. When,he said, "you assemble a number of men... you assemble with these men all theirprejudices, their passions, their errors ofopinion, their local interests, and their selfishviews." In the following sentence he firstwrote: "From the fermentation of thisheterogeneous mixture can a perfect pro­duction be expected?" The figure of speechseems to have displeased him, and for"the fermentation of this heterogeneousmixture" he substituted "such an assem­bly." A minor scientist might have heldto the scientific image. Franklin was anartist, and he knew that the simpler formwas better.

Any number of his manuscripts remainto show how systematically he might planhis compositions and how delicately hemight revise his language. But even forFranklin there were only so many hoursin a day, only so many days to live in how­ever many years. In the midst of greataffairs he found time to write letters, notes,pamphlets, but no histories or treatises. Forsomething like thirty years he hoped hemight some day complete a work to becalled The Art of Virtue. He never beganit, though he lived it. His sixteen years inEngland, his eight years in France sawno essential alteration of his literary habits,except that his prose grew wittier andsweeter. His hoaxes came to have as a rulea definite political bearing. He ridiculedBritish ignorance of America by telling theEnglish about whale and cod it! the upperlakes.

Whales, when they have a mind to eat cod,pursue them wherever they fly; and ... thegrand leap of a whale in that chase up the fallof Niagara is esteemed, by all who have seenit, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.

He ridiculed the British claim to Amer­ica by gravely printing an alleged edict bythe king of Prussia who, according to the

document, claimed the right to rule GreatBritain because its people had formerlyemigrated from Germany. Outraged overthe use by the British of Hessian mercen­aries in America, Franklin chose to rouseEuropean opinion against it by a hoax. Andduring the peace negotiations, when Frank­lin was demanding reparations for the dam­age done to innocent Americans along thecoast and on the frontier, he produced hismost circumstantial hoax about the Ameri­can scalps which had been taken by Indiansin the pay of the British. No matter howdeeply Franklin might be moved, he couldnot long go without his organic humor andnever without his native grace.

As The Way to Wealth does Franklin'swisdom less than justice, so does his Auto­bWgraphy do less than justice to his life.It brings his story down to only I757, anddeals rather with his beginnings than withhis achievements. The time he gave towriting it had to be snatched from crowd­ing affairs. When he began it, at BishopShipley's country house in late July orearly August 1771, he expected to have "aweek's uninterrupted leisure." He mayhave had more than that, for he remainedat Twyford nearly three weeks. But Frank­lin was a genial guest, and it is hardly likelythat he gave more than a few hours a day ,to his book, writing in his bedroom or alittle summer house in the grounds. Heis said to have read it to his hosts and theirchildren, possibly in installments as hewrote them. It may have been suggestedto him by their questions, about the youngadventures of the renowned philosopherwho had begun life as a tradesman-a kindof life so remote from the Shipleys'-andin America-a country so remote fromEngland. And Franklin himself, he toldhis son in the first sentence, had always"had pleasure in obtaining any little anec­dotes of my ancestors." The first third or soof the book, written that week or so atTwyford, is richer in anecdotes than therest, more easygoing and lighthearted.

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Franklin took the manuscript with him toAmerica, and left it there when he wentoff on his dangerous winter voyage toFrance. Only good luck preserved itthrough the Revolution. When Franklinresumed his story at Passy in 1784 he hadno copy of what he had already written andwas not quite sure where to begin again.Now a famous sage, he began with an ac­count of his youthful experiments at per­fection, and went no further.

At home once more, retired for everfrom public office, he undertook at last in1788 to carry his memoirs to their con­clusion. But he was old and suffering.Many of his papers had been lost or mis­laid. He would not trust his memory­accurate as it really was-or, in time, hisjudgment. He was not even sure that heshould go on with the book or allow it tobe published. He almost certainly madelate revisions in what he had written, oc­casionally preferring academic phrases tohis earlier homely ones. His Autobiogra-­phy remained a fragment-strictly speak­ing, four fragments. As history it needsto be supplemented from his letters, hisdiplomatic journals and dispatches, hisscientific writings, and many private records.

But it is not to be wondered at thatFranklin is on the whole best rememberedfrom his Autobiography. He was an auto­biographical man. He never, like littlemen, valued secrets for themselves. Nordid he, like self-conscious men, make half­modest half-vain efforts to conceal what hehad done. Though he punctiliously gavehis associates, in business, science, politics,and public welfare, whatever credit wasdue them, he no less frankly took the creditdue him. If that was vanity, people couldmake the most of it. He knew he had led a

great life in the midst of great affairs. Hehad a story to tell and he enjoyed telling it.So many of his friends had enjoyed hearingit that he could assume the world wouldenjoy it too. He could not foresee the im­mense popularity of his book. Before himthe autobiography as a literary form hardlyexisted. Rousseau and he at almost thesame time took the first steps toward creat­ing it. Unlike as these two were, they hadin common a prophetic sense of the future'sinterest in the lives of individuals, wheth~rpassionate and romantic like Rousseau orrealistic and honest like Franklin. Rous­seau was primarily a writer. He could turninward and pour his total self into hisConfessions. Franklin could not stop mak­ing history long enough to write it. Hisbent was outward and he worked throughactions and events.. And yet in the partwhich was all he wrote of his Autobiogra­phy he somehow managed to indicate theoutline of the unwritten whole. Most of hisreaders barely realize that he has told solittle of the story, because he has revealedto them what seems to be so much of theman.

It is not the whole man. The outline ishinted at, but the colors are not filled in.They must be filled in from other sources,some of them still undiscovered. Discoveryafter discovery rounds out the picture ofa man greater than any of the things hedid. Master of himself, he was a masterin the physical world, and a master of men.But none of these masteries, or all of them,can explain his accomplishments or hismagic. He had also to be a master of livingand lasting words. In him life made litera­ture and literature perpetuated life. Thefirst great American man was the first greatAmerican writer.