Volume I Part 18 (1/2)
What you mention concerning the love of praise is indeed very true; it reigns more or less in every heart; though we are generally hypocrites, in that respect, and pretend to disregard praise, and our nice, modest ears are offended, forsooth, with what one of the ancients calls _the sweetest kind of music_. This hypocrisy is only a sacrifice to the pride of others, or to their envy; both which, I think, ought rather to be mortified. The same sacrifice we make, when we forbear to _praise ourselves_, which naturally we are all inclined to; and I suppose it was formerly the fas.h.i.+on, or Virgil, that courtly writer, would not have put a speech into the mouth of his hero, which now-a-days we should esteem so great an indecency;
”Sum pius aeneas ...
... fama super aether a notus.”
One of the Romans, I forget who, justified speaking in his own praise by saying, _Every freeman had a right to speak what he thought of himself as well as of others_.
That this is a natural inclination appears in that all children show it, and say freely, _I am a good boy; Am I not a good girl?_ and the like, till they have been frequently chid, and told their trumpeter is dead; and that it is unbecoming to sound their own praise, &c.
But _naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret_.
Being forbid to praise themselves, they learn instead of it to censure others; which is only a roundabout way of praising themselves; for condemning the conduct of another, in any particular, amounts to as much as saying, _I am so honest, or wise, or good, or prudent, that I could not do or approve of such an action_. This fondness for ourselves, rather than malevolence to others, I take to be the general source of censure and back biting; and I wish men had not been taught to dam up natural currents, to the overflowing and damage of their neighbour's grounds.
Another advantage, methinks, would arise from freely speaking our good thoughts of ourselves, viz. if we were wrong in them, somebody or other would readily set us right; but now, while we conceal so carefully our vain, erroneous self-opinions, we may carry them to our grave, for who would offer physic to a man that seems to be in health? And the privilege of recounting freely our own good actions might be an inducement to the doing of them, that we might be enabled to speak of them without being subject to be justly contradicted or charged with falsehood; whereas now, as we are not allowed to mention them, and it is an uncertainty whether others will take due notice of them or not, we are perhaps the more indifferent about them; so that, upon the whole, I wish the out-of-fas.h.i.+on practice of praising ourselves would, like other old fas.h.i.+ons, come round into fas.h.i.+on again. But this I fear will not be in our time, so we must even be contented with what little praise we can get from one another. And I will endeavour to make you some amends for the trouble of reading this long scrawl, by telling you, that I have the sincerest esteem for you, as an ingenious man and a good one, which together make the valuable member of society.
It is letters like this that cause us to feel that, if it were known that the lost letters of Franklin were somewhere still in existence, the world might well organize another company of Argonauts to find them.
In a subsequent letter to Eliot, Franklin thanks him for his gift of Merino wool, and tells him that it was one Mr. Masters who made dung of leaves, and not Mr. Roberts. In the same letter, he takes occasion to let Eliot know that Peter Collinson has written to him that the worthy, learned and ingenious Mr. Jackson, who had been prevailed on to give some dissertations on the husbandry of Norfolk for the benefit of the Colonies, admired Eliot's agricultural tracts. In still another letter to Eliot, Franklin, true to the brief that he held for love of praise, writes to him in these terms of unreserved gratification:
The _Tatler_ tells us of a Girl, who was observed to grow suddenly proud, and none cou'd guess the Reason, till it came to be known that she had got on a new Pair of Garters. Lest you should be puzzled to guess the Cause, when you observe any Thing of the kind in me, I think I will not hide my new Garters under my Petticoats, but take the Freedom to show them to you, in a paragraph of our friend Collinson's Letter, viz.--But I ought to mortify, and not indulge, this Vanity; I will not transcribe the Paragraph, yet I cannot forbear.
He then transcribes the paragraph in which Collinson had informed him that the Grand Monarch of France had commanded the Abbe Mazeas to write a letter in the politest terms to the Royal Society, to return the King's thanks and compliments in an express manner to Mr. Franklin of Pennsylvania for his useful discoveries in electricity, and the application of pointed rods to prevent the terrible effect of thunderstorms. ”I think, now I have stuck a Feather in thy Cap,” ended Collinson, ”I may be allowed to conclude in wis.h.i.+ng thee long to wear it.”
On reconsidering this Paragraph [continued Franklin], I fear I have not so much Reason to be proud as the Girl had; for a Feather in the Cap is not so useful a Thing, or so serviceable to the Wearer, as a Pair of good silk Garters. The Pride of Man is very differently gratify'd; and, had his Majesty sent me a marshal's staff, I think I should scarce have been so proud of it, as I am of your Esteem.
There were many principles of congeniality at work to cause Franklin to open his heart so familiarly to Eliot, but one of the most active doubtless was their common love of good stories. ”I remember with Pleasure the cheerful Hours I enjoy'd last Winter in your Company,” he wrote to Eliot, after his visit to New England in 1754, ”and would with all my heart give any ten of the thick old Folios that stand on the Shelves before me, for a _little book_ of the Stories you then told with so much Propriety and Humor.”
We have already referred to the famous letter, in which, Franklin, a few weeks before his death, stated his religious creed with such unfaltering clearness and directness to Dr. Ezra Stiles, who had written to him, saying that he wished to know the opinion of his venerable friend concerning Jesus of Nazareth, and expressing the hope that he would not impute this to impertinence or improper curiosity in one, who, for so many years, had continued to love, estimate and reverence his abilities and literary character with an ardor and affection bordering on adoration. In his reply, Franklin declared that he had never before been questioned upon religion, and he asked Dr. Stiles not to publish what he had written.
I have ever [he said] let others enjoy their religious Sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me unsupportable and even absurd. All Sects here, and we have a great Variety, have experienced my good will in a.s.sisting them with Subscriptions for building their new Places of Wors.h.i.+p; and, as I have never opposed any of their Doctrines, I hope to go out of the World in Peace with them all.
This letter is so full of interest for the reader that it is to be regretted that Dr. Stiles did not oftener indulge the national weakness for asking questions before his aged correspondent went out of the world in peace with the sects, which most a.s.suredly would have followed him with a shower of stones as thick as that which overwhelmed St. Stephen, if they had known that the discreet old philosopher, who contrived to keep on such comfortable working terms with every one of them, doubted all the while the divinity of our Lord. This letter also has a readable word to say in response to the honor that Dr. Stiles proposed to do Franklin by placing his portrait in the same room at Yale with that of Governor Yale, whom Franklin p.r.o.nounced ”a great and good man.” Yale College, Franklin gratefully recalled, was the first learned society that took notice of him, and adorned him with its honors, though it was from the University of St.
Andrews that he received the t.i.tle which made him known to the world as ”Dr. Franklin.”
Dr. Samuel Johnson has been termed ”the venerable father of the Episcopal Church of Connecticut and the apostle of sound learning and elegant literature in New England,” and it is not surprising that Franklin should have strained his dialectical skill almost to the point of casuistry in an effort to meet the various reasons which the Doctor gave him for his hesitation about accepting the heads.h.i.+p of the Academy, such as his years, his fear of the small-pox, the politeness of Philadelphia and his imagined rusticity, his diffidence of his powers and his reluctance about drawing off paris.h.i.+oners from Dr. Jenney, the rector of Christ Church and St.
Peters. As we have seen, even the multiplying effect of setting up more than one pigeon box against a house was ineffective to lure the apprehensive churchman to Philadelphia. In one of his letters to Dr.
Johnson, the enthusiasm of Franklin over the Academy project endows his words with real n.o.bility of utterance.
I think with you [he said], that nothing is of more importance for the public weal, than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue. Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the _strength_ of a state far more so than riches or arms, which, under the management of Ignorance and Wickedness, often draw on destruction, instead of providing for the safety of a people. And though the culture bestowed on _many_ should be successful only with a _few_, yet the influence of those few and the service in their power may be very great. Even a single woman, that was wise, by her wisdom saved a city.
I think also, that general virtue is more probably to be expected and obtained from the _education_ of youth, than from the _exhortation_ of adult persons; bad habits and vices of the mind being, like diseases of the body, more easily prevented than cured. I think, moreover, that talents for the education of youth are the gift of G.o.d; and that he on whom they are bestowed, whenever a way is opened for the use of them, is as strongly _called_ as if he heard a voice from heaven.
Remarkable words these to fall from a man who, some two months later, in another letter to Dr. Johnson, modestly declared himself to be unfit to sketch out the idea of the English School for the Academy, having neither been educated himself (except as a tradesman) nor ever been concerned in educating others, he said.
n.o.body would imagine [said Dr. Johnson, after reading the sketch,] that the draught you have made for an English education was done by a Tradesman. But so it sometimes is, a true genius will not content itself without entering more or less into almost everything, and of mastering many things more in spite of fate itself.
The friends.h.i.+p between Franklin and Jared Ingersoli is preserved in a single letter only, the one from which we have already quoted in which Franklin had his good-natured jest at the expense of the doleful New England Sunday.
All of these friends were men, but in Catherine Ray, afterwards the wife of Governor William Greene of Rhode Island, and the mother of Ray Greene, one of the early United States Senators from that State, Franklin had a friend whose s.e.x gave a different turn of sentiment and expression to his pen. His first letter to this young woman (”Dear Katy” is the way he addresses her) was written after his return to Philadelphia from a journey to New England in 1754. She then lived on Block Island, and, when he last saw her, she was fading out of sight on the ocean on her way to that island from the mainland.
I thought too much was hazarded [he wrote], when I saw you put off to sea in that very little skiff, tossed by every wave. But the call was strong and just, a sick parent. I stood on the sh.o.r.e, and looked after you, till I could no longer distinguish you, even with my gla.s.s; then returned to your sister's, praying for your safe pa.s.sage.
These words are followed by the paragraph already quoted, in which Franklin acknowledged the affectionate hospitality of New England and the paragraph, already quoted, too, in which he spoke of his being restored to the arms of his good old wife and children.