V. .^^ -■^^ v^ •",■" ^^ v^^ .^0 .^' "^^^ .^' "^^rfrP^.: r fl f -^JJ L--^. EATIOJIAL ANIMaI.8. YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN; Ef)z mfir!)t moatu tSroufll) Hife. A STORY TO SHOW HOW YOUNG BENJAMIN LEARNED THE PRINCIPLES WHICH RAISED HIM FROM A PRINTER'S BOY TO THE FIRST EMUASSADOR OF THE AMERICAN EEPUULIC. A BOY'S BOOK ON A BOY'S OWN SUBJECT. BY HENRY MAYHEW, ATTTHOB OF "THE PEASANT-BOY PHILOSOPHER," "THE WONDERS OP science; or, young Humphrey davy," &c., &c. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN GILBERT. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE, 1862. 60721 "But the work shall not be lost." — Passaoe from the Epitax>h of Benjamin Franklin^ ivritten by himself. "It's hard for an empty sack to stand upright." — Proverb from Poor mchard's Almanac. 70 TO THE RIGHT HOK EDWARD HENRY, LORD STANLEY, M.P., Etc., Etc., Etc. My Lord, — You have been so uniformly kind to me in my labors upon social matters, that, as the present book treats of subjects in which you have always taken a lively interest, I have avail- ed myself of this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to you, and of assuring you that I am, my lord, yours, with every sentiment of esteem for your friendship and admiration for your gen- ius, Henry Mayhew. 3 Kensington Square, 17th December. PREFACE. It was Walter Scott who first raised his voice against the folly of writing down to the child, saying, wisely enough, that the true object among authors for th^ young should be to write the child up to the man. As people talk broken En- gHsh to Frenchmen, and nurses prattle the baby dialect to babies, so it was once thought that boys' books should be essentially puerile — as puerile in subject and puerile in style as the tales about "Don't-care Harry" (who was torn to pieces by a hungry lion merely because he would persist in declaring that he "didn't care" about certain things in life), and such-like tender bits of ver- dure that used to grace the good old English spelling-books of some quarter of a century back. Conformably to the Walter Scott theory, this volume has not been penned with the object of showing boys the dehght of slaying a buffalo or a bison, nor yet with the view of impressing upon them the nobility of fighting or fagging at school. The one purpose of the book is to give young men some sense of the principles that should guide a prudent, honorable, generous, and refined gentleman through the world. It does not pre- viii PREFACE. tend to teach youth the wonders of optics, chem- istry, or astronomy, but to open young eyes to the universe of beauty that encompasses every enlightened spirit, and to give the young knights of the present day some faint idea of the chivahy of Hfe, as well as to develop in them, some little sense of, and taste for, the poetry of action and the grace of righteous conduct. It has long appeared to the author that the modern system of education is based on the fal- lacy that to manufacture a wise man is necessari- ly to rear a good one. The intellect, however, is but the servant of the conscience (the impulses or propensities of mankind being merely the execu- tive^ rather than the governing and originating faculty of our natures) ; and hence the grand mis- take of the teachers of our time has been to de- velop big brains at the cost of little hearts — to cram with science and to ignore poetry — to force the scholar with a perfect hot-bed of languages, and yet to stunt the worthy with an utter want of principle ; in fine, to rear Palmers, Dean Pauls, Kedpaths, Davisons, Robsons, Hughes, Watts, and a whole host of well-educated and hypocrit- ical scoundrels, rather than a race of fine upright gentlemen. Society, however, seems to have had its fill of the mechanics' institute mania ; the teachy-preachy fever appears to have come to a crisis ; and, in the lull of the phrensy, the author of the i^reseut book wishes to say his say upon the means of worldly welfare, the laws of worldly PREFACE. IX happiness, and the rules of worldly duty to the young men of the present generation. As to the handling of the subject, some expla- nation is needed. Uncle Benjamin, who is made the expounder of the Franklinian philosophy to the boy Benjamin himself, is not a purely imagi- nary character. He has been elaborated into greater importance here, certainly, than he as- sumes in the biography of his nephew ; but this has been done upon that Shaksperian rule of art, which often throws an internal moral princi|)le into an external dramatis 2^erso7ia / and as the witches in Macbeth are merely the outward em- bodiment, in a weird and shadowy form, of Mac- beth's own ambition, and have obviously been in- troduced into the play with the view of giving a kind of haunted and fatalistic air to a bloody and devouring passion (a passion, indeed, that, if rep- resented really and crudely, rather than ideally and grandly, as it is, would have made the trag- edy an object of execration instead of sympathy — a bit of filthy literality out of the Royal New- gate Calendar, instead of a fine supernatural bit of fate, overshadowed with the same sense of doom as an old Greek play) ; even so, in a small way, has Uncle Ben here been made the expo- nent of the Franklin view of life, rather than his nephew Benjamin to be the first to conceive and develop it. Some may urge that, by this means, the genius of Franklin is reduced from its origi- nal, cast-iron, economic character, to a mere sec- PREFACE. ond-rate form of prudential mind. Nevertheless, there must have been soine reason for the printer- embassador's " Poor Richardism ;" say it was or- ganization, temperament, or idiosyncrasy, if you will, that made him the man he was ; still the replication to such a plea is, that even these are now acknowledged to be more or less derivative qualities, in which the family type is often found either exaggerated into genius or dwarfed into idiocy. Hence it is believed that no very great historic violence has been committed here in mak- ing a member of the Franklin family the father of Benjamin Franklin's character, even as his par- ents were assuredly the progenitors of his " lithi- asisJ^ Moreover, Uncle Benjamin was his god- father, and that in the days when godfathership was regarded as a far different duty (the duty of moral and religious supervision) from the mere bit of silver-spoon-and-fork-odand that it is now. Again, from the printer's own description of the character of his uncle, it is plain that Uncle Ben was not the man to ignore any duty he had taken upon himself Besides, the old man lived in the house with Benjamin's father, and had himself only one son (who was grown up and settled as a cutler in the town) ; so that, as the uncle was comparatively childless, it has been presumed that the instinctive fondness of age for youth might have led the old boy to be taken with the bud- ding intellect and principles of his little nephew . and namesake, and thus to have exceeded his PREFACE. xi sponsorial duties so far as to have become the boy's best friend and counselor, loving him like a son, and training him like a novice. -Farther we know that Uncle Benjamin was a man of some observation and learning ; he appears also to have been a person of considerable leisure, and perhaps of some little means (for we do not hear of his following any occupation in America) ; so that, when we remember how slight is the addition that even the profoundest geniuses make to the knowledge-fund of the world, and how little ad- vance those who take even the longest strides make upon such as have gone before them, we can not but admit that Franklin must have got the substratum of his knowledge and principles somewhere — since, born under different circum- stances, he would have been a wholly different man. Surely, then, there is no great offense of- fered to truth in endeavoring to explain artistic- ally how Benjamin Franklin became the man he was, nor any great wrong done to history in using Uncle Ben as the means of making out to youths what was the peculiar " Old Richard" philosophy that distinguished the printer-sage in after life. The main object was to give the young reader a sense of the early teachings Benjamin Franklin when a boy might have received (and doubtlessly did receive) from his old Non-conformist uncle, and accordingly the latter has been made, if not the virtual hero, at least the prime mover of the incidents in the present book. xii PREFACE. Those critics who know the difficulties of the problem with which the author has had to deal — who are acquainted with the many speculations that have been advanced as to the seat and sources of the intellectual and other pleasures of our na- ture, will readily discern that the principles here enunciated have not been " decanted" out of pre- vious aesthetic treatises, but are peculiar to the present work, and spring — naturally, it is hoped — from the idiosyncrasy of the characters enun- ciating them. Again, it is but fair to enforce that the views here given as to the means by which labor is made pleasant have sprung out of the author's previous investigations rather than his readings, and so, indeed, has that part of the book which seeks to impress the reader with a livelier sense of the claims of the luckless, and even the criminal, to our respect and earnest consideration. Principles, in fine, that have cost the author a life to acquire, are often expressed in a chapter, and expressed, it is hoped, sufficiently in keeping with the current of the story to render it difficult for the reader to detect where the function of dram- atizing ends and that of propounding begins. The "jail 23roper" described in this book is hardly the jail proper belonging to little Benja- min Franklin's time. Nor has the deviation from historic propriety been made unadvisedly. It is generally as idle as it is morbid to paint past horrors. To have set forth the atrocities and iniquities practiced in the PREFACE. xili British jails a century and a half ago would have been following in the track of the pernicious French school of literature, where every thing is sacrificed to melodramatic intensity, and which is forever striving to excite a spasm rather than gratify a taste. The genius of true English landscape painting, on the contrary, is " repose ;" and the genius of modern English jDoetry is " repose" too — a kind of Sabbath feeling which turns the heart from the grossnesses and vanities of human life, and lets the work-day spirit loose among the quiet, shady, and healthful beauties of nature. The intense school and the repose school are the two far-dis- tant extremes of all art, and they differ as much from each other as the sweet refreshment of an evening by one's own fireside does from the heat- ed stimulus of a tavern debauch. For these artistic reasons, then, the dead bones of the old jail iniquities and cruelties have not been disinterred and set up as a bugaboo here. Such a picture might have been true to the time, but mere Uteral truth is a poor thing after all. Why, Gustave le Gray's wonderful photograph of the Sunlight on the Sea, that is hanging before our eyes as we write, is as true as " Mangnall's Questions;" and yet what a picturesque barba- rism, and even falsity it is ! It no more renders what only human genius can seize and paint — the expression, the feeling, the soul of such a scene — than the camera obscura can fac-simile the human xiv PREFACE. eye in a portrait, or give us the faintest glimmer of the high Vandyke quality — the profound think- ing, talking pupils of that grand old countenance in our National Gallery. But the real object which the author of this book had in view was to wake not only his boy hero up to a sense of duty, but other boys also, and to let them know (even without doing any great violence to the natural truth of things) what prison iniquities are still daily wrought in the land in which we live. The jail proj^er of the present story (though the scene is laid in British Amer- ica before the declaration of Indej)endence, and dates a century and a half back) is a mere tran- scrijit of a well-known jail now standing in the first city in the world in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty. The details given here are the bare literalities noted by tlie author only a few months back, and prmted in his account of the metropolitan prisons in that wretch- ed fragment of a well-meant scheme, the " Great World of London." There, if the skeptic needs proof, he can get chapter and verse, and learn that many of the facts here given were recorded in the presence of some of the visiting justices themselves. Jails may have been bad a hundred years ago, but this plague-spot of the first city in the world seems to the author worse than all, be- cause it still goes on after Howard's labors — after Brougham's reforms — after Sheriff Watson's fine industrial schools ; yes, there it stands, giving the PEEFACE. XV lie to all our May -day meetings, our ragged schools, our city missions, and pretended love of the destitute, the weak, and the suffering. We no longer wonder that the atrocities of the French Bastille roused the Parisian people to rush off in a body and tumble the old prison-citadel down into a heap of ruins ; and if Tothill Fields lay across the Channel, the same indignant outrage might perhaps be again enacted. But here, good easy citizens as we are, we pay our jDoor-rates ; we call ourselves miserable sinners, in a loud voice, once a week, from a cosy pew ; our " good lady" belongs to a district visiting society, and distributes tracts in the back slums ; we put our check into the plate, after a bottle or two of port, at a charity dinner; and, this done, we are self- content. We once passed a quiet half hour with Mr. Cal- craft, the hangman, and in the course of the con- versation he alluded to 3frs. Calcraft ! The words no sooner fell upon the ear than a world of won- der filled the brain. Even Ae, then, had some- body to care about him. There was somebody to hug and caress him before he left his home in that scratch wig and fur cap in which we saw him come disguised to Newgate (for the "roughs" had threatened to shoot him), and carrying that small ominous satchel basket, at two in the morn- ing, on the day of Bousfield's execution. The wretched lads in Tothill Fields prison are worse off than Calcraft himself. They have no- body in the world to care about them. xvi PREFACE. Nobody ! Yet, stay, we forget ; there is this same Calcraft to look after a good many of them. In fine — to drop the author and speak in pro- p7'id 2^ersond — I have attempted to write a book which, while it treated of some subject that a boy would be likely to attend to, should at the same time admit of enunciating such principles as I wished my oion boy, and other boys as good, and as honest, and earnest as he, to carry mth them through life ; and yet I have striven, while writing it, to do no positive violence to truth either in the love of one's art or in the heat of one's " purpose." In plain English, I have sought to be consistent to nature — true to the spirit, perhaps, rather than the letter of things — even though I had a pecul- iar scheme to work out. And now, such as it is, I give the present volume to the youth of the time, in the hope that it may serve them for what I myself felt the want of more than any thing after leaving "Westminster School, as a young man crammed to the tip of one's tongue with Latin and Greek and nothing else, viz., for some- thing like a guide to what Uncle Ben calls " the right road through life." Hy. M. YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. PAKT I. YOUNG ben's love OF THE SEA, AND HOW HE WAS AVEANED EKOM IT. CHAPTER I. "what ever shall we do with the boy?" A PRETTY dmbby-faced boy, with a pair of cheeks rosy and plump as ripe peaches, was Mas- ter Benjamin Franklin in his teens. Dressed in a tiny three-cornered hat, a very small pair of "smalls," or knee-breeches, and a kind of little, stiff-skirted, fan-tailed surtout, he looked like a Greenwich pensioner in miniatm*e, or might have been mistaken (had the colors been gayei-) for the little fat fairy coachman to Cinde- rella's state carriage. It would have made a pretty picture to have handed down to our time could an artist have sketched the boy, as he sat beside his toy ship, in the old-fashioned, dark back parlor behind the tal- low-chandler's store, " at the corner of Hanover and Union Streets," in the city of Boston, New England. Over the half curtain of a glass door a long deep fringe of white candles, varied with heavy, tassel- like bunches of " sixes" and " eights," might be seen dangling from the rafters of the adjoining 18 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. shop, with here and there several small stacks of yellow and white soap, in ingot-like bars, ranged along the upper shelves ; and the eye could also catch glimpses of the square brown paper cap which crowned the head of Josiah Franklin (the proprietor of the establishment, and father of out Benjamin) wandering busily about, as the shop- bell was heard to tinkle-tinkle with the arrival of fresh customers, seeking supplies of the "best mottled" or " dips." The back parlor itself, being lighted only from the shop, was dim as a theatre by day, so that all around was wrapped in the rich transparent brown shade of what artists call " clear obscure." The little light pervading the room shone in faint lustrous patches upon the bright pewter platters and tin candlesticks that were arranged as orna- ments on the narroAV wooden mantelpiece, while it sparkled in spots in one corner of the apartment, where, after a time, the eye could just distinguish a few old china cups and drinking-glasses set out on the shelves of the triangular cupboard. In this little room sat Benjamin's mother, spin- ning till the walls hummed like a top with the drone of her wheel, and his sister Deborah, who was busy making a mainsail for the boy's cutter out of an old towel, now that she had finished setting the earthen porringers for the family sup- per of bread and milk ; while young Ben himself appeared surrounded with a litter of sticks intend- ed for masts and yards, and whipcord for rigging, and with the sailless hull of his home-made vessel standing close beside him on its little stocks (made out of an inverted wooden footstool), and seem- ing as if ready to be " laid up in ordinary" — un- der the dresser. The boy had grown tired of his daily work ; for the candle-wicks which his father had set him to " WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE BOY ?" 19 cut lay in tufts about the deck of his boat, and the few snips of cotton on the sanded floor told how little of his task he had done since dinner-time * Indeed, it did not require much sagacity to per- ceive that Benjamin hated the unsavory pursuits of soap-boiling and candle-making, and delighted in the more exciting enterprises of shipping and seafaring. On the bench at his elbow was the bundle of rushes that had been given him to trim, in readiness for what was his especial horror — the approaching "melting-day," together with the frame of pewter moulds that required to be clean- ed for the new stock of " cast candles." But botli of these were in the same state as he had received them in the morning; whereas the coat of the boy, and the ground all about him, were speckled with chips ifrom the old broomstick that he had been busy shaping into a main-mast for his minia- ture yacht, and near at hand were two small pip- kins filled with a pennyworth of black and white paint, with which he had been striping the sides of the little vessel, and printing the name of the " FLYING DUTCHMAN, OF BOSTON," UpOU her Stcm. The craft itself did no small credit to young Benjamin's skill as a toy ship-builder, though cer- tainly her " lines" were more in the washing-tub style of naval architecture than the " wave-princi- ple" of modern American clippers ; for the hull * "At ten years old," are Franklin's own words, given in the history of his boyhood, written by himself, " I was taken to help my father in his business, which was that of a tallow- chandler and soap-boiler— a business to which he was not bred, but had assumed on his arrival in New England, be- cause he found that his dyeing trade, being in little request, would not maintain his family. Accordingly, I was employ- ed in cutting wicks for the candles, filling the moulds for ' cast candles,' attending to the shop, and going errands, etc." At the opening of our story, the lad is supposed to have been some time at this trade. 20 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. was fashioned after the shape of the Dutch " dog- ger-boats" in the Boston harbor, and had the ap- j^earance of an enormous wooden shoe. It had taken one of the largest logs from the wood-house to build the boat, for she was the size of a doll's cradle at least. It had cost no little trouble, too, and broken not a few gouges in hol- lowing out a " hold" for her — even as big as a pie- dish ; and now that the mighty task had been ac- complished, she had sufficient capacity under her hatches to carry a crew of white mice, and might, on an emergency, have stowed away victuals for a squirrel skipper to winter upon. Yet, in bis heart, Benjamin found little pleasure in the amusement. He knew he was neglecting his work for it ; he knew, too, that his half-Puri- tan father regarded disobedience as the prime cause of all error, so that playing at such a time was, after allj but sorry, deadly-lively sport to him. Instead of being delighted with the pastime, he went about it in fear and trembling — with one eye on the miniature mast he was shaj^ing, and the other intently watching the movements of the dreaded brown paper cap in the shop without. Every turn of the door-handle made his little heart flutter like a newly-trapped bird, and every aj)- proaching footstep was like the click of a pistol in his ear; so that the stick almost fell from his hand involuntarily with the fright, and the candle- wicks and scissors were suddenly snatched up in- stead, while an air of the most intense industry was assumed for the time being. Indeed, the boy's life of late had been one con- tinual struggle and fight between his inclinations and his duty. For the last two years he had been supposed to be engaged at his father's business, though, from the work being any thing but a " la- bor of love" to him, he had really been occupied "what shall we do with the boy?" 21 with other things. He was forever lon^incr to get away to sea, and nothing delighted him'but what, so to si3eak, smacked of "the tar;" where- as he sickened at the smell of the " melting-days," and the mere sight of the tallow was associated m his mind with a youthful horror of mutton fat * Born and bred within a stone's throw of the beautiful Bay of Massachusetts, his earliest games with the children of his acquaintance had been in jumping from barge to barge alongside the quay, and ever since the little fellow had been breeched he had been able to scull a boat across the " ba- sin," Avhile in his schoolhood he and his cronies were sure every holiday to be out sailing or row- mg over to some one of the hundred islands that dap2iled the blue expanse of water round about the city. Steering had been the boy's first exercise of power, and the pleasure the little cockswain had felt in making the boat answer as readily as his own muscles to his will had charmed him with the sailor's life, while the danger connected with the pursuit served only to increase the delight of triumphing over the difficuHies. Again, to his young fancy, a ship at sea seemed as free as the gull ni the airf (though it has been well said, on the contrary, that a ship is a " prison without any * "I disliked the trade," Franklin tells us himself, in the account of his early life, *'and had a strong inclination to go to sea ; my father, however, declared against it. But, re- sidmg near the water, I was much in it and on it. I learn- ed to swim well, and to manage boats ; and when embarked with other boys I was commonly allowed to govern, especial- ly in case of any difficulty." t The writer (who was a midshipman in his youth) would seriously advise boys to abandon all such silly notions as to the pleasures of a sailor's life, for he can conscientiously say that It IS not only the hardest and most perilous of all call- mgs, but one in which the living, the housing, and the gains are of the poorest possible kind. 22 YOUNG BENJAMIN FHANKLIN. chance of escape"). Nor did he ever see a ves- sel, with its white pouty sails, glide like a snowy summer cloud across the bay toward the silver ring of the horizon without wondering what the sailors would find beyond it, and longing to be with the crew, to visit strange countries and peo- ple, and see Avhat the earth was like, and whether it was really true that there was no end to the world, nor any place where one could stand on the brink of it, and look down into the great well of space below. For the last hour or two, however, the youth had laid aside his ship tools, and, having given his sister instructions about the sail she had promised to make for him, had taken from his pocket the book which his brother-in-law. Captain Holmes — he who had married his half-sister Ruth, and was master of a sloop — had brought him that day (as he ran in at dinner-time just to shake hands Avith them all), on his return from his last voyage to En- gland. Benjamin had been burning to read the vol- ume all the day long; for it was entitled '-^The Ad- ventures of Robinson Crusoe^ 3Iariner^hy Daniel De Foe^^'' and the captain had told him that it had " only just been published in London" at the time when he had set sail from that port. From his earliest childhood the little fellow had been " passionately fond" of reading, and all the halfpence his big brothers and his Uncle Benja- min gave him he was accustomed to devote to the purchase of books.* A new book, therefore, * "From my infancy," says our hero, in the narrative of liis boyhood, "I was passionately fond of reading, and all the money that came into my hands was laid out in the pur- chasing of books. I was very fond of voyages. . . . My fa- ther's little library consisted chiefly of works on polemic di- vinity, most of which I read. I have often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more " WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE BOY ?" 23 was the greatest treat that could possibly have been offered him, and such a one as his brother- in-law had brought him (for he had already turn- ed over the leaves, and seen that it was about a sailor cast away on a desert island) was more than he could keep his eyes off till bedtime. It had been like a red-hot coal in his pocket all day. So, now that his mast was " stepped," and Deb- orah was getting on with the sail, young Benja- min had got the volume spread open on his knees, and was too deeply absorbed in the marvelous history of Crusoe's strange island life to think either of the wicks, the rushes, or the mould for the " cast candles," or even the punishment that surely awaited him for his neglect. Again and again his mother had entreated him to put down the volume and go on with the wicks. " Benjamin," she would cry aloud, to rouse the lad from the trance he had fallen into, " do give over reading till after work-time, there's a good child !" The eager boy, however, sat with his nose al- most buried in the leaves, and, without raising his eyes from the book, merely begged to be allowed to read to the end of " that chapter ;" though no sooner was one finished than the pages were turn- ed over to learn the length of the next, and an- other begun. "I wish Captain Holmes had never brought you the book!" the kind-hearted mother would exclaim, with a sigh, while she tapped the treadle of her wheel the quicker for the thought — inter- proper books had not fallen in my way. There was among them ' Plutarch's Lives,' which I read abundantly, and still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of De Foe's, called ' An Essay on Projects.' "' 24 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. jecting the next minute, as she heard the shop- bell tinkle, and stretched up her neck, as usual, to look over the blind, and see who was the noAv- comer : " Why, there's your Uncle Benjamin got back from meeting, I declare ! It will only lead, I'm afraid, to fresh words between you and your father. Your head, Ben, is too full of the sea al- ready, without any vain story-books of sailors' ad- ventures to lead you astray." " I am sure it was very kind of the captain," little Ben would reply, " to make me such a nice present ; but he always brings every one of us something at the end of each voyage. I can't talk to you, though, just now, mother ; for, if I was to get the strap for it, I couldn't break off in the middle of this story — it's so nice and interest- ing, you can't tell ;" and the lad again bent his head over the pages, so that the long hair, that usually streamed down upon his shoulders, hung over the leaves, and he kept tossing the locks peevishly back as he gloated over the text. In a moment he was utterly lost again in the imaginary scenes before him; and then he no more heard his mother tell him that she was sure it Avas time to think about putting the shutters up, than if he had been fast asleep. Neither could sister Deborah get a word from him, even though she wanted instructions as to where to place the lit- tle " reef-points" upon his mimic main-sail. " Benjamin ! Benjamin !" cried the mother, as she rose from her wheel and shook the boy, to rouse him from his trance, " do you know, sirrah, that your father will be in to supper directly, and here you haven't cut so much as one bundle of wicks all the day through? How shall I be able to screen you again from his anger, so strict as lie is?" The boy stared vacantly, as though he had been "what shall we do with the boy?" 25 suddenly waked up out of a deep slumber, and began to detail the incidents of the story he had just read, after the fashion of boys in general, from the time when stories were first invented. " Crusoe gets shipwrecked, you know, mother," he started off, "and then he makes a raft, and goes off to the vessel, you knoAV, and saves a lot of things from the ship, you know, and then, you know — " "There! there! have done, boy!" cried the mother, in alarm ; " this madness for the sea will be the ruin of you. Just think of the life Josiah Franklin has led since he went off as a cabin-boy, shortly after your father's first wife died; for, though he was the late Mrs. Franklin's pet child, I've heard your father say that he shut his doors upon him when he came back shoeless and shirt- less at the year's end, and whatever has become of the poor boy now, the Lord above only knows."* " But, mother," persisted the lad, whose brain was still so inflamed by the excitement of the wondrous narrative that he could neither speak nor think of any thing else, " only let me tell you about what I have been reading — it's so beautiful — and then I'll listen patiently to whatever you've got to say ;" and, without waiting for an answer, Ben began again : " Well, you know, mother, Cru- soe gets a barrel or two of gunpowder from off the wreck, you know, and some tools as well ; and * "I continued thus employed," says Franklin, in his Autobiography, " in my father's business for two years — that is, till I was twelve years old ; and then my brother John, who was bred to that business, having left my father, and married, and set up for himself at Rhode Island, there was every appearance that I was destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler. But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father had apprehensions that, if he did not put me to one more agreeable, I should break loose to go to sea, as my brother Josiah had done, to his great vexation." 26 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. then he sets to Tvork, you know, and builds him- self a hut on the uninhabited island." The dame paid no heed to the incidents detail- ed by the lad, but kept stretching her neck over the curtain of the glass door, and watching first the figure of her husband in the shop, and then glancing at the wooden clock against the wall, as if she dreaded the coming of the supper-hour, when she knew his father would be sure to de- mand of Benjamin an account of his day's work. She was about to snatch the book from the boy's hands, and remove the cottons and the rushes out of sight, when suddenly the A^oice of the father, caUing for Benjamin to bring him the wicks, dispelled the boy's dream, and made the mother tremble almost as much as it did the lad himself. " Oh, mother, you'll beg me off once more, won't you?" sobbed the penitent Benjamin, as his disobedience noAv flashed upon him, for he knew how often his father had pardoned him for the same fault, and that he had warned him that no entreaties should prevent him punishing him se- verely for the next offense. " Benjamin, I say !" shouted the voice, authori- tatively, from the shop. " Go to him, child," urged the mother, as she patted her pet boy (for he was the youngest) on the head to give him courage, " and confess your fault openly like a little man. You know the store your father sets upon a ' contrite heart,' " she added, in the conventicle cast of thought pe- culiar to the early settlers in New England ; " and rest assured, if he but sees you repentant, his an- ger will give Avay ; for the aim of all punishment, Benjamin, is to chasten, and not to torture; and penitence does that through the scourging of the spirit, which the other accomplishes through the sijiffprino- of thp borlv.'' "what shall we do with the boy?" 2T " Go you instead of me, mother — do^ now, there's a dear. You will, won't you, eh ?" begged the lit- tle fellow, as he curled his arm coaxingly about her waist, and looked up at her through his tears. " Do you tell him, mother, I never shall be able to keep to the horrid candle-work, for I hate it — that I do ; and though every night, when I lie awake, I make vows that I will not vex him again, but strive hard at whatever he gives me to do, still, when the next day comes, my heart fails me, and my spirit keeps pulling my body away" (the boy had caught the Puritanical phrases of the time), "and filling my head with the delight of being- on the water ; and then, for the life of me, I can't keep away from my voyage-books, or my little ship, or something that reminds me of the sea. If you'd only get him to let me go with Captain Holmes — " and, as the dame turned her head away, he added quickly, "just for one voy- age, dear mother — to see how I like it — oh ! I'd — I'd — I don't know what I'd not do for you, mother dear ; I'd bring you and Deborah home such beautiful things then, and — " The boyish protestations were suddenly cut short by the sight of the brown paper cap in the shop moving toward the parlor ; so, without wait- ing to finish the sentence, the affrighted lad flung open the side door leading to the staircase, and scampered up to his room, with an imaginary par- ent following close at his heels. Here the little fellow threw himself on the "trestle-bed" that stood in one corner of the gar- ret, and lay for a time too terrified for tears ; for his conscience converted the least noise into the approach of his father's footsteps, so that he trem- bled like a leaf at every motion, his heart beating the while in his bosom like a flail. 28 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. After a time, however, the lad, finding he was left by himself, began to lay aside his fears, and to talk, as boys are wont to do, about the hard- ships he endured. " He was sure he did every thing he possibly could," he would mutter to himself, as he whim- pered between the words, "and he thought it very cruel of them to force him to keep to that filthy, nasty candle-making, when they knew he couldn't bear it, and, what was more, he never should like it, not even if he was to make ever so much money at it, and be able to keep a j^ony of his own into the bargain. Why wouldn't they let him go to sea, he wondered ? He called it very unkind, he did." And the boy would doubt- lessly have continued in the same strain, had not the little pet Guinea-pig, that he kept in an old bird-cage in one corner of his room, here given a squeak so shrill that it sounded more like the pip- ing of a bird than the cry of a beast. In a moment Benjamin had forgotten all his sorrows, and with the tear-drops still lingering in the corner of his eyes — like goutes of rain in flow- er-cups after a summer shower — he leaped from the bed, saying, " Ahl Master Toby Anderson, you want your supper, do you?" and the next minute his hand was inside the cage, dragging the plump little piebald thing from out its nest of hay. Then, cuddling the pet creature close up in his neck, while he leaned his head on one side so as to keep its back warm with his cheek, he began prattling away to the animal almost as a mother does to her babe. " Ah ! Master Tiggy, that's what you like, don't you ?" said Benjamin, as he stroked his hand along the sleek sides of the tame little thing till it made a noise like a cry of joy, somewhat between the "what shaxl we do with the boy?" 29 chirruping of a cricket and the pur of a cat. " You like me to rub your back, you do^ you fond little rascal ! But I've got bad news for Toby — there's no supper for him to-night; no nice bread and milk for him to put his little pink tootles in while he eats it ; for he's got all the manners of the pig, that he has. Ah ! he'll have to go to bed, like his poor young master, on an empty stomach ; for what do you think, Tiggy dear? — why, they've been very unkind to poor Benjamin, that they have ;" and the chord once touched, the boy con- fided all his sorrows to the pet animal, as if it had been one of his cronies at school. "I wouldn't treat you so, would I, Toby?" he went on, hugging the little thing as he spoke ; "for who gives the beauty nice apple-parings? and who's a regular little piggy-wiggy for them ? — who but Master Toby Anderson here. Ay, but to-night my little gentleman will have to eat his bed, though it won't be the first time he has done that / for he dearly loves a bit of sweet new hay, don't you, Tobe?" Presently the boy cried, as the animal wriggled itself up the sleeve of his coat, "Come down here, sir ! come down directly, I say !" and then stand- ing up, he proceeded to shake his arm violently over the bed till the little black and white ball was dislodged from the new nestling-place he had chosen. " Come here, you little rascal ! Come and let me look at you ! There, now, sit up and wash yourself with your little paws, like a kitten, for yovi're going to bed shortly, I can tell you. Oh, he's a beauty, that he is, with his black patch over one eye like a little bull-dog, and a little brown sjDot at his side, the very color of a pear that's gone bad. Then he's got eyes of his own like large black beads, and little tiddy ears that are as 30 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. soft and pinky as rose-leaves. He's a nice clean little tiggy, too, and not like those filthy white mice that some boys keep, and which have such a nasty ratty smell with them — no ! Toby smells of nice new hay instead. There ! there's a fine fellow for you," cried the lad, as he rubbed up the tiny animal's coat the wrong way. " Why, he looks like a little baby hog with a mane of bristles up his neck. But Toby's no hog, that he isn't, for he w^ouldn't bite me even with my finger at his mouth — no ! he only nibbles at it, to have a game at play, that's all. But come. Master An- derson, you must go back to your nest, and make the best supper you can off your bed-clothes; for you can't sleep with the cat to-night, so you'll have to keep yourself warm, old fellow, for I couldn't for the life of me go down stairs to get Pussy for you to cuddle just now." The pet was at length returned to its cage, and Benjamin once more left to brood over his troubles ; so he flung himself on the bed again, and began thinking how he could best avoid the punishment that he felt sure awaited him on the morrow. Yet it was strange, he mused, his father had not called him down even to put the shutters up. Who had closed the shop ? he wondered. They must have done supper by this time. Yes, that Avas the clatter of the things being taken away. Why didn't Deborah come to him? he always did to her when she was in disgrace. Who had asked a blessing on the food now he was away ? Still he could not make out why he wasn't called down. Had mother begged him off as usual ? No, that couldn't be, for father had threatened last time that he would listen to no more en- treaties. Perhaps one of the deacons had come in "what shall we do with the boy r' si to talk with father about the affairs of the chapel ill South Street,* or else Uncle Ben was reading to them his short-hand notes of the sermon he had gone to hear that evening. f Soon, however, the sounds of his father's violin below stairs put an end to the boy's conjectures as to the occupation of the family, and as he crept outside the door to listen, he could hear them all joining in a hymn. J Still Benjamin could not make out why his pun- ishment should be deferred. However, he made his mind up to one thing, and that was to be off to his brother-in-law, Captain Holmes, at daybreak on the morrow, and get him to promise to take him as a cabin-boy on his next voyage — for that would put an end to all the noises between his father and him. The plan was no sooner framed than the lad was away in spirit again, sailing far over the sea, while he listened to the drone of the sacred tune below ; until at last, tired out with his troubles, he fell asleep as he lay outside the bed, and woke * "I remember well," Franklin writes in the description he gives of his father's character in his Autobiography, " his l)eing frequently visited by leading men, who consulted him for his opinion on public affairs, and those of the church he belonged to, and who showed a great respect for his judg- ment and advice." t " He had invented a short hand of his own," says Frank- lin in his life, speaking of his Uncle Benjamin, "which ho taught me ; but, not having practiced it, I have now forgot- ten it. He was very pious, and an assiduous attendant at the sermons of the best preachers, which he reduced to writ- ing according to his method, and had thus collected several volumes of them." t "My father was skilled a little in music. His voice was sonorous and agreeable, so that when he played on his violin, and sang withal, as. he Avas accustomed to do after the busi- ness of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear." ^—Franklin's Anfohiogrnphy. 32 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. only when the air was blue with the faint light of the coming day. His first thoughts, on opening his eyes, were of the chastisement that he felt assured was in store for him if he staid till his father was stirring. So, without Avaiting to tidy himself, he crept, with his shoes in his hand, as silently as possible down stairs, and then slipping them on his feet, he was off, like a frightened deer, to the water-side. Come what might, little Ben was determined to be a sailor. CHAPTER n. "missing: a young gentleman — " ^'- If Benjamin Franklin will return to his home^ all toill he for — " " No, no, I won't have '•forgiven^ put down," doggedly exclaimed the father, seizing hold of Uncle Benjamin's arm to stop his pen, as the lat- ter read out, word by word, the announcement he was busy writing for the town-crier : while, in one corner of the room, that important civic func- tionary stood waiting for the bit of paper, with his big bell inverted, so that it looked like an enormous brass tulip in his hand. " I ask your pardon. Master Frankling, but we general says ' forgiven' in all sitch cases," meekly observed the bellman, with a slight pull of his forelock. " Oh, Josiah, remember the words of your morning prayer !" interposed the broken-hearted mother, as for a moment she raised her face fi'om out her hands : " ' forgive us as we — ' you know the rest." "Ay, come. Josh," said Uncle Benjamin, "don't "mi^ssing: a young gentleman- 33 be stubborn-hearted ! Think of the young * nev- er-do-weir you were yourself when you were 'prentice to brother John at Banbury."* " That's all very well !" murmured the Puritan tallow-chandler, turning away to hide the smiles begotten by the youthful recollection, and still struggling with the innate kindness of his nature ; " but I've got a duty to perform to my boy, and do it I will^ even if it breaks my heart." " Yes, but. Josh," remonstrated Uncle Ben, as he laid his hand on his brother's shoulder, *' think of the times and times you and I have stolen away on the sly to Northampton, to see the mummers there, unbeknown to father. Ah ! you were a sad young jackanapes for the play-house, that you were. Master Josh, at Ben's age," he added, nudging the father playfully in the side. "I don't mean to deny it, Benjamin" — and the would-be Brutus chuckled faintly as his brother reminded him of his boyish peccadilloes — " but," he added immediately afterward, screwing up as good a frown as he could manage under the cir- cumstances, " that's no reason why I should allow my boy to be guilty of the same sins. There, go along with you — f?c>," he exclaimed, good-humor- edly, as he endeavored to shake off both the moth- er and the uncle, who, seeing that the ice of pa- ternal propriety was fast thawing under the warmth of his better nature, had planted them- selves one on either side of him. " I tell you it's my bounden duty not to overlook the boy's dis- * "John, my next uncle, was bred a dyer, I believe, of wool," says Benjamin Franklin himself in his life. * * * "My grandfather Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at Ecton till he was too old to continue his business, when he retired to Banbury in Oxfordshire, to the house of his son John, with whom my father served ctn apprenticeship." — See Autobiography^ p. 3 and 4. c 34 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. obedience any longer;" and, so saying, he beat the air with his fist, as if anxious to hammer the notion into his own mind as well as theirs. " Verily, Josiah, justice says all should be pun- ished, ' for there are none perfect, no, not one,' '' whispered the religious wife impressively in his ear; "but love and mercy, husband, cry For- give." "To be sure they do," chimed in the good- natured uncle ; " for, as the mummers used to say in the play, Josh, ' If all have their deserts, who shall 'scape whipping ?' So, come, I may put down '-forgiven^ eh ?" added the peacemaker, as he shook his brother by the hand, while Josiah turned away as if ashamed of his weakness. " Ah ! I knew it 'ud be so," and quickly inditing the word. Uncle Benjamin handed the paper to the crier, saying, " There, my man, you'd better first go round the harbor with it ; and if you bring the prodigal back with you in an hour or two, why, you shall have a mug of cider over and above your pay." The crier, having nodded his head, and scraped his foot back along the sanded floor by way of obeisance, took his dej^arture, when in a minute or two the family heard his bell jangling away at the end of the street, and immediately afterward caught the distant cry of " Oyez, oyez, oyez ! hif Benjamin Frankling will return to his 'ome — " " Do you hear, sister ?" said Uncle Benjamin, consolingly, as he approached the weeping moth- er ; " your boy will be heard of all over the town, and you'll soon have your little jDet bird back again in his cage, rest assured." " Heaven grant it may be so, and bless you for your loving kindness, brother," faltered out the dame, half hysteric, through her tears, with de- light at the thought of regaining her lost son. "missing: a young gentleman — " 35 " Hah ! it'll all come right enough by-and-by," said Uncle Benjamin, with a sigh like the blowing of a porpoise, as he now prepared to copy into his short-hand book the notes of the sermon he had heard on the previous evening, " and the young good-for-nothing will turn out to be the flow^er of the flock yet — take my word for it. Wasn't our brother Thomas the wildest of all us boys, Josh ? and didn't he come, after all, to be a barrister, and a great man ? And when Squire Palmer advised him to leave the forge, on account of his love of learning, and become a student at law, didn't fa- ther — you remember. Josh — vow he wouldn't lis- ten to it, and declare that the eldest son of the Franklins had always been a smith, and a smith, and nothing else than a smith, his eldest son should be ? Well," the good man proceeded, as he kept rubbing his spectacles with the dirty bit of wash-leather he usually carried in his pocket, " didn't Tom, I say, in spite of father's objections and prophecies, rise to be one of the foremost men in the whole county, and a friend of my Lord Halifax ?* ay, and so your Ben, mark my word, * "Thomas, my eldest uncle," wrote Franklin in 1771 to his son, William Temple Franklin, who was then Governor of New Jersey, "was bred a smith under his father" ("the eldest son being always brought ujd to that employment," he states in another place), "but being ingenious, and encour- aged in learning, as all his brothers were, by an Esquire Palmer, then the principal inhabitant of our parish, he qual- ified himself for the bar, and became a considerable man in the county, was chief mover of all public-spirited enterprises for the county or town of Northampton, as well as of his own village, of which many instances were related of him, and he was much taken notice of and patronized by my Lord Hali- fax. He died in 1702, four years to a day before I was born. The recital which some elderly persons made to us of his character, I remember, struck you as something extraordi- nary, from its similarity with what you know of me. ' Had he died,' said you, 'four years later, on the same day, one 36 YOUNG BENJAMIN FBANKLIN. will come to be courted by the great some day ; for — though he's my oic7i godson, and called after me^ too — he's the very image of his iincle the bar- rister, that he is; so like him, indeed, that if Thomas, instead of dying, as he did four years to a day before Benjamin was born, had quitted this world for a better just four years later, why, I should have said — had I been a heathen, and be- lieved in such things — that the spirit of the one had passed into the body of the other ; for your Ben has got the same clever head-piece of his own, and is for all the world the same greedy glutton at a book." " I grant he's a lad of some parts," exclaimed the flattered father, while slipping on, over the arms of his coat, the clean linen sleeves his wife had put to air for him, " and, indeed, was always quick enough at his learning. But I'm wanted in the shop," he added, as the bell was heard to tin- kle without ; " so do you, Benjamin, talk it over with Abiah here, and please her mother's heart by raising her hopes of her truant child. Com- ing!" shouted the tallowy-chandler, as he ducked his head under the fringe of candles, while the impatient visitor kept tapping on the counter. As the husband left the parlor, the tidy wife cried in a half-whisper after him, " Do pray stop, Josiah, and put on a clean apron, for really that isn't lit to go into the shop with," and then, find- ing she had spoken too late, she turned to Uncle Benjamin (who was now scribbling away at the table), and continued, with all the glory of a mother's pride, " I can hardly remember the time when our Ben coidchiH read : how, too, the little fellow ever learned his letters was always a mys- tery to me, for I never knew of any one teaching might have supposed a transmigration.'" — Autobiographi/^ J3ohn's edition, p. 4. "missing: a young gentleman — " st him.* But I can't get Josiah to bear in mind that he was a boy himself once ; for, though Ben inay be a Httle flighty, I'm sure there's no vice in the child." And, now that her thoughts had been diverted into a more lively channel, she rose from her seat, and began to busy herself with making the apple and pumpkin pie that she had promised the chil- dren for that day's feast. "It was only a packman with tapes and rib- bons," said Josiah, as he shortly rejoined the couple ; " but even he had got hold of the news of our misfortune." " Well, but, Josiah," expostulated the brother, looking up sideways, like a bird, from the book in which he was writing, " don't you remember the time, man alive, when you used to walk over from Banbury to the smithy at Ectonf every week, and go nutting and birds'-nesting with us boys in Sy- well Wood, on God's-day, without ever setting foot in His house ? and do you recollect, too, how we boys 'ud carry off the old iron from the forge, * " My early readiness in learning to read," says our hero, in the account he gives of himself" (and which must have been very early, as I can not remember the time when I could not read), and the opinion of all friends that I should cer- tainly make a good scholar, encouraged him (my father) in this purpose of his — of putting me to the Church." — Frank- lin's Life, p. 7. t " Some notes which some of my uncles, who had some curiosity in collecting family anecdotes, once put into my hands, furnished me with several particulars relative to our ancestors. From these notes I learned that they lived in the village of Ecton, in Northamptonshire, on a freehold of about thirty acres, for at least 300 years, and how much longer could not be ascertained. This small estate would not have served for their maintenance without the business of a smith, which had continued in the family down to my uncle's time, the eldest son always being brought up to that employment — a custom which he and my father followed with regard to their eldest sons." — Life of Franklin, p. 2 and 3. 38 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. and sell it to the traveling tinker, who used to come round with his cart once a month, and put up at the ' World's End' (that was the sign of the inn at Ecton, Abiah," he added, parenthetically, "and the half-way house between Northampton and Wellingborough, in Old England), and how we let father accuse Mat Wilcox — you remember old Mat — who was helping him at the forge then, of stealing his metal, without ever saying a word to clear the poor man ? Ah ! Josiah, Josiah, we can always see the mote in another's eye — " " Say no more, Ben," exclaimed the reproved brother ; " we are but weak vessels at best." "Now confess, husband," interruiDted the wife, as she continued rolling out the paste before her till it was like a sheet of buff leather, "isn't it bet- ter that I got you to sleep on your anger before punishing the poor lad ? It is but fright, after all, that has driven him from us; and when he re- turns, let me beg of you to use reason rather than the whip with him." "Yes, Abiah," dryly observed the husband, " ' Spare the rod,' and — " (he nodded his head as much as to say, " I needn't tell you the conse- quence") — " that is ever a woman's maxim." At this moment the side door opened stealthi- ly, and Deborah (dressed for the morning's work in a long checked pinafore reaching from the throat to the heels, so that the young woman look- ed like a great overgrown girl) thrust her head in the crevice, and gave her mother " a look" — one of those significant household glances which refer to a thousand and odd little family matters never intended for general ears. " You can come in now, Deborah," cried the mother, Avho, still engaged in the preparation of her apple and pumpkin pie, was busy thumbing patches of lard over the broad sheet of paste, and "missing: a young gentleman " 89 converting it in appearance into a huge palette covered with dabs of white paint. " Have you finished all up stairs ?" she inquired, looking round for the moment. The girl, in her anxiety for her brother, did not stop to answer the question, but said in an under tone, as she drew close up to her mother's side, " Has father forgiven Ben ?" The dame, however, on her part, merely re- plied, " There, child, never mind about that just now ; you'll know all in good time," and imme- diately began to catechise her on her domestic duties. " Have you put a good fire in ' the keep- ing-room,' and sanded the floor nicely, and got out some more knives and forks for the children? for, remember, we shall sit down upward of a score to dinner to-day." But Deborah was too intent to listen to any thing but the fate of the boy, whom she loved better than all her brothers, for she had been al- lowed to nurse him when a baby, though but a mere child herself at the time, and had continued his toy-maker in general up to the present mo- ment. So she pulled her mother timidly by the apron, and said, as she glanced hastily at her fa- ther, to assure herself that he was still arguing with Uncle Benjamin, " Will father let him come back home ? have you found out where he's gone to yet ? and do you really think, mother, he's run away to sea?" adding the next minute, with a start, as the thought suddenly flashed upon her, " Oh dear me ! I quite forgot to tell you, mother, a man brought this letter to the side door, and said I was to deliver it privately to you." " What a head you have, child !" exclaimed the dame, as, dusting the flour from her hands, she snatched the note from the girl, and hastily tore it open. 40 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. But her eye had hardly darted backward and forward over the first few lines before the mother littered a faint scream, and staggered back to the bee-hive chair. In a minute the husband and Uncle Benjamin were at her side, and Deborah, seizing the vine- gar cruet from the dresser-shelf, was bathing her mother's temples with the acid. " God be praised ! my boy's at Ruth's,*' the dame at length gasped out, in answer to the anx- ious group around her ; *' Holmes has sent a note here to say he will bring him round in the even- ing ;" and she pointed languidly to the letter which had fallen on the floor. CHAPTER in. THE FRANKLIN FAMILY. JosiAH Feanexin retained sufficient of the aus- tere habits of the Puritans and the early Non- conformists to have made it a rule — even if his limited means and large family (no fewer than thirteen of whom occasionally sat together at his table*) had not made it a matter of necessity — that the food partaken of by the little colony of boys and girls he had to support should be of the plainest possible description. Simple fare, how- ever, was so much a matter of principle with Jo- siah (despising, as he did, all " lusting after the flesh-pots"), that he never permitted at his board * * ' By his first wife my father had four children born in America (besides three previously in England)^ and by a sec- ond ten others — in all, seventeen — of whom I remember to have seen thirteen sitting together at his table, who all grew up to years of maturity, and were married." — Autobiographic,. p. 9. THE FRANKLIN FAMILY. 41 any of those unseemly exhibitions of delight or disgust which certain youngsters are wont to in- dulge in on the entry of any, dish more or less toothsome than the well-known and ever-dreaded scholastic " stick-jaw."* In so primitive a household, therefore, there must have been some special cause for the com- pounding of so epicurean a dish as the before- mentioned apple and pumpkin pie — some extra- ordinary reason why Dame Franklin should have instructed Deborah, as she did, " to be sure and put out plenty of maple sugar for the children," besides "a gallon of the dried apples and peaches to be stewed for supper" — and why that turkey and those " canvas-back ducks" (so highly prized among the creature-comforts of America) were ere long twirhng away in front of the bright, cherry- red fire, and filling the whole house with their savory perfumef — and why, too, the brisket of * "Little or no notice was ever taken of what related to tlie victuals on the table — whether well or ill cooked — in or out of season — of good or bad flavoi' — preferable or inferior to this or that other thing of the kind ; so that I was brought up in such perfect inattention to these matters as to be quite indifferent what kind of food was set before me. Indeed, I am so unobservant of it, that to this day I can scarce tell, a few hours after dinner, of what dishes it consisted. This has been a great convenience to me in traveling, Avhen my companions have sometimes been very unhappy for want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate, because better instructed tastes and appetites." — Life of Fi-anklin, p. 9. t The white, or canvas-back duck, derives its name from the color of the feathers between the wings being of a light brown tint, like canvas. These birds breed on the borders of the great Northern lakes, and in winter frequent the Sus- quehanna and Potomac rivers, in order that they may feed on the bulbous root of a grass that grows on the fiats there, and which has much the flavor of celery. It is to the feed- ing on this root that the peculiarly delicious flavor of their flesh is attributed. They are held in as great esteem in America as grouse with us, and are frequently sent as a 43 TOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. corned beef had been got up from " the cask" be- low, and was now wabbling and steaming, with its dozen of dough-nuts bumjDing against the lid of the iron pot on the hob, and the corn-cakes baking in the oven, and the huge bowl of curds — white and cold-looking as marble — standing on the dresser. Why all this preparation for feasting in a house where the ordinary food was almost as frugal as a hermit's fare ? The Franklin family knew but one holiday in the course of the year — the anniversary of the fa- ther's safe landing in America in 1685, which the pious Josiah had made a family "Thanksgiving Day." To commemorate this event, the younger girls (those who had not yet finished their school- ing) came home from their maiden aunts, Hannah and Patience Folger, who kept a day-school at Sherbourne, in [N'antucket ; while the boys who were out in the world, serving their apprentice- ship, got leave to quit their master's house for the day, to take part in the family festival ; and the grown-up sons, who were in business for them- selves, gave over their work, or shut up their stores, and came with their wives and little ones to join in the rejoicing. So sacred a duty, indeed, did all the Franklins regard it, to assemble once a year under the pa- ternal roof, that none but the most cogent excuse for absence was ever urged or received, so that even those who were away in distant lands strove to return in time for the general meeting. The morning was not far advanced, and Josiah present for hundreds of miles. A canvas-back duck, indeed, is reckoned one of the greatest dainties in the States, being more delicate in flavor than a wild duck, though consider- ably larger. The Americans eat it with currant jelly, as if it were venison. THE FRANKLIN" FAMILY. 43 had hardly done putting up the shutters of his store, as was his wont on this day precisely at ten in the forenoon, before the boys and the girls, and the grown-up young men and women of the fam- ily, began to swarm in like so many bees at the sound of a gong. First came Jabez and Nehemiah — two stout, strapping lads, carpenter's and mason's appren- tices (the one had called for the other on his road), dressed in their Sunday three-cornered hats and bright yellow leather breeches, and with their thick shoes brown with the earth of the plowed fields they had trudged over, and carrying in their hands the new walking-sticks they had cut from the copse as they came along. Then young Esther and Martha made their ap- pearance, wrapped in their warm scarlet cloaks, and looking like a pair of "little Red Riding- Hoods" — for they had come from school at Nan- tucket, and had been brought to the door by the mate of the New York sloop that plied between Long Island and Boston, touching at the inter- vening islands on the way once a month in those days. Under their cloaks they carried a bundle containing the long worsted mittens they had knitted for the mother, and the warm patchwork quilt they had made for the father, together with the highly-prized samplers of that time, the latter of which had been done expressly to be framed for the keeping-room. After these walked in John Franklin, the tal- low-chandler (who was just about to set up in Rhode Island), with his young Quakeress wife on his arm ; and then followed the married daughter, Abiah, and her husband, the trader in furs and beaver-skins, who had always an inexhaustible stock of stories to tell the children about the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians, including wild U YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. tales of the chiefs " Blue Snake" or " Big Bear," or even Nekig the " Little Otter." Nor did Zachary, the ship-builder (he who had sent the ducks from the Potomac River), absent hunself, even though he had to come all the way from Annapolis for the gathering ; and he brought with him his motherless little boy, for his young wife had died of the fever since the last family meeting. There was Ebenezer, too, the bachelor farmer ; and the swarthy and stalwart Thomas, the first- born and hereditary smith of the family; and Ruth, with her half dozen little ones toddling close after her, like a hen with her brood of chicks ; and Samuel Franklin, Uncle Benjamin's son from Lon- don, who had recently set up as a cutler in Boston city; and, indeed, every one of the Franklins that could by any means manage to reach the house at the time. Only three out of the multitudinous family were absent : James, the printer, who had gone to Lon- don to purchase a stock of types — Josiah, the out- cast — and Benjamin, the little runaway. The absence of the elder brothers created no astonishment ; for Josiah had not sat at that board for years — many of the young children, indeed, had never set eyes on his countenance — while all had heard of James's trip to the mother country. But where was Ben? where was Ben? was the general cry, as the family came streaming in, one after another. Jabez and Nehemiah ran all over the house, shouting after the little fellow. Esther and Mar- tha, too, kept teasing Deborah all the morning to tell them where he had got to, for they fancied he was hiding from them in play, and they were itching to show him the little sailor's Guernsey frock they had knitted for him at school. John THE FRANKLIN FA3IILY. 45 wished to hear how the lad got on at candle- making, and whether he could manage the dips yet, and Zachary to see what new toy-ship he had got on the stocks — and, indeed, every one to say something to him ; for he was a general favorite, not only because he was the youngest of the boys, but because he was the cleverest and best-natured of them all. The news that Ben was " in disgrace" made all as sad as death for a time ; but every one had a kind word to say for him to the father. The younger ones begged hard for him; the elder ones pleaded well for him ; so that Josiah had not fortitude enough to hold out against such a frieird- ly siege, and was obliged to promise he would let the boy off as lightly as possible ; though, true to his principles, the would-be disciplinarian vowed that the next time " he'd — he'd — but they should Mistress Franklin (as the sons and daughters came pouring in one after another, till the house was so full of boys and girls — children and grand- children — that it was almost impossible, as has been well said, to shut the doors for them) had enough to do between preparing the dinner and tidying the young ones for the occasion ; though it almost broke her housewife's heart to find how buttonless and stringless, and even ragged, their clothes had become during their long absence. Scarcely had she kissed the boys before she twisted them round by the shoulders, as she eyed them from top to toe, and commenced pouring down upon their unlucky heads a heavy shower of motherly reproofs, while the lads, who were thinking only of the feast, kept worrying her as to what she was going to give them for dinner. " Dear heart !" she would begin to one, " why 46 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. donH you wash up at the roots of your hair, boy?" or else she would exclaim, as she threw up her hands and eyebrows, "Is that your best coat? Why, you've only had it a year, and it's not fit to be seen. Where you fancy the clothes come from, lad, is more than I can tell." The boy, however, would merely reply, "What pie have you made this year, mother? I hope it's a big 'un ! Let's have a peep in the oven — you might as well." Then to another she would cry, as she seized him by his leg like a sheep, " Why, I declare, there's a large hole in the heel of your stocking, boy, big enough for a rat to get through ; and if you were a sweep's child, I'm sure your linen couldn't well be blacker." But this one paid no more heed than the other to the dame's observations ; for the only answer he made was, " Got any honey, mother, for after dinner? Don't the ducks smell jolly, Jabe — that's all ! I say, mother, give us a sop in the pan." Nor did the girls undergo a less minute scru- tiny. " Why didn't a big child like Esther write home and say she wanted new flannels, for those she'd on were enough to perish her. She never saw children grow so in all her life." " Come here, girl ; whatever is the matter with your mouth?" next she would shriek, as she caught hold of Martha and dragged her to the light ; " you want a good dosing of nettle-tea to sweeten your blood — that you do." Whereupon, heaving a deep sigh, she would add, " Hah ! you must all of you, children, have a spoonful or two of nice brimstone and treacle before you leave home again." Then, as soon as the dame caught sight of Ruth, she began to question Aer about poor little Ben, THE FRANKLIN FAMILY. 4T continuing her cooking operations the while. At one moment she was asking whether the lad was fretting much, and the next she was intent on basting her ducks, declaring that there was no leaving them a minute, or she'd have them burnt to a cinder. Now she would fall to stirring the potful of " hominy," and skimming the corned beef; then pausing for an instant to tell Ruth how frighten- ed she had been when she found that poor Ben- had left the house that morning, and begging of her to get Holmes to do all he could to set the lad against the sea. And when Ruth had told the mother that Holmes was obliged to stay and see his cargo dis- charged at the wharf, and that he thought it would save words if Ben came round with him in the evening ; and when she had informed her, moreover, that Ben had forgotten it was Thanks- giving Day at home till he saw her and her little ones leaving for the feast, and that then he seem- ed to take it to heart greatly, the mother stopped short in her examination of the pie during the process of baking, and cried, as she held it half drawn out of the oven, " I'll put by a bit of every thing for him, and he shall have the largest cut of the pie, that he shall ;" adding the next min- ute, " But he'll be round in the evening in time for the stewed fruit and corn-cakes — bless him !" Immediately after this she began wondering again whether that girl Deborah had thought about tapping a fresh cask of cider, and "fuss- ing," as usual, now about her boy, and then about her dinner. 48 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKXIN. CHAPTER IV. THE FEAST, AND AN ARKIVAL. When all the family had assembled in the " keeping-room," it was the invariable custom of the Puritan father on this day to offer up a pray- er of thanksgiving for his safe arrival in New En- gland ; after which the violin was taken out, and he would play while the family joined in a hymn. This was usually followed by a short discourse from Josiah touching the great principles of re- ligious liberty, so dear to the early settlers of America ; for the sturdy old Non-conformist loved to impress upon the children gathered round him that he had left the home where his forefathers had lived for many generations, not to seek "treasures that moth and rust corrode," but merely to be able to worship the Almighty as he thought fit, and which w^as held to be a crime at that time in his native land.* * *'My father married young, and carried his wife with three children to New England about 1685. The conven- ticles being, at that time, forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed in the meetings, some considerable men of his ac- quaintance determined to go to that country, and he was persuaded to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy the exercise of their religion with freedom. * * * Our humble family early embraced the Reformed religion," writes Benjamin Franklin. ' ' Our forefathers had an English Bible, and to conceal it, and place it in safety, it was fasten- ed open with tapes under and within the cover of a joint- stool. When my great-grandfather wished to read it to his family, he placed the joint-stool on his knees, and then turn- ed over the leaves under the tapes. One of the children stood at the door to give notice if he saw the apparitor com- ing, who was an officer of the Spiritual Court. . . . This an- THE FEAST, AND AN ARRIVAL. 49 The family devotions and discourse were bare- ly ended ere the " cuckoo clock" whooped twelve, and immediately a crow of delight from the younger branch of the Franklin family announced the entry of the corned beef and dough-nuts. Such manifestations of the pleasures of the palate, we have before said, were highly disap- proved of by the simple-minded Josiah ; so, as his eye suddenly lighted upon the young carpen- ter's apprentice in the act of rubbing his waist- coat, and drawing in his breath in youthful ecsta- sy, the ascetic father cried, with a shake of the head, " Jabez, how often have I told you that this giving way to carnal joys is little better than a heathen !" But scarcely had the parent finished chiding one son than he was startled by a^loud smacking of the lips from another ; when, glancing in the direction of the sound, he found the young mason Avith his mouth and eyes wide open, in positive raptures as he sniffed the savory odor of the brown and smoking canvas-back 'ducks that Deb- orah was about to j)lace at the bottom of the table. " I'm ashamed of you, Nehemiah," the tallow- chandler shouted, as he frowned at the lad, " giv- ing up your heart to the vanities of this world in such a manner !" A secret pull at his coat-tails, however, from Uncle Benjamin, cut short the lecture, for the ecdote," Franklin adds, "I had from Uncle Br^njamin. The family continued, " he then proceeds to say, "all of the Church of England till about the end of Charles II. 's reign, when some of the ministers who had been ' outed' for their non- conformity having opened a conventicle in Northamptonshire, my uncle Benjamin and my father adhered to them, and so continued all their lives.'' — Franklhi's Autobiography^ p. 5. 50 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. father knew that the friendly hmt meant to im- ply, "It's only once a year, Josh !" At length the dinner was ended, grace said, and a button or two of the boys' waistcoats undone ; and then the table itself was got out of the way, and the games commenced. This, however, was a part of the entertainment that the seriously-inclined Josiah was but little given to-; and, indeed, it required some more of Uncle Ben's good-humored bantering before he could be induced to consent to it. Even then he insisted that the children should play at "Mas- ters and Men," because there was a certain amount of knowledge to be gained from the rep- resentations of the various trades ; for nothing- annoyed him more than to see youth wasting its time in mere idle amusements. But, the ice of propriety once broken. Uncle Ben and the cRildren were soon engaged in the most boisterous and childish gambols : not only was "dropping the 'kerchief" indulged in, and the grave Josiah himself made to form part in the ring, but even tiie wild frolic of "jingling" was resorted to, and the father and mother, and Un- cle Ben, and Zachary the ship-builder, and Ruth too, as well as young Abiah and her husband the trapper, and John and his young Quakeress wife, and, indeed, the entire company, were all pressed into the service, and every one of them blindfold- ed at the same time, while the part of " jingler" fell to the lot of Nehemiah, who ran about the keeping-room like a frantic young town crier, ringing the hand-bell to give notice of his where- abouts to the blind players, as they kept rolling continually one over the other in their eagerness to catch him. It was at this moment, when the noise and THE FEAST, AND AN ARRIVAL. 51 madness of the sport had reached their greatest height, and the father and Uncle Benjamin lay flat upon the floor, with a miscellaneous mound of children and grandchildren piled on top of them, that James Franklin — the young printer, who had gone to London for a stock of types and presses — burst into the room, fresh from the vessel that had just dropped anchor in the bay, and with his arms laden with packets of presents for the sev- eral members of the family. " Here's brother James come back from Old England !" shouted Nehemiah, throwing away his bell. In an instant the bandages were torn from all the faces, and the half-ashamed father dragged from under the bodies struggling on top of him, the newly-arrived son laughing heartily the while. As the children, and the grown brothers, and the rest came scrambling up to kiss or shake hands with the printer on his return, he told them one after the other the gift he had brought them from the " old country ;" and when he had greet- ed the whole of the company present, he stared round and round, and then glancing at Josiah, cried, " But where's Httle Ben, father ?" Josiah averted his head, for he had no wish to mar the general happiness by again alluding to his boy's disgrace, while the mother shook her head significantly at the printer, and Uncle Ben- jamin gave him a secret kick. James knew by the pantomimic hints that something was amiss ; so he answered, " What ! not allowed to be present on Thanksgiving Day ? Surely, father, one outcast in the family is enough !" " There, say nothing about it, lad," cried Uncle Ben ; " it's all been looked over long ago, and the little fellow will be here to supper shortly. But 52 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. come, let's have the news, Master James. You went down to Ecton, of course ?" he added ; and the young man had scarcely signified that he had made the journey, when the father and uncle, anxious to know all about their native village, and the companions of their youth, fired ofl[' such a volley of questions that it was more than James could do to answer them fast enough. Had he been to the old smithy ? inquired one ; and had he got a slip of the " golden pip2)in"-tree in the orchard ? Was Mistress Fisher still living at the forge ? asked the other; and who carried on the busi- ness now that their brother Thomas's son was dead? " Dear ! dear !" they both cried, as they heard the answer, "the smithy sold to Squire Isted, the lord of the manor,* and the old forge pulled down ? Well ! well ! what changes do come to pass !" Next it was, How was their new German king, George I., liked by the people at home ? And did he go and have a mug of ale at the " World's End?" and did Dame Blason keep the old inn still? Did he go to meeting, too, at the N"orth- ampton Conventicle, and learn whether the " Brownists" were increasing in numbers round about ? and was old Luke Fuller, who was " out- ed" for non-conformity at the time when they themselves seceded from the Church, the minister there still ? And when James had replied that the good man had dej^arted this life two years come Mich- * "My grandfather's eldest son, Thomas, lived in the house at Ecton, and left it, with the land, to his only daugh- ter, who, with her husband, one Fisher, of Wellingborough, sold it to Mr. Isted, now lord of the manor." — Life of Frank- lin, p. 3. THE FEAST, AND AN ARRIVAL. 53 aelmas, the old people hung down their heads as they sighed, " Hah ! it will be our turn soon." Then they wanted to know, Were the rebels in Scotland all quiet when he left ? and had he been over to Banbury, and seen the dye-house, and had John Franklin still got the best of the business there ? Had he set eyes on their old schoolfellow, Reu- ben of the Mill ? and was old Ned, the traveling butcher, still alive? And who held the "hund- red-acre farm" of the young Lord Halifax now ? And did the Non-conformists seem contented with the " Toleration Act ?" and was there any stir among them about getting the " Corporation Act" repealed ? And was Squire Palmer's widow living at the Hall still? And had he been over and seen the folk at Earls-Barton and Mears- Ashby, and told them that they were all doing well in New. England? Hah! they would give the world to set eyes on the old places and the old people again. The gossip about their native village and an cient friends would have continued, doubtlessly, until bedtime, had not Jabez, who had a turn for that extravagant pantomime which boys consider funny, here danced wildly into the room after the style of the Red Indians that his brother-in-law the trapper had just been telling them about, and springing into the air with a cry imitative of the war-whoop, announced to the startled company that the "Big Bear" and "Little Otter" were coming up the stairs to join the party. Whereupon Captain Holmes and the truant Benjamin entered the room. 54 yOUKG BEisJAM12^ i'KAXKLIN. CHAPTER V. THK father's LKCTUKE. " Come this way, Benjamin ! I wish to speak with you below," said the father, gravely, as soon as the lad had gone the round of his relatives, and just at the interesting moment when the "car- nal-minded" Jabez was making Ben's mouth wa- ter with a list of the many good things they had had for dinner that day. The paternal command caused no little excite- ment among the youthful members of the family, who knew too well what the summons meant. But scarcely had Josiah removed one of the lighted candles from the mantle-shelf to carry Avith him to the parlor, than the mother rose and followed close at the heels of the father and the chap-fallen boy ; while Jabez and Nehemiah nudg- ed one another aside, as they whispered, " Let's come too, and see what father's going to do with Ben." To satisfy their curiosity, the anxious lads avail- ed themselves of the darkness of the shop, where they stood, quiet as mutes, peejDing over the cur- tain into the little back room, and watching the movements of their parents Avithin. " Father's lecturing him xcell^ I can see," whis- pered Jabez, on tiptoe, to the brother at his side, " for he is shaking his head till his gray locks fly about again, and liolding up his forefinger as he always does, you know, Avhen he's talking very seriously." " What's mother doim? ?" asked the brother. •Fathers lecturing him well, I can see. THE father's lecture. 57 " Why, she's got Ben drawn close np to her, and keeps passing her hand over his cheek," an. swered Jabez. " How aged father gets to look, doesn't he?" the boy added, almost in the same breath, for he could not help remarking the change, now that his whole attention was riveted on his i3arent's figure. " He's got to stoop dread- fully since last Thanksgiving Day." " Yes," observed the other, " that Sunday gray coat of his, that he's had ever since I can remem- ber, gets to hang about him like a smock-frock, that it does. I was thinking so only just before dinner, Jabe." " Ah ! and mother isn't so young as she used to be," mournfully continued Jabez, " for she gets to look more like old grandfather Folger in the face every — " " What's that noise ?" whispered Nehemiah, as a loud scuffle was heard in the parlor. " Why, father's just dragged Benjamin from mother's arms," was the answer, " for she kept hugging and kissing him all the time he was lec- turing him. Hush ! I shall hear what he says directly, for he's talking much louder now." "What's he telling him, eh?" inquired the young mason, in an under tone, after holding his breath till he felt half stifled with his suspense. " I can just make out that he's very angry with mother for petting Ben as she does," replied the little carpenter, "because father says 'it makes his conduct appear undeservedly harsh, and strips his reproofs' — yes, those were his words — ' of all the force that justice would otherwise give them.' Isn't that like father, Nee ?" " Yes," added the brother ; " he may be a little severe at times, but he's always very just with us, I'm sure ; and mother, you know, loill spoil Ben, because he's the youngest of us boys." 5S YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. "Be quiet, Nee !" said Jabez, as he kicked his brother gently to enforce the command, and put his ear closer to the door. " Father's saying now that if Ben doesn't like the candle-making — yes" — and the lad paused to catch the remainder of the speech — "he'll let him choose a trade for himself What do you think of that .^" " Why, that comes of Uncle Benjamin being here," interposed Xehemiah. " Uncle's been hav- ing a long talk with father aboufr the matter, I can see." " Do be quiet, will you, or I shall miss it all," cried Jabez, tetchily. " What's that he's sapng now ?" the lad inquired, talking to himself, as he strove to catch the words. "Father's warning Ben," he added, in measured sentences, as he fol- lowed the old man's voice, " that when he's chosen another trade — if he ever runs away from his work again — he'll close his doors against him forever, the same as he did with his outcast son Josiah." An hour or two after the above scene, the three boys, fresh from their sujjper of stewed peaches and hot corn-cakes (of which the mother had given her pet boy Ben double allowance), had retired to the little attic for the night, and when Jabez and Nehemiah had heard from their broth- er all about his running away, and the wonderful " Flying Dutchman" (clipper built) that he'd got nearly ready for launching, they began to gossip among themselves, as boys are wont to do, while they prepared for bed. First, Ben's Guinea-pig was taken out, and ex- hibited to the admiring brothers, who, boy-like, were young "fanciers," not only of Guinea-j^igs, but of every pet animal in creation, from white mice to monkeys ; whereupon they immediately commenced discussing the comparative beauties of the "black," the "tortoise-shell," and the " fawn" kinds of African porkers, one saying that " too many tea-leaves Avere not good for them, as they made them pot-bellied," and the other re- marking that " he didn't like Guinea-pigs because they ate their young like rabbits ;" a circumstance Avhich suddenly reminded him of a " double-smut" of his acquaintance that " had devoured her whole litter of six, every bit of them except their tails, but those she couldn't swallow because they w^ere so fluify." This led to a long discourse on rabbits in gen- eral, w^hen Jabez dived very learnedly into the varieties of " double-lops," and " horn-lojDS," and " oar-lops," as well as the " up-eared" sj^ecies, and told tales of wonderful does, the tips of whose " fancy ears" had touched the ground, and meas- ured more than a foot in length. After this the conversation branched off to pigeons, young Benjamin observing that if Jabe would only make him a "snap-trap," he'd keep some " tumblers" in their loft, for Captain Holmes had just brought Bobby a couple of beautiful "soft -billed almonds" from London; besides, there was a prime place for a pigeon-house against their melting-shed, and a schoolfellow of his at old Brownell's had promised to give him a pair of splendid-hooded " Jacobins" and some " Leg- horn runts" for stock directly he'd got a place to keep them in, so Jabe might as well make a house for him in his over-time. Presently the young carpenter and mason pro- ceeded to compare notes as to the strength of the " sky-blue," and the thickness of the butter on the " scrape" at their respective masters, and to talk of the Avivos of those gentlemen as " old Mother So-and-So," until, tired of this subject, 60 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. the youthful trio digressed into ghost-stories, and so frightened each other with their hobgoblin tales, that, as the candle sputtered and flickered in the socket, they trembled at every rattle of the window-sashes, till sleep put an end to their ter- rors and their talk. At length the morning arrived when the youn- ger branches of the Franklin family were to re- turn to their masters and mistresses, and then the dame was in the same flurry as on the day of their arrival with the preparation of the hundred and one things required at her hands. On the table before her lay a small lot of brown, worsted stockings done up into balls that resem- bled so many unwashed potatoes, and new can- vas smocks for the boys to work in (short as ba- bies' shirts), and new shoes too, the soles of which were studded with nails almost as big as those on a church door, as Avell as mobcaps, and tip- pets, and aprons for the girls, after the style of our charity children of the present day, and hanks of worsted yarn for knitting, and seed-cakes, and bags of spiced nuts, together with ajar of honey for each of them, besides a packet of dried herbs to be made into tea, to " j^urify their blood" at the spring and fall of the year. When, too, the dreaded liour of departure ar- rived, and the boys' bundles had been made up, and the girls' hand-baskets ready packed for the journey, the tears of the mother and little ones rolled down their cheeks as fast and big as hail- stones down a skylight; and, as the weeping children crossed the threshold, the eager dame stood on the door-step, watcliing them down the narrow street, and calling after them to remind them of an infinity of small things they were to be sure and do directly they reached their des- tination. A TALK ABOUT THE SEA. 61 Ben, too, on his part, kept shouting to Jabez " not to forget to make him the pigeon-liouse as soon as he could get the wood," and calUng to the young mason to remember to send him some prime " bonces" and " alleys" directly he got back to the stone-yard. CHAPTER YI. A TALK ABOUT THE SEA. On the evening after the Thanksgiving Day Captain Holmes came round, when they had " knocked off work" at the ship, to smoke his pipe with Josiah and Uncle Benjamin— for the father w^ished the captain to talk with young Ben about his love of the sea ; so the dame had made one of her famous bowls of" lambs'-wool" for the occasion. . The captain Tvas a marked contrast, both m form and feature, to Josiah and his brother Ben- jamin. His frame seemed, indeed, to be of cast iron, his chest being broad as a bison's, and the grip of his big, hard hand like the squeeze of a vice. His face was gipsy-bronze with the weath- er he had long been exposed to, and set in ^ horseshoe of immense black whiskers, the hair of which stood out from the cheeks on either side like a couple of sweep's brushes ; and between these his white teeth glistened like the pearly lining of an oyster-shell as he laughed, which he did continually, and almost without reason. The old men, on the other hand, were but the noble ruins of humanity, graced rather than dis- figured by age. At the time of the opening of our story Josiah was in his sixty-third year, and Uncle Benjamin some few years his senior ; and 63 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. yet neither gave signs of the approach of that second childhood which is but the return of the circle of life into itself, linking the graybeard with the infant, and foreshadowing the Eternal in that mysterious round which brings us back (if the furlough from above be but long enough) to the very babyhood from which w^e started. The red Saxon blood, as contradistinguished from the swarthier Norman sap inherent in En- glish veins, was visible in the cheeks of both of the old men; indeed, their complexion was so pinky that one could well understand their boast that "they had never known a day's illness in their lives ;"* while their fresh color contrasted as pleasantly with their silver-white hair as the crim- son light of a blacksmith's forge glowing amid the snow of a winter's day. The only sign that the brothers gave of age was a slight crooking of the back, like packmen bending beneath their load — of years ; for their teeth were still perfect, nei- ther was the mouth drawn in, nor were the cheeks hollowed with the capacious dimples of second childhood. Had it not been for the " sad color" and formal Quaker-like cut of their clothes, no one Avould have fancied that they belonged to that heroic and righteous body of men, who, following in the footsteps of the first " pilgrims" to America, had willingly submitted to the martyrdom of exile for the sake of enjoying the free exercise of their re- ligion; for the hale and hearty Josiah had the cheerful and contented look of the English yeo- man, while the more portly and dumpy Benjamin had so good-humored an air that he might have * "I never knew my father or mother to have any sick- ness but that of which they died — he at 89, and she at 8.5 years of age." — Antobiographt/, p. 9. A TALK ABOUT THE SEA. 63 been mistaken, in another suit, for the jolly land- lord of a roadside inn.* Mistress Franklin, being some dozen years younger than her husband, and looking even younger than she was, seemed barely to have reached the summit of life's hill rather than to have commenced her journey down it. True, a quick eye might have discovered just a filament or two of silver streaking the dark bands of hair that braided her forehead ; but these were merely the hoar-frosts of Autumn whitening the spider's threads, for as yet there was no trace of Winter in her face. At the first glance, however, there was a half masculine look about the dame that made her seem deficient in the softer qualities of feminine grace ; for her features, though regular, were too bold and statuesque to be considered beautiful in a woman, and yet there was such exquisite ten- derness — indeed, a i3laintiveness that was almost musical — in her voice, together with such a good expression, glowing like sunshine over her whole countenance, that the stranger soon felt as assured of her excellence as those even who had proved it by long acquaintance. The wife, too, belonged to the same Puritan stock as Josiah ; her father — " Peter Folger, of Sherbourne," in Nantucket — having been among the earliest pilgrims to New England, and being styled " a godly and learned Englishman" in the chronicles of the country.f * *'I suppose you may like to know what kind of a man my father was," says Benjamin Franklin in writing to his son. "He had an excellent constitution, was of a middle stature, well set, and very strong." t "My mother (the second wife of my father) was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom honorable mention is made by Cot- tnn Mather in his ecclesiastical history of that country, en- C4 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. The simplicity of her dress, however, consti- tuted the chief mark of her conventicle training. The main characteristic of her appearance was the immaculate cleanliness as well as the fastidi- ous neatness of her attire. There was so much of white, indeed, about her (what with the mobcap, the muslin kerchief crossed over her bosom, and the ample linen apron covering her skirt (that she always looked fresh and tidy as a dairy — snowy as suds themselves. Her dress, too, was as free as a moonlight scene from all positive color, for even the mere fillet of ribbon which she wore round her cap was black, and her stuff' gown it- self gray as a friar's garment. " I've been pointing out to the youngster here, father," proceeded the captain, as he punctuated his speech with the puffs of his pipe, when the subject of the evening's conversation had been fairly broached, " what a dog's life a sailor's is, and asking him how he'd like to live all his time upon maggoty biscuits and salt junk, that goes by the name of ' mahogany' aboard a ship — be- cause it's so hard and red, and much easier carved into chess-men than it's chewed and digested, I can tell you. I've been asking him, too, how he'd like to have to drink Avater that's as black and putrid, ay ! and smells, while it's being pump- ed out of the casks in the hold, as strong as if it was being drawn out of a cesspool, so that one's glad to strain it through the corner of his hand- kerchief while drinking it from the ' tots.' And, what's more, youngster, you'd get only short al- lowance of this stuff*, I can tell you ; for over and over again, when I was a boy aboard the ' Francis titled Magnalia Cliristi Americana, as ' a podly and learned Englishman,' if I remember the words rightly." — Life of Franklin, p. G. A TALK ABOUT THE SEA. 65 Drake,' I give you my word I've been that dry in the tropics (what with the salt food, that was like munching solid brine, and the sun right overhead like a red-hot warming-pan) that I've drunk the sea-water itself to moisten my mouth, till I've been driven nearly mad with the burning fury of the thirst that was on me. Ah ! you youngsters, Ben, little know what we sailors have to put up with ; for, mind you, lad, I'm not pitching you any stiff yarn here about wrecks, and being cast away on rafts, and drawing lots as to who's to be devoured by the others, but what I'm telling you is the simple every-day life of the seaman, ay ! and of half the ' reefers,' too." Here the captain paused to indulge in his habit- ual chuckle (for it was all the same to him whether the subject in hand was serious or comic), while Mistress Franklin looked perfectly horror-stricken at the account of the water her boy had been, as it were, just on the point of drinking. Little Ben himself, however, was not yet " at home" enough to make any remark, but sat on the stool at his mother's feet, with his eyes counting the grains of sand on the floor, for he was still ashamed to meet his father's gaze. As for Josiah, he was but little moved by the captain's picture of the miseries of seafaring, and merely observed that, as he had taught his chil- dren to abstain from hankering after the "flesh- pots," Ben could bear the absence of creature comforts better than most boys — a remark that set the captain chuckling again in good earnest. " What you say, father, about hankering after the 'flesh-pots' is all very well," continued the good-humored sailor, as he tittered, while he tap- ped the ashes from the bowl of his pipe; "but if you'd had a twelvemonth on mahogany and sea- biscuits as hard and dry as tiles, you yourself E C6 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. would get hankering after a bit of ' soft tommy' (that's our name for new bread, Ben), and a cut of roast beef, I'll be boimd ; ay ! ay ! and think the fat old bum-boat woman, that comes off to the ship with a cargo of fresh quartern loaves di- rectly you make the land, the loveliest female in all creation. But," added Captain Holmes, after a long pull at a fresh mug of the delicious " lambs'- wool," " there are worse things aboard a ship, let me tell you, Ben, than even the rations. Young- sters think seafaring a fine life because it's full of danger, and looks pretty enough from the shore ; but only let them come to have six months of it 'tween decks, cooped up in a berth little bigger than a hutch, and as dark and close as a prison cell, directly the wind gets a little bit fresh and the scuttles and port-holes have to be closed ; and to be kept out of their hammocks half the night, with the watches that must be kept on deck wet or dry, fair or foul — ay ! and to be roused out, too, as soon as they get off to sleep — after the middle watch, maybe — to reef topsa'ls, or take in to'-gallan'-sa'ls, or what not, whenever a squall springs up — only let them have a taste of this, I say, and they soon begin to sing another song, I can tell you. Why, when I was 'prentice on board the ' Francis Drake,' I've often been put to walk the deck with a capsta'n-bar over my shoulder, ^and a bucket of water at the end of it, to keep me awake, and even then I've been that drowsy that I've paraded up and down by the gangway as fast asleep as if I'd been a som — som— what do you call it ?" " -nambulist," suggested Uncle Benjamin. " Ay, ay, that's it, mate," nodded the captain, with another laugh. " And over and over again, when I've sneaked away to pick out a soft plank between the hen-coops, and have just dropped off' A TALK ABOUT THE SEA. 6T the second mate has found me out, and come and emptied two or three buckets of salt water over me, and set me off strikmg out as if I was swim- ming, for I'd be fancying in my sleep, you see, that the vessel had got on a reef, and was filling and going fast to the bottom. " But the worst of all, lad," the sailor went on, when he had done puffing away at his pipe, so as to rekindle its half-extinguished fire, "is to be roused out of your sleep with the bo's'ain's whistle ringing in your ears, and the cry of ' A man over- board ! a man overboard !' shouted on every side." " Ah ! that must be terrible indeed," shudder- ed Mrs. Franklin, as she covered her face with her palms in horror at the thought. Little Ben, however, sat with his mouth open, staring up in the captain's face, and mute with eagerness to hear the story he had to tell. The father and uncle, too, said not a word, for they were loth to weaken the impression that the cap- tain's simple narrative was evidently making on the sea-crazed boy. " Ay, ay, mother," Captain Holmes proceeded, " it is terrible, I can assure you, to rush on deck in the darkness of night, when even your half- wakened senses tell you that there is nothing but a boundless watery desert round about the ship, and to find the canvas beating furiously against the masts, as the sails are put suddenly aback to check the way upon the vessel. Then, as you fly instinctively to the ship's side, you see, perhaps, some poor fellow struggling with the black waves, and, strange to say, apparently swimming as hard as he can aioay from the vessel itself before it is well brought to, for one forgets, at the moment, you see, the motion of the ship; and so, as it dashes past the wretched man in the water, it seems as if he, in the madness of his fright, Avas 68 YOUXG BENJAMIX FRANKLIN. hurrying away from the hull rather than the hull from him. ' Who is it ? who is it ?' cry a score of voices at once. ' Tisdale,' answers one. ' No, no, it's Swinton,' says another. ' I tell you it's Markham,' shouts a third ; ' he fell from the main chains as he was drawing a bucket of water ;' and while this goes on, some one, more thought- ful than the rest, runs to the st«rn and cuts adrift the life buoy that is always kept hanging there over the taffrel. Then, as the buoy strikes the water, the blue light that is attached to it takes fire, and the black mass of waves is lighted up for yards round with a pale phosphoric glow. But scarcely has this been done before some half dozen brave fellows have rushed to the davits, and jumping into the cutter over the ship's quarter, lowered the boat, with themselves in it, down into the sea. The next minute the oars are heard in the silence of the night to rattle quickly in the rullocks, while the cox'ain cries aloud, ' Give way, boys, give way !' and the hazy figure of the re- ceding boat is seen to glide like a shadow toward the now distant light of the life buoy dancing on the water. Then how the sailors crowd about the gangway, and cluster on the poop, peering into the darkness, which looks doubly dark from the very anxiety of the gazers to see farther into it. The sight of the sea, Ben, miles away from land on a starless night, is always terrible enough, for then the dark ring of water encompassing the lonely vessel looks like a vast black pool, and the sky, with its dull dome of clouds, like a huge overhanging vault of lead. But when you know, lad, that one of your own shipmates is adrift in that black pool — where there is not even so much as a rock, remember, to cling to — and battling for very life with the great waste of M'aters round about him, why, even the roughest sailor's bosom A TALK ABOUT THE SEA. C9 is touched with a pity that makes the eyes smart again with something like a tear. You may fan- cy, then, how the seamen watch the white boat, as it keeps searching about in the pale light of the distant buoy, and hoAv the crowd at the ship's side cry first, ' Now they see him yonder ;' and next, as the cutter glides away in another direc- tion, ' No, they're on the wrong track yet, lads ;' and then how the men on board discuss whether the poor fellow could swim or not, and how long he could keep up in the water; until at length the buoy-light fades, and even the figure of the cutter itself suddenly vanishes from the view. Nothing then remains but to listen in terrible suspense for the pulse of the returning oars ; and as the throbbing of the strokes is heard along the water, every heart beats with eagerness to learn the result. ' What cheer, boys, what cheer ?' cries the officer, as the boat's crew draw up alongside the vessel once more, and every neck is craned over the side to see whether the poor fellow lies stretched at the bottom of the cutter. And when the ugly news is told that the body even has not been found (for that is the usual fate in the dark), you can form, perhaps, some faint idea, Ben, of the gloom that comes over the whole crew. 'Whose turn is it to be next — Avho is to be left like that poor fellow fighting with the ocean in the dark? What became of him? is he still clinging to the spar that was thrown to him, struggling and shrieking to the ship as he sees the cabin lights sailing from his sight? or was he seized by some shark lurking in the ship's wake, and dragged under as soon as he struck the waves? Who can say? And the very mys- tery gives a greater terror to such an end." " The Lord have mercy on the lost one's soul," sighed Benjamin's mother, as she hugged her boy 70 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. close to her knees, grateful even to thanksgiving that he had escaped so ghastly a doom. As for Ben himself, his eyes were glazed with tears, and as he still looked up in the captain's face, the big drops kept rolling over his long lashes till his little waistcoat was dappled with the stains. The good-natured captain did not fail to note how deeply the lad had been touched with the story, and jerking his head on one side toward the boy, so as to draw the father's attention to the youngster, he indulged in one of his habitual chuckles as he said, " Come, come, Ben, swab the decks. You haven't heard half of the perils of a sailor's life yet. Ah! you lads think a long voyage at sea is as pleasant as a half hour's cruise in the summer time ; so I did once ; but a few wrecks in the middle of the ocean, where even the sight of a gull, or a brood of Mother Carey's chickens seems a perfect Godsend in the intense solitude of the great desert about you, and where the same everlasting ring of the horizon still pur- sues you day after day, till the sense of the dis- tance you have to travel positively appals the mind — a few weeks of such a life as this, lad, is sufficient to make the most stubborn heart turn back to home and friends, and to pray God in the dead of the night, when there is nothing but the same glistening cloud of stars set in the same eternal forms to keep one company, that he may be spared to clasp all those he loves to his bosom once again. You think a sailor, youngster, a thoughtless dare-devil of a fellow, with hardly a tender spot to his nature — the world speaks of bis heart as a bit of oak ; but I can tell you, boy, if you could hear the yarns that are spun during the dog-watches on the fo'cas'l, there is hardly a tale told that isn't homeward bound, as we say, and made up of the green scenes of life rather A TALK ABOUT THE SEA. Tl than the ugly perils at sea. Ay ! and what's more, Ben, if we could but know the silent thoughts of every heart on deck during the stillness of the middle watch, I'd wager there is not one among them that isn't away with mother, sister, or sweet- heart, prattling all kinds of fond and loving things to them. Your father Josiah, too, would tell you that sailors are a godless, blaspheming race ; but I can tell you, lad, better than he (for I know them better), that a seaman, surrounded as he always is w^itli the very sublimity of creation — with the great world of water by day, which seems as infinite and incomprehensible as space itself, and w4th the lustrous multitude of stars by night — the stars, that to a sailor are like heaven's own beacon-lights set up on the vast eternal shore of the universe, as if for the sole purpose of guid- ing his ship along a path where the faintest track of any previous traveler is impossible — the sailor, I say, amid such scenes as these, dwells under the very temple of the Godhead himself, and shows in the unconquerable superstition of his nature — despite his idle and unmeaning oaths — how deep- ly he feels that every minute of his perilous life is vouchsafed him, as it were, through the mercy of the All-merciful." The pious brothers bent their heads in rever- ence at the thoughts, while the mother looked ten- derly and touchingly toward her son-in-law, and smiled as if to tell him how pleased she w^as to find that even he, sailor as he was, had not forgot- ten the godly teaching of his Puritan parents. For a moment or two there was a marked si- lence among the family. The captain had touch- ed the most solemn chord of all in their heart, and they sat for a while rapt in the sacred reverie that filled their mind like the deep-toned vibra- tion of " a passing bell." 72 TOXJNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Presently Captain Holmes, who was unwilling to leave his brother Ben without fairly rooting out every thread of the romance that bound the little fellow to the sea, proceeded once more with his narrative. " But I'll tell you what. Master Ben, is the most shocking sight of all that a sailor has to witness, ay, and one that makes a stark coward of the bravest, and a thoughtful man of the most thought- less — death, youngster ! — death, where there are no church-yards to store the body in, and no tomb-stones to record even the name of the de- parted ; death, amid scenes where there is an ev- erlasting craving for home, and yet no home-face near to soothe the last mortal throes of the suf- ferer. Why, lad, I've seen a stout, stalwart fel- low leave the deck in the very flush of life and health, as I came on duty at the watch after his, and when I've gone below again, some few hours afterward, I have found him stricken down by a sun-stroke as suddenly as if he had been shot, and the sailmaker sitting by his berth, and busy sew- ing the corpse up in his hammock, with a cannon ball at the feet. The first death I had ever wit- nessed, lad, was under such circumstances as these. I was a mere youngster, like yourself, at the time, and had been by the man's side day aft- er day — had listened to his yarns night after night — had heard him talk, with a hitch in his breath, about the wife and little baby-boy he had left behind — had seen her name (ay, and some half a dozen others), with hearts and love-knots under them, pricked in blue on his great brawny arms. I had known him, indeed, as closely as men locked within the same walls for months to- gether, and suffering the same common danger, get to know and like one another. I had missed sight of his face for but a few hours, and wh^n I A TALK ABOUT THE SEA. 73 saw it next the eye was fixed and glazed, the features as if cut in stone, the hand heavy and cold as lead ; and I felt that, boy as I was, I had looked for the first time deep down into the great unfathomable sea of our common being. The hardest thing of all, lad, is to believe in death ; and when we have been face to face with a man day by day, there seems to be such a huge gap left in the world when he is gone, that the mind grows utterly skeptical, and can hardly be con- vinced that an existence, which has been to it the most real and even palpable thing in all the world, can have wholly passed away. To look into the same eyes, and find them return no glance for glance ; to speak, and find the ear deaf, the lips sealed, and the voice hushed, is so incomprehen- sible a change that the judgment positively reels again under the blow. Ashore, lad, you can get away from death — you can shut it out with other scenes — but on board ship it haunts you like a spectre ; and then the day after comes the most dreadful scene of all — burial on the high seas^ The captain remained silent for a moment or two, so that Ben might be able to " chew the cud" of his thoughts. Holmes had noticed the little fellow's head drop at the mention of the death at sea, and he was anxious that the lad should realize to himself all the horror of such a catastrophe. Presently Captain Holmes began again : " As the bell tolls, the poor fellow's shipmates come streaming up the hatchways, with their heads bare and their necks bent down ; for few can bear to look upon the lifeless body of their former com- panion, stretched, as it is, on the hatches beside the ship's gangway, pointing to its last home — the sea ; while the ship's colors, with which it is covered, scarcely serve to conceal the outline of the mummy-like form stitched in the hammock 74 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. underneath. It needs no elocution, Ben, to make the service for the dead at sea the most solemn and imj^ressive of all prayers — an outpouring that causes the heart to grieve and the soul to shud- der again in the very depth of its emotion ; for, with the great ocean itself for a cathedral, and the wild winds of heaven to chant the funeral dirge, there is an awe created that can not possibly be summoned ujd by any human handiwork. And when the touching words are uttered of ' ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,' and the body is slid from under the colors into the very midst of the ocean — as if it were being cast back into the great womb of Nature itself — a horror falls ujDon the senses like a deep absorbing stupor." Another long pause ensued. The captain him- self was absorbed in recalling all the sad associ- ations of the scenes he had described. Josiah and Uncle Benjamin had long forgotten the little lad whose love of the sea had been the cause of the discourse, and were silently nursing the pious thoughts that had been called up in their minds, while poor Mrs. Franklin sat sobbing and mutter- ing to herself disjointed fragments of prayers. Presently the mother rose from her seat, and, flinging herself on the captain's shoulder, wept half hysterically ; at last, with a strong effort, she cried through her sobs, " The Lord in heaven re- ward you. Holmes, for saving my boy from such a fate." Next Uncle Benjamin started from his chair, and, going toward his little namesake, said, as he led him to his weeping parent, " Come, dear lad, promise your mother here you will abandon all thoughts of the sea from this day forth." " I c?o, mother," cried the boy ; " I promise you I will." The mother's heart was too full to thank her A TALK ABOUT THE SEA. 75 boy by words ; but she seized him, and, throwing her arms about his neck, half smothered him with kisses, that spoke her gratitude to her son in the most touching and unmistakable of all language. " Give me your hand, sir," said Josiah to little Benjamin; "let us be better friends than we yet have been, and to-morrow you shall choose a trade for yourself." " Oh, thank you, father, thank you," exclaimed the delighted lad ; and that night he told his joys to his Guinea-pig, and slept as he had never done before. END OP PART I. PAET 11. YOUNG ben's lesson IN LIFE, AND WHAT HE LEARNED FROM IT. CHAPTER YII. GOING OUT IN THE WORLD. It was arranged by Josiah and his wife, after parting with the captain overnight, that young Benjamin should be intrusted to the care of his uncle for a few days before being called upon to select his future occupation in life. Uncle Benjamin had pointed out to the father that he was too prone to look upon his boy as a mere industrial machine, and had begged hard to be allowed to take his little godson with him " out in the world" for a while, so as to give him some slight insight into the economy of human life and labor. "The lad at present," urged the uncle, "is without purpose or object. He knows absolute- ly nothing of the ways of the world, and has no more sense of the necessity or nobility of work, nor, indeed, any clearer notion of the great scheme of civilized society, than an Indian pa- poose. What can a child like him," the godfa- ther said, " understand of the value of prudence, of the overwhelming power of mere perseverance, or of the magic influence of simple energy and will, till he is made to see and comprehend the diiferent springs and movements that give force, GOING OUT IN THE WORLD. 7T play, and direction to the vast machinery of indus- try and commerce ? So far as the great world of human enterprise is concerned," added the uncle, " the lad is but little better than a pup of eight days old ; and, until his mind's eye is fairly open- ed, it is idle to expect him to have the least in- sight into the higher uses and duties of life." As soon as the morning meal of the next day was finished, little Benjamin, to his utter aston- ishment, was presented by his uncle with a new fishing-rod and tackle, and told to get himself ready to start directly for a day's sport. " What ever can this have to do with the choice of a trade?" thought the boy to himself There was no time, however, for wondering ; for the next minute the mother was busy brush- ing his little triangular hat, while his sister was helping him on with his thick, big-buckled shoes. Then a packet of corned beef and bread Avas slipped into the pocket of his broad-skirted coat, and without a hint as to what it all meant, the little fellow was dismissed with a kiss and a " God-speed" upon his mysterious journey. The boy and his uncle were not long in trav- ersing the crooked and narrow streets of Boston. The quaint, old-fashioned State House in front of the large, park-like " common" was soon left be- hind, and the long wooden bridge crossed in the direction of the neighboring suburb of Dorchester. Young Benjamin, though pleased enough to be free for a day's pleasure, was so eager to be put to some new occupation, that he kept speculating in his own simple manner, as he trotted along with his rod on his shoulder, as to why his father had broken his promise with him. The uncle guessed the reason of his little nephew's silence, but said not a word as to the 7S YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. real object of the excursion ; and as they made toward the heights of Dorchester, he recounted to the lad, in order to divert his thoughts, stories of the persecutions of the Franklin family in the old country ; till at length, having reached a small streamlet at the foot of the heights themselves, the rod and line were duly mounted, and the day's sport commenced. Then, as the boy sat on the green bank, with his fishing-rod speared into the ground, and watching the tiny float that kept dancing like a straw in the current, the old man at his side took advantage of the quietude of the spot to impress his little nephew with his first views of life. It was a lovely autumn day. The blue vault of the sky was like a huge dome of air upspring- ing from the distant horizon, and flecked with large cumulus clouds that lay almost as motion- less, from lack of w^ind, as if they were mounds of the whitest and softest snow piled one above another. From an opening between two such clouds the sun's rays came pouring down visibly, in distinct broad bands of " fire-mist" — such as are seen streaming through a cathedral wmdow — and fell upon the earth and water in large sheets of dazzling phosphorescence. Out at sea, the broad ocean-expanse constituting the Bay of Massachusetts looked positively solid as crystal in its calmness, while the shadows of the clouds above, dulling in parts the bright surface of the water, swept over it almost as imperceptibly as breath upon a mirror. In the distance, the little smacks that seemed to be reveling in the breeze far away from land had each left behind them a bright trail, which looked like a long shining scar upon the water ; and from the scores of islands dappling the great ocean-lake, ferry-boats, freight- ed with a many-colored load of market-women, GOING OUT IN THE WORLD. 79 peasants, and soldiers, kept plying to and from the shore. Looking toward the home they had left, the town of Boston itself was seen crowding the broad peninsular pedestal on which it was set, and the three hills that gave it its ancient name of " Tri-mountain" swelling high above the tide at its base. In front of the city, the masts of the many vessels in the harbor were like a mass of reeds springing out of the water, and from the back and sides of the town there stretched long wooden bridges, which in the distance seemed as though they were so many cables mooring the huge raft of the city to the adjacent continent. The country rovmd about was dappled with many a white and cosy homestead, and the earth itself variegated as a painter's palette with all the autumn colors of the green meadows and the brown fallow lands — the golden orchards, the crimson patches of clover, and the white flocks and red cattle with which it was studded ; while overhead, on the neighboring Dorchester heights, there rose a fine cloud of foliage that was as rich and yet sombre in its many tints as the sky at sunset after a storm. " Look round about you, lad," said Uncle Ben- jamin to the youth at his side, " and see what a busy scene surrounds us. There is not a field within compass of the eye that the husbandmen are not at work in. Yonder the plow goes scor- ing the earth, as the yoke of oxen passes slowly over it, and changing the green soil into a rich umber brown, so that the exhausted ground may drink in fresh life from the air above. Here the farm-cart is in the field, studding it with loads of manure at regular distances, to serve as nutriment for the future grain. The smoke from the up- rooted heaps of stubble burning yonder goes drift- 80 YOUXG BENJAMIN FEANKLIX. ing over the dark plain, in order that even the ashes from the past crop may tend to feed the coming one. That swarthy-looking fellow you see over there, Ben, with a basket on his arm, is a sweep sowing soot broadcast for the same pur- pose. Down by the shoi'e, again, the people are out with their wagons collecting sea-w^eed with a like object. At the salt-marshes, too, you per- ceive the cowherd is busy opening the sluices, so that the tide, as it flows, may moisten the rich meadows upon which the cattle are grazing. " On the other hand," continued the old man, as he pointed to the several objects about him, " the tiny vessels yonder, that look like so many w^hite gulls as they skim the broad bay, are those of the fishermen gathering supplies for to-mor- row^'s market. That noble-looking Indiaman, wdth the men, like a swarm of bees about its yards, gathering in the i^outing sails as it enters the harbor, is laden with teas and spices from the East ; and that line of craft moored beside the ' Long wharf,' with the cranes dipping into their holds, is landing bags of sugar from the Western Indies. The drove of cattle halting there to drink at the road-side pool, and with their reflected im- ages coloring the water like a painting, have come from the distant prairies to swell our butchers' stores. ■ The white figure you can just see at the top of yon mill is that of the miller'sSnan, guiding the dangling sacks of flour on their w^ay down to be carted off to the city. The very birds of the air — the crows now cawing as they fly over head ; the swallows twittering as they skim zigzag across the surface of the pools ; the white gull yonder, that has just settled down on the waves ; the hawk poised above the wood waiting for the coming pigeon — are one and all in quest of food. Even the very insects beside us are busy upon GOING OUT IN THE AVOKLD. 81 the same errand. The big bee buzzing in the flower-cup at our feet; the tiny ants, that are hardly bigger than motes in the sunbeam, hurry- ing to and fro in the grass ; the spider, that has spun his silken net across the twigs of the adja- cent hedge, are all quickened with the cravings of their bigger fellow-creatures. Indeed, the sports- man on the hills above, whose gun now makes the woods chatter again, is there only from the same motive as is stirring the insects themselves. And you yourself, Ben — but look at your float, lad ! look at your float ! The bobbing of it tells you that the A^ery fish, like the birds and the insects, the sportsmen and the husbandmen round about, have left their lurking-places on the same hungry mission. Strike, boy, strike !" As the uncle said the words, the delighted youngster seized the rod, and twitched a plump- looking chub, struggling, from the pool. In a few minutes the prize was stored away in the fish-basket they had brought with them, and the float once more dancing in the shade above the newly-baited hook in the water. And when the rod was speared anew in the ground beside the brook, Uncle Ben said to his nephew, as the little fellow flung himself down on the bank slope, " Can you understand oioio^ my little man, why I brought you out to fish ?" The lad looked up in his uncle's good-humored face, and smiled as the solution of the morning's riddle flashed across his mind. " "Why, to teach me, uncle, that every thing that lives seeks after its food," answered the younger Benjamin, delighted with the small discovery he had made ; for as yet he had never shaped in his mind the cravings of creatures into any thing ap- proximating to a general law. *' Hardly that^ my little man," replied the uncle, F 82 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. "for I should have thought your own unguided reason would have shown you as much ere this. What I really want to impress upon you, Ben, is rather the vital necessity for work. The lesson I wish to teach you is not a very deep one, my lad, but one that requires to be firmly and everlasting- ly engraven on the mind. Now look round again, and see what difference you can notice between the lives of animals and plants. Observe what is going on in the fields, and what among the in- sects, the birds, the fishes, the beasts, and even the men, that throng the land, the air, and the water about us." The boy cast his eyes once more over the broad expanse of nature before him, and said, hesita- tingly, " The animals are all seeking after food, and — and — " " The husbandmen are busy in the fields, taking food to the plants," added Uncle Benjamin, help- ing the little fellow to work out the problem. " The one form of life goes after its food, and the other has it brought to it." The old man paused for a minute, so that the lad might well digest the difference. " The distinctive quality of an animal," he then went on, " is that it seeks its own living, Avhereas a plant must have its living taken to it." "I see," said Benjamin, thoughtfully. " An animal," said the uncle, " can not thrust its lower extremities into the ground, and drink ujD the elements of its trunk and limbs from the soil, like the willow-tree there on the opposite bank, whose roots you can see, like a knot of Avrith- ing snakes, piercing the earth all round about it. Unlike the tree and the shrub, Ben, the animal is endowed with a susceptibility of feeling, as well as fitted with a special and exquisitely beautiful apparatus for motion. The sentient creature is GOING OUT IN THE WOBLD. 83 thus not only gifted with a sense of hunger to tell him instinctively (far better than any reason could possibly do) when his body needs refreshment, but, in order to prevent his sitting still and starve ing with pleasure (as he assuredly would have, done if hunger had been rendered a delight to him), this very sense of hunger has, most benev- olently, been made painful for him to suffer for any length of time. Now it is the pain or uneasiness of the growing appetite that serves to sting the muscles of his limbs into action at frequent and regular intervals, and to make him stir in quest of the food that is necessary for the reparation of his frame ; and, what is more, the allaying of the pain of the protracted appetite itself has been ren- dered one of the chief pleasures of animal nature." "How strange it seems, uncle, that I never thought of this before ; for, now you point it out to me, it is all so plain that I fancy I must have been blind not to have noticed it," was all that the nephew could say, for the new train of thought started in his brain was hurrying him away with its wild crowd of reflections. "Rather it would have been much stranger, Ben, could you have discovered it alone ; for such matters are visible to the mind only, and not to be noted by the mere eyes themselves," the uncle made answer. " I understand now," exclaimed the boy, half musing ; " all animals must stir themselves in or- der to get food." " Ay, my lad ; but there is another marked dif- ference between animals and plants," continued the uncle, " and that will explain to us why even food itself is necessary for animal subsistence. A tree, you know, boy, is inactive — that willow would remain where it is till it died unless moved by some one — and there is, therefore, little or no Si YOUNG BKXJAMIN FRANKLIN. waste going on in its frame ; hence the greater part of the nutriment it derives from the soil and air is devoted to the growth or strengthening of its trunk and hmbs. But the chief condition of animal life is muscular action, and muscular action can not go on without the destruction of the tis- sues themselves. After a hard day's exercise, men are known to become considerably lighter, or, in other words, to have lost several pounds' weight of their bodily substance. Physicians, too, assure us that the entire body itself becomes changed every seven years throughout life : the hair, for instance, is forever growing, the nails are being continually pared away, the iDreath is always car- rying off a certain portion of our bulk, the blood is hourly depositing fresh fibre and absorbing de- cayed tissues as it travels through the system; transpiration, again, is forever going on, and can only be maintained by continual drains upon the vital fluids within. Even if we sit still, our body is at work — the heart beating, the lungs playing, the chest heaving, the blood circulating ; and all this, as with the motion of any other engine (even though it be of iron), must be attended with more or less friction or rubbing away of the parts in motion, and consequently with a slower or quick- er wearing out or waste of the body itself" " I should never have thought of that^ uncle," observed the youth. " It is this waste, lad, which, waking or sleep- ing, moving or resting, is forever going on in the animal frame, that makes a continual supply of food a vital necessity with us all. Food, indeed, is to the human machine what coals are to Savery's wonderful steam-engine — the fuel that is neces- sary to keep the apparatus in motion ; and, as a chaldron of coal applied to a steam boiler will do only a certain amount of work, so a given quanti- GOING OUT IN THE WORLD. 85 ty of bread and bacon put into a man's stomach is equal to merely a definite quantity of labor. But, since we can only get food by working, why work itself, of course, becomes the supreme neces- sity of our lives. Our blood, our heart, our lungs are, as I said, forever at work, and we must there- fore work, if it be only to keep them working. It is impossible for such as us to stand still without destroying some portion of our substance, and hence one of three things becomes inevitable." "And what are they, uncle?" " Why, work, beggary, or death !" was the overwhelming reply. " You may choose which of the three you will adopt, but one or other of them there is no escaping from. You must either live by your own labor, lad, or by that of others, or else you must starve — such is the lot of all." " Work, beggary, or death !" echoed the boy, as he chewed the cud of his first lesson in life. " Worh^ beggary^ or death V Then suddenly turning to his uncle, the little fellow exclaimed, " You have given me thoughts I never knew before. Let me go home and tell my father and mother how difi'erent a boy you have made me, and my future life shall show you how much I owe to this day's lesson." The journey home Avas soon performed, for young Benjamin was too full of what he had heard to feel the distance they journeyed. " Well, Ben, my boy," exclaimed the father, as the little fellow entered the candle-store, *' what sport have you had? What have you brought home ?" "I have brought one fish," answered his son, demurely. " Is that all ?" asked the old man. " N'o," repUed the altered youth. " I have come 86 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. back with one fish and one strong determination, father." " Eh, indeed ! A strong determination to do what, my lad ?" said the parent. " To lead a new life for the future," was the grave response of the little man. CHAPTER yill. "a hit! a hit!" That night, after the evening hymn had been chanted by the family, to the accompaniment of the father's violin as usual, and young Benjamin had retired to rest, the conversation of the broth- ers and the wife turned upon the marked change that had occurred in the little fellow's behavior. " He certainly seems a different lad," observed the father, as he arranged the table for the hit at backgammon that he and his brother Benjamin occasionally indulged in after the day's work; "quite a different lad. I really don't think he nttered a word beyond ' asking the blessing' all supper-time." "And when I went up to his room to take his light," chimed in the mother, who had now set- tled down to her knitting, and was busy refoot- ing a pair of the young carpenter's worsted stock- ings, " the dear child was praying to God to give him grace and strength to carry out his new pur- pose." " Well ! well ! that looks healthy enough, mother," exclaimed Josiah, rattling away at the dice-box, " if it'll only last. You see the flesh is weak with all of us, and children are but reeds in the wind — poor little reeds, mother." " Last !" echoed Benjamin, as he raised his eye "a hit! a hit!" 81 for a moment from his brother's game, " why, with God's blessing, it's sure to last, that it is. What I've told you all along. Josh, is that you hadn't faith in that boy's mind. He's as like our own brother Tom, I say again, as one grain of sand is to another ; and as our Thomas came to be the foremost man of our family, why, mark my words. Josh, your Ben will grow up to be the greatest man in all yours, though I dare say none of us here will ever be spared to see the day. The boy has a fine common-sense mind of his own, and where there's a mind to work upon, you can do any thing, brother, within reason. With jackasses, of course you must give them the stick to make them go the way you want ; but with rational creatures, it's only a fool that believes blows can do more than logic. What first set you and me thinking about our duties in life. Josh ?" he asked, and gave the dice-box an extra rattle as he paused for a reply. "Wa^it kicks, eh ? kicks and cuffs ? No ; but it was sit- ting under good old Luke Fuller at the North- ampton Conventicle, and listening to his godly teachings — that it was, if Z know any thing about it. And now I'll tell you what I mean to do with my godson Ben. I've made myself responsible for the errors of his youth, you know, and what I mean to do is this — " The mother stopped her needles for the mo- ment as she awaited anxiously the conclusion of the speech ; but Benjamin, who by this time had got by far the best of the hit at backgammon, paused to watch the result of the throw he was about to make; and when the dice were cast upon the board, Josiah, who, like his brother, was divided between the discourse and the contest, inquired, " Well, and what do you mean to do, Master Ben ?" 88 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. " Why, I mean to gammon you nicely this time, Master Josh," he rephed with a chuckle as he " took up" the " blot" his antagonist had le^^t on the board. " Tut ! tut ! man alive," returned Josiah, in a huff at the ill luck which pursued him. "But what do you mean to do with the boy, I want to know?" " Why, I mean," answered brother Benjamin, abstractedly, as the game drew to a close, and he kept gazing intently at the board, " I mean — " and then, as he took off his last man, and started up, rubbing his palms together as briskly as if it were a sharp frost, with exultation over his vic- tory, he added, " But you shall see — you shall see what I mean to do with him. Come, that's a hit to me, brother." It was useless for Josiah or his wife to attempt to get even a clew to the method Uncle Benjamin intended to adopt with their son. The godfather, on second thoughts, had judged it better to keep his mode of proceeding to him- self ; and so, findiog he could hardly hold out against the lengthened siege of the father and mother, he deemed it prudent to beat a retreat ; and accordingly, seizing his rush-light and the volume of manuscript sermons, that he never let out of his sight, he wished the couple good-night, and retired to his room. CHAPTER IX. THE WILL AND THE WAT. A SMALL sailing vessel lay becalmed next morn- ing far out in the offiug of the Massachusetts Bay. The fresh breeze that had sprung up at THE WILL AND THE WAY. 89 sunrise had gradually died away as the day ad- vanced toward noon, and now the main-sail hung down from the yard as loose and straight as a curtain from a pole, while the boom kept swing- ing heavily from side to side as the boat rolled about in the long and lazy swell of the ocean. At the helm sat one of the smartest young cock- swains out of Boston harbor — Young Benjamin Franklin; and near him was the unc4e who had undertaken to shape the little fellow's course through life. The lad was again at a loss to fathom the reason of the trip. So long as the breeze had lasted he had been too deeply engrossed with the management of the craft — too pleased with watching the bows of the tiny vessel plow their way through the foaming water, like a sledge through so much snow — to trouble his brains much about the ob- ject of an excursion so congenial to his heart. So long as the summer waves rushed swiftly as a mill-sluice past the gunwale of the boat, and the hull lay over almost on its side under the press- ure of the pouting sail, the blood went dancing, almost as cheerily as the waves, through the veins of the excited boy, and his hand grasped the till- er with the same pride as a horseman holds the rein of a swift and well-trained steed. But when the wind flagged, and the sail began to beat back- ward and forward Avith each lull in the breeze, like the fluttering wing of a wounded gull, the little fellow^ could not keep from wondering why Uncle Benjamin had brought him out to sea. What could any one learn of the ways of the world in an open boat far away from land ? The boy, however, lacked the courage to in- quire what it all meant. Presently he turned his head to note the dis- 90 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. tance they had run, and cried as he looked back toward Boston, " Why, I declare, uncle, we can hardly see the State House !" " Yes, lad," was the answer, " the town has faded into a mere blot of haze ; but how finely the long curving line of the crescent-shaped bay appears to rampart the ocean round, now that the entire sweep of the shore is brought within grasp of the eye ! What a vast basin it looks ; so vast, indeed, that the capes which form the horns of the crescent coast seem to be the very ends of the earth itself ! And yet, vast as it looks to us, lad, this great tract of shore is but a mere span's length in comparison with the enormous American con- tinent ; that continent which is a third part of the entire earth — one of the three gigantic tongues of land that stretch down from the north pole,* and ridge the ocean as if they were so many mighty sea-walls raised to break the fury of the immense flood of water enveloping the globe. Now tell me, who was it that discovered the great continent before us, Benjamin?" " Cristofaro Colombo, the Genoese sailor, on the 11th of October, in the year 1492," quickly an- swered the nephew, proud of the oj^portunity of displaying his knowledge of the history of his na- tive land. " And that is but little more than two hundred years ago," the other added. " For thousands of years one third of the entire earth was not even known to exist by the civilized portion of the * The three tongues of land spoken of are, 1 . North and South America ; 2. Europe and Africa ; 3. Asia and Aus- tralasia. Each of these great tracts is more or less divided midway into two portions. Between the two Americas flow the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea ; between Eu- rope and Africa, on the other hand, runs the Mediterranean ; while Asia and Australasia are separated by the Chinese Sea and Indian Archipelago. THE WILL AND THE WAY. 91 globe ; and had it not been for the will of that Genoese sailor, you and I, Ben, most likely, would not have been gazing at this same land at this same moment." " The vnll of Columbus !" echoed the nephew, in wonderment at the speech. " Yes, boy. I have brought you out in this boat to-day to show you what the mere will of a man can compass," continued the uncle ; " for I want to impress upon you, my little fellow, now that we are here, with the mighty American shore stretching miles away before our eyes, how the will of a simple mariner gave these mighty shores an existence to the rest of the habitable globe." " The will !" repeated the boy. " Yes, Benjamin, the will !" the uncle iterated emphatically ; " for the finding of this great coun- try was not a mere accidental discovery — not a blind stumbling over a heap of earth in the dark — but the mature fruition of a purpose long con- ceived and sustained in the mind. When did Columbus first form the design of reaching India by a westward course ?" asked the old man, de- lighted to catechise his little godson concerning the chronicles of America. Young Ben reflected for a moment, and then stammered out, as if half in doubt about the date, "As early as the — as the year 1474,1 think the book says, uncle." " Yes, boy, he formed the design nearly twenty years before he made the discovery. To reach India by sea," proceeded the mentor, " was the great problem of navigation in those days. Mar- co Polo had traveled overland as far even as China and Japan ; but the boats of our forefathers, flat- bottomed as they were, and impelled only by oars, were unable to venture far out of sight of land ; for in those days sailors hadn't even the knowl- 92 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. edge of the compass, nor of any instrument to measure the altitudes of the stars, whereby to guide a vessel in its course. Even the passage to India round by the Cape of Good Hope was a voyage that none as yet had had the hardihood to undertake. Well, and what were the reasons Columbus had for believing that land lay across the Atlantic ?" "The objects cast on the shores of Europe aft- er westerly winds," spoke out the boy, for the in- teresting story of the discovery of America had been scanned over and over again by him. "Be- sides, you know, uncle, after Columbus married Phihppa de Palestrello, he supported himself, and kept his old father too, at Genoa by drawing maps and charts." " There's a brave lad !" returned the uncle, pat- ting his godson encouragingly on the head, till each kindly touch from the old man thrilled through every nerve of the youngster; "and in the old charts by Andrea Bianco and others of Venice, Columbus had doubtlessly been struck by the long range of territory that was vaguely in- dicated as lying to the Avest of the Canary Isl- ands. Well, when the sailor had once formed the idea of crossing the Atlantic in quest of land, what did he do ? Did he sit down and grieve that he was too poor to fit out the fleet that was necessa- ry to put the project into execution, eh, lad ?" " No, uncle," was the ready reply ; " he jour- neyed with his little son Diego, who was then, if I remember rightly, only eleven years old (for his wife Philippa, you know, uncle, had died some time before), to the difierent courts of Europe, in the hope of getting some of the kings to give him ships and men for the voyage." " Ay ; and when he found himself foiled by the intrigues of the courtiers of John the Second of THE WILL AND THE WAY. 98 Portugal, and the great scheme of crossing the Atlantic rejected by the council of the state, did the sailor give way to desj^air, and abandon the project forever in disgust?" again the old man interrogated the youth. "No, Uncle Benjamin; he set out with his lit- tle son to Spain, though in the greatest poverty at the time, and there sought the assistance of Ferdinand and Isabella." "And how long did he remain there, lad, danc- ing attendance on the lackeys of a government, many of whom even laughed to scorn the notion of the world being round ?" was- the next query. " Five years he staid in Spain," the youth re- plied. "And Avhen all hope failed him there, what did he afterward ? Did he lose heart, and pluck his long-cherished purpose out of his mind ?" " No, no !" exclaimed the lad, whom the uncle had now worked up to a sense of the sailor's in- domitable determination; "Columbus then got his brother Bartholomew to make proposals for the voyage to Henry YII. of England." " Yes," exclaimed the elder Benjamin, " and to England this man of stern will would most as- suredly have gone had not the Queen Isabella, Avhen she heard of it, been persuaded to send for him back." "And then, you know, she consented to pledge her jewels so as to raise money enough for the expedition," chimed in little Benjamin. " So she did, my little man," the godfather re- turned with an approving nod ; " and by such means, at last, three small vessels, the ' Santa Maria,' the ' Pinta,' and the ' Nina' (two of them, remember, being without decks), were fitted for sea, and one hundred and twenty hands to man them collected, by hook or by crook, with the 94 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. greatest difficulty, owing to the general dread of the passage. And when the tiny fleet of fishing- smacks (for it was little better, boy) ultimately set sail — on the 3d of August, 1492, it was — out of the port of Palos, in the Mediterranean, and made straight away for the broad havenless ocean itself, did the will of the bold adventurer — the will that he had nursed through many a long year of trial, Avant, and scorn — did it weaver one jot then, or still point to the opposite shore, steady as the compass itself to the pole ? ay, and that even though he knew that the crew he command- ed were timid as deer, and the boats he had to navigate almost as unseaworthy as cradles ?" " I never read the story in this w^ay before, uncle," exclaimed the thoughtful boy, now that the object of his teacher began to dawn upon his mind. " I dare say not, lad ; but hear the grand tale to its end," was the answer. " Well, for some months, you know, Ben, the wretched little fleet of open boats had been beating about the wide and apparently boundless Atlantic, and the sail- ors, worn with fatigue and long want of shelter and proper food, had grown mutinous and savage at searching for what seemed to them like the very end of space itself; and then the great ad- miral (for you remember he had been made one), though still fortified by the same indomitable pur- pose as ever, was obliged, after exhausting every other resource, to beg of his rebellious sailors a few days' grace, and to promise to return with them then, if unsuccessful. Night and day after- ward did this man of iron resolution gaze into the clouds that rested on the horizon, and believe he saw in them the very land that his fancy had dis- covered there nearly twenty years before ; but at last this same cloud-land had so often cheated the THE WILL AND THE WAif. C5 sight, that all hope of seeing any shore in that quarter had been banished from every breast — but his own. One night, however — the memora- ble night of the 15th of October, 1492 — as the admiral sat on the poop of the ' Santa Maria' peer- ing into the darkness itself, he thought he beheld moving lights in the distance ; then the crew were called up to watch them, and eye after eye began to see the same bright fiery specks wan- dering about in the haze as the admiral himself; until, at length, doubt grew into conviction, and a wild exulting cry of 'Land! land!' arose from every voice. " And when the morning dawned, and the eyes of Columbus gazed upon that strange coast, crim- soned over and gilt with the rays of the rising- sun, who shall describe the passions that crowded in his bosom ? who shall tell the honest pride he felt at the power of the will which had led him to summon, into existence as it were, the very land before him? or how even he himself mar- veled over that stanch fortitude of purpose which had sustained him through years of trial to such an end ?" " It icas^ then," said the boy, half stricken down with wonder at the thought, now that he could grasp it in all its grandeur, " the will of Columbus that gave America to us." " It was, lad, the will of the heroic Genoese sailor, expressing the will of God ; and if it was the will of a simple mariner that first made known this enormous continent — this new world, as we call it — why, it was merely the same inflexible resolution that first peopled it with the very race that now possesses it." " Indeed !" cried the boy, in greater amazement than ever. " Yes, Ben," was the answer. " The same iron 96 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. determination was in the souls of the Pilgrim Fa- thers as in that of Columbus himself; but theirs was one of a holier nature. They sought these lands neither quickened by a life of adventure nor stirred by the lust of riches. They had mere- ly one immovable purpose in their heart — to wor- ship the Almighty after the dictates of their own conscience — and it was this that led the pious band to quit the shores of the Humber in the old country; this that sustained them for years as exiles in Holland ; and this which ultimately bore them across the Atlantic in the ' Speedwell' and the ' Mayflower,' and gave them strength to fight through the terrors of the first winter here in their adopted father-land." "How strange!" exclaimed the musing lad; " will discovered the land, and loill peopled it." "Yes, Benjamin; it was to make you compre- hend the power of this same loill in man that I brought you out here to-day. I wanted to let you see almost with a bird's eye the mighty ter- ritory that has been created by it. The plains, which a few years back were mere wild and half- barren hunting-grounds possessed by savages, are now studded with large and noble towns — the fields striped with roads and belted with canals — the coast pierced with harbors — the land rich with vegetation — the cities busy with factories — the havens bristling with shipping — ay, and all called into existence by the indomitable will of the one man who originally discovered the coun- try, and that of the conscientious band who after- ward came from England to make a home of it. It was the will of the Almighty that first summon- ed the land out of the water, lad ; and it is the same God-like quality in man — the great creative and heroic faculty — that changes barren plains into fertile fields, and builds up cities in the wil- derness." HOW TO MAKE WORK PLEASANT. 9T CHAPTER X. HOW TO MAKE WORK PLEASANT AND PROFITABLE. It was now time for the uncle and nephew to thhik about returning to Boston harbor. They had promised to be home to a late dinner at two ; but the promise had been made irresj^ective of the wind and the tide, and the couple were then some miles out at sea, without a breath of wind strong enough to waft a soap-bubble through the air, and with a strong ebb current drifting them farther from land. The head of the vessel was at length, by dint of sculling, brought round to the shore, but still the sail hung down as limp and straight as the feath- ers of barn-door fowls after a heavy shower, and even the paper that the uncle threw overboard (as he ojDened the packet of bread and meat they had brought with them) floated perpetually by the ship's side, as motionless as the pennant at the mast-head. " Heyday, my man, we seem to be in a pretty fix here," cried Uncle Benjamin, as he munched the bread and beef, while he kept his eyes rivet- ed on the piece of the old '■'-JBostoii Gazette^'' swim- ming beside them in the water. " What do you say, my little captain — what's to be done ? Re- member, I'm in your hands, youngster." " There's nothing to be done tbat I see, imcle," returned the youth, as he smiled with delight at the idea of being promoted to the captaincy of the vessel — "nothing but to wait out here pa- tiently till sundown, and then a breeze will spring G 98 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. up, most likely ; it generally does, you know, at that time. Bat I tbouglit it 'ud be so, to tell you the truth, while you were talking ; and I should have -whistled for a wind long ago, but I fancied you might think I wasn't attending. It's impos- sible to pull back with this heavy tide against us ; and if you look out to sea, uncle, there isn't a puff" of wind to be seen coming up along the water any where;" and as he said the words the little monkey put his hand up before his brows, in im- itation of his old sailor friends, and looked under them in all directions, to observe vdiether he could distinguish in the distance that ruffling of the glassy surface of the water which marks the approach of a breeze in a calm. " Well, captain, what must be mi^s^," said the godfather, calmly resigning himself with all the gusto of a philosopher at once to the position and the victuals. "There's no use railing against the wind, you know, and it's much better having to whistle for a breeze than a dinner, I can tell you. So come, lad, while you fall foul of the meat and the cider, I can be treating you to a little snack of worldly philosophy by way of salt to the food ; and so, you see, you can be digest- ing your dinner and your duty in life both at the same time." The youngster proceeded to carry out his un- cle's order in good earnest, for the sea-trip had Avhetted his bodily ajDpetite as much as the story of Columbus had sharpened the edge of his wits ; so, pulling out his clasp-knife, he fell to devouring the buffalo hump and the old man's discourse al- most with equal heartiness. "Well, my son," proceeded the elder Benja- min, " I have shown you the power of the will in great thhigs, and now I Avant to point out to you the use of it in what the world calls ' little things.' HOW TO MAKE WOEK PLEASANT. 99 I have made you understand, I think, that the pnme necessity of life is labor. But labor is nat- urally irksome to us. You remember, boy, it was the primeval curse inflicted upon man." " So it was !" exclaimed the lad, in haste to let his uncle see that he knew well to what he re- ferred. " ' In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,' were the words, uncle." " Good, good, my son. I'll make a fine, up- right man of you before I have done, that I will," added the delighted godfather. "But labor, though naturally irksome and painful, still ad- mits, like hunger itself, of being made a source of pleasure to us." " How can that be ?" the nephew inquired. " Well, Ben," the uncle went on, " there are three means — and only three, so far as I know — by which work may be rendered more or less de- lightful to all men. The first of these means is variety ; the second, habit ; and the third, ^^wr- pose^ or object.'''^ "I don't understand you, uncle," was all the boy said. "You know, my little man," the other went on, "that as it is hard and difficult to remain at the same occupation for any length of time, so does it become a matter of mere recreation to shift from one employment to another as soon as we grow tired of what we have been previously doing. Child's play is merely labor made easy, and what boys call amusement is often very hard work. But it is the change of occupation that makes even the severest muscular exercise a mat- ter of sport to youth. A whole life of foot-ball, however, or fifty years at leap-frog, would be far more fatiguing, I can tell you, than the hewing of wood or the drawing of water. And even this boating, which is so delightful to you, lad, when 100 YOUXG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. pursued as a relaxation or relief from other modes of work, is the heaviest possible punishment to the poor galley-slaves who are doomed to it for the term of their natural lives. The great zest of life is change, boy, even as the chief drug of our existence is the mental and bodily fatigue which arises from long continuance at the same l^ursuit. Recreation, indeed, is merely that res- toration of energy which comes from change of work or occupation; and it is this principle of change or variety in labor which, as with the boating of boys, can transform even the hard work of galley-slaves into a matter of child's play." " Oh, then, uncle," cried little Benjamin, flush- ed with the belief that he had made a grand dis- covery, " why not let people work at a number of diflerent things, and do each for only a little time, instead of setting them to labor always at the same pursuit for the whole of their lives? Every one would h^fond of working then." "Yes ; but, lad," rejoined the old man, smiling as well at the simplicity as at the aptness of his pupil, " this flighty or erratic kind of labor would be of no more value to the world than are the sports of children. A tailor must continue using the needle for years, Ben, before he can work a button-hole fit to be seen. How long miist peo- ple have toiled on and on, generation after gen- eration, before they learned how to make window- glass and bottles out of the sand and the weeds by the sea-shore! Could you or I, Ben, ever hope, by laboring half an hour a day, to get a pair of scissors or a razor out of a lump of iron- stone, or to fashion a slice of an elephant's tusk into the exquisitely nice symmetry of a billiard ball? For labor to be of special use and value to the world, it must have some special skill ; and skilled labor, being but the cunning of the fingers, now TO MAKE A^'OI^K PLEASANT. 101 requires the same long education of the hands as deep learning does of the head. It is because savages and vagabonds have no settled occupa- tions that their lives are comparatively worthless to the rest of mankind." "I see now!" ejaculated the thoughtful boy. "Yes, my lad, variety of occupation makes work as pleasant as play," the uncle added, " but it makes it as valueless also. So now let us turn to the second means of making labor agreeable." " And that's habit, I think you said," interject- ed the younger Benjamin. " I did," he replied. " Now habit, I should first tell you, my little man, is one of the most wonderful principles in the whole human consti- tution. The special function of habit is to make that which is at first irksome for us to do, pleas- ant after a time to perform : it serves to render the actions which originally required an express effort on our j^art to execute, so purely mechan- ical, as it were (when they have been frequently and regularly repeated for a certain period), as to need almost the same express effort then to preve7it us indulging in them." " How strange !" mused the nephew. " The simple habit of whittling will teach you, lad, how difficult it is for people to keep their hands from doing work they have been long ac- customed to. Again, when you were trying to j)lay your father's violin, you remember how hard you found it to move each finger as you wanted, and how your eye was obliged to be fixed first on the music-book and then on the strings, in or- der to touch each particular note set down, until at length, disgusted with the tedium of the task, you left off practicing on the instrument alto- gether ? And yet, had you pursued the study, there is no doubt you would ultimately have 102 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. played with all the ease, and even pleasure, of your father, and have got to work your fingers ere long with the same nimbleness, and even the same inattention, as your mother plies her knit- ting-needles while reading in the evening." " So I should, I dare say ; but isn't it odd, un- cle, that mere habit should do this ?" observed the lad, as he grew alive to the wonders worked by it. " It is odd, my boy — very odd, indeed, that the mere repetition of acts ^X frequent and regular intervals (for that is all that is required) should make them, however difficult and distasteful at first, grow easy and congenial to us in time ; that it should change pain into pleasure, labor into pastime; that it should render a certain set of muscles unconscious of effort, and callous to fa- tigue, and transform the most arduous voluntary actions into the simplicity and insensibility of mere clock-work. But so it is, my little man; and it is this same principle of habit applied to the different forms of manual labor which consti- tutes what is termed ' industrial training ;' it is this which makes ' skill' in the world, and gives to the handiwork of mechanics a stamp of the cunning and dignity of art." " The use of apprenticeship, then, I suppose," observed the boy, " is to form a kind of habit of working in a particular way — isn't it so, uncle ?" " Well said, my quick little man. There is a high pleasure in teaching such as take delight in • learning, like you, Ben." " But, uncle," continued the youth, tingling all over with dehght at the applause, " if habit can do away with the unpleasantness of labor, where can be the use of the other thing you spoke of as a means of making work agreeable — though I forget what you said it was, I'm sure." now TO MAKE WORK PLEASANT. 103 " It was purpose or object^ my lad, that I told you makes work pleasant also." "Oh yes, so it was — purpose or object," youDg Benjamm repeated; "but I hardly know what you mean by such grand words." " They are not only grand words, but they stand for the grandest things in life, my little fel- low," the old man went on. " Habit, after all, makes a man work but as a machine. The black- smith who has been long accustomed to wield the sledge-hammer has no more sense of fatigue (except when he Avorks beyond the time he has been used to) than that wonderful new invention the steam-engine, which you have seen swinging its iron arms about as it pumps the water out of our docks. But a man with a purpose, my son, works like a man, and not like a steam-engine, even though that very purpose makes him as in- sensible of weariness in his labor as the steam-en- gine itself." " Does purpose, then, as you call it, do the same as habit, uncle ?" inquired the youth. " Yes, Ben, but it does that immediately which habit requires years to accomplish. Only let a man put his whole soul into what he is doing — let him work, so to speak, lad, with his heart in his hand, and the toil is instantly made a high and grand delight to him. This is the wonderful ef- fect of the will, Ben. What you will to do, you must, of course, do willingly, and therefore more or less easily ; and labor is especially repulsive when your will wants to be off working at one thing while your hands are constrained to be toil- ing at another. Those who are without purpose in life, boy, are vagabonds either in body or spirit, for if there be no settled object there can hardly be any settled pursuit. Such people, therefore, fly from this to that occupation, according as the 104 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. caprice of the moment may happen to sway them : they are like empty bottles, lad, cast into the great ocean, far away from land, destined to be buflet- ed about by the winds and the waves of every passing storm, and driven whithersoever the cur- rent of the time may chance to carry them. With- out some enduring purpose, boy, there can be no enduring work ; and, after all, it is continuity in labor, or long persistence at the same pursuit, that masters every difficulty, and beats down every ob- stacle. The power of the sturdy sand-bag, you know, Ben, is far greater than that of the impetu- ous cannon ball." " How wonderful !" was all the little fellow could say, as he mused over what he heard. The uncle went on : " But I want to show you now, lad, hoic it is that the will can produce in an instant the same wondrous changes as habit does in years, and I want to do this so as to impress the matter deeply and indelibly on your mind. I have pointed out to you what great things icill can accomplish in the world, and I now wish to let you see how easily and 2^^^<^iscmtly it can ac- complish them." " I should like to hear that, uncle," said the at- tentive boy, " for as yet I can hardly understand what you mean." " Of course you can not comprehend in a min- ute, Ben," the old man replied, " principles that have cost philosophers years of study to arrive at. But I will try and make the operation of will in man more plain to you. Now I pointed out to you yesterday that animals difler from plants — in what respect, lad ?" " Why, in going after their food instead of hav- ing it brought to them, uncle," was the ready re- ply. " Yes, my child ; but animals go after their food HOW TO MAKE WOEK PLEASANT. 105 because, as I said, the power of moving has been given to them, while plants have no such faculty. Nothing, however, can move without a cause. This boat stops, you see, directly the propelling force ceases ; and the movements of animals, and even men, inexplicable as they may seem to you, can proceed only from the operation of imiform motive powers. You, of course, have never ask- ed yourself what it is that moves men to act as they do." " I'm sure I never gave that a thought as yet, uncle," the boy replied frankly. "But, now I come to turn it over in my mind, it seems to me as if nobody could tell as much." " Indeed, lad ; let us see. Well, Ben, innumer- able as are the movements continually going on in the human frame, they all admit of being re- solved into three kinds, according as they are pre- ceded or not by some particular feeling. In the first place, our muscles may move like the ma- chinery of a mere automaton, or, in other words, without any feeling at all. Our heart beats and our lungs expand continually, without our being even conscious of the incessant action going on within us — ay, and, what is more wonderful, with- out the least sense of fatigue being connected with the work." " Isn't it strange," Benjamin exclaimed, " that our heart never gets tired of moving, like our limbs ?" " Yes ; and isn't it as kind as it is strange, my lad, that such should be the case ?" the uncle re- minded his pupil; "but our muscles not only move automatically.) without any preceding feel- ing, but they move also instinctively — that is to say, in consequence of some feeling which imme- diately precedes and gives rise to the motion. Any sudden pain, such as a burn upon the finger, 1C3 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEAKKLIN. for instance, causes you involuntarily to contract the muscles of the injured part, and to withdraw the limb directly from the object wounding you. Again, if you are surprised or startled by any un- expected circumstance, your whole body is drawn back, and your hands thrown up immediately, to ward oft' the fancied danger — ay, and that, too, long before you have time to think about what it is best to do, or even to obtain any knowledge as to the nature of that which has alarmed you. Such muscular movements, however, are wholly involuntary — that is to say, they are not left to the slow operations of our will to conceive and carry out ; but, being necessary for our preserva- tion, in common with that of animals, they have been made matters of instinct with us as with them ; or, in other words, ordained to folloAV im- mediately upon a particular feeling existing in the mind." " Is animal instinct, then," inquired the lad, as he pondered over and repeated his uncle's words, " merely a certain kind of muscular movement made to follow immediately upon a particular feeling ?" " That is all, my son," was the reply. " The bird builds its nest, not with any thought of the young she is destined to rear, but merely in con- sequence of a vague sensation that is on her at the time. The squirrel lays up a store of nuts for the winter, not because it foresees a decrease of the summer stock, but simply in obedience to the feelings and promptings of its nature." " I see now," mused the youth, as he turned the new truths over and over in his mind. " But the muscles of man, my child, have been made to move, not only instinctively, or, what amounts to the same thing, involuntarily^ accord- ing to the dictates of mere animal nature, but HOW TO MAKE WORK PLEASANT. 107 they have been made to move also voluntarily — that is to say, in obedience to the suggestions and determination of the will. Bishop Cranmer — you know who he was, Benjamin ?" " Oh yes," cried the youth, "I know ; he was one of the martyrs burnt with Ridley and Lati- mer opposite Baliol College at Oxford, in Old England, and he held his hand in the flames at the stake, uncle, because, as he said, 'it had of- fended him in writing contrary to his heart ;' and he had solemnly declared at St. Mary's Church that ' if he came to the fire that hand should be punished first.' " " Well said, my good little fellow," cheered the godfather; "but didn't Cranmer feel the same pain from the flames, think you, and the same animal instinct to withdraw his hand from them as we ourselves should have felt ? and yet it was by the determined effort of his will that he kept it there, in defiance of the promptings of his an- imal instincts, as he cried aloud, 'This unworthy hand ! this unworthy hand !' and forced it to burn and char before the rest of his limbs. Can you see now^ Benjamin, what is the use of will in man ?" " I think I can, uncle ; but do you tell me, and let me hear whether I am right," he answered, for the boy was afraid to trust himself to frame his thoughts into speech. " Well, lad," Uncle Benjamin replied, " the high and noble use of man's will is to control or guide the animal instincts of his nature." " I thought it was so from what you said about Cranmer, uncle ;" and the lad fell musing over the subject in his own simple way, while the godfa- ther paused to watch with delight the workings of the boy's mind, that, like a newly-fledged bird, was making its first attempts to fly. " So the use of man's will," the youth repeated over and over 108 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. again to himself, in order to impress the words well on his memory, " is to control or guide the animal instincts of his nature." " But I say, ray noble captain," cried the imcle, again waking up to a sense of their position, " are we really to remain here all day? I could talk to you quite as well if we were moving on a bit, but this is sad slow work, my boy." " There's a strong ebb-tide on just now, uncle, and there's no making the least headway against that; and, let me see — let me see," he mused, " it would have been high water in the harbor to- day at eleven, so it will be about five o'clock be- fore the tide turns, you know," and the youngster* shook his head, as much as to say he could dis- cover no means of getting out of their difficulty. " Five o'clock ! tut, tut ! and I Avanted to have been at meeting at six." Then, as Uncle Benja- min gave vent to his impatience, he tugged from his fob a watch as big as the "bull's-eye" to a ship's scuttle, and cried, after looking well at the dial, and holding it up to his ear to satisfy him- self it was still going, " Why, it's not three yet, I declare." " Besides, you remember, uncle, the sun doesn't set now till long past five, and there's no chance of a breeze till then, I'm certain," was the only consolation the little captain could offer. " But are you quite sure of one at that time, you young rascal, eh?" inquired the old gentle- man, in no little alarm at the idea of having to pass the night out at sea. " There generally is a breeze at sundown, you know, uncle," answered young Ben, delighted to display his nautical knowledge once more. " Well, all I can say is, I'm in your hands, cap- tain — in your hands, bear in mind ; for, Heaven BECALMED. 109 knows, I'm as ignorant as a sucking-pig of all that concerns the water ;" and, so saying, the elder Benjamin abandoned himself with becom- ing resignation at once to the sourness of the cir- cumstances and the cider. CHAPTER XI. BECALMED. For a while Uncle Benjamin silently grieved over the untowardness which prevented him add- ing the discourse of that evening to the three volumes of manuscript sermons that he had writ- ten out from notes taken in chapel during their delivery by the most celebrated preachers of the day. His temper, however, was of too even and cheerful a quality to be any more ruffled than the water itself by the lack of wind ; so, when he had drained the cider-bottle, he wrote in pencil on a slip of paper, '''All loell oti board 'The Lively Nancy,' off Boston^ October 2d, 1719 ;" and cork- ing up the playful memorandum, flung the flagon with the note inside into the sea. " There it goes, Ben," he cried, as he watched the bottle dance up and down beside the boat, "without any more purpose to direct it than an idler. Where it will ultimately land, or what will be its end, no one can say." The lesson was not wasted on the youth; so, stretching himself at full length on the seat op- posite his uncle, he said, as he lay comfortably arranged for listening, with his cheek resting on his hand, " You were telling me, uncle, about the use of the will, you know." " Well, lad, the function of our will," the old man resumed, "is to interfere between our feel- 110 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. ings and our actions — to check in iis some sudden pro^Density that has been j^rompted (either by the sense of a present pain or the prospect of a future pleasure) before it has time to stir the muscles. The will thus serves, you see, Ben, to stay the O23eration of our instincts until the conscience has sat in judgment on the motives or consequences of the contemplated acts — until, indeed, it has pronounced them to be either 'right or wrong,' ' prudent or imj^rudent,' for us to pursue. Nor is this all ; for Avheu the moral sense has duly de- liberated and determined, the will tends either to restrain the impulse, if it be thought bad, or else to encourage it, by giving additional force and persistence to it, if considered to be good." " I can hardly follow you," exclaimed the youth, trying to make it all out. " You remember the trouble you got into, Ben, about reading ' Robinson Crusoe ?' " said his tu- tor, proceeding to give him an illustration ; "well, the impulse that stirred you then to see what the shipwrecked mariner did in his desert island was but the natural result of a boy's instinctive de- light in adventure ; but though to you, lad, the propensity seemed irresistible, had you brought your will to bear upon the matter, had you used its power to check the oj^eration of the passion that was on you (till such time as you had asked your own heart whether you ought^ or even whether it would be better for you to read at such a moment, in defiance of your father's com- mands), I am quite sure now what you would have determined, or, in other words, what you would have icilled to do." The little fellow hung down his Head in shame to find the error of his past conduct used as an illustration of the operation of a mere instinct, un- guided and unrestrained by any superior princi- BECALMED. Ill pie. " I hope I shall act differently for the future, uncle," was all he could stammer out. "Let it pass, lad, let it pass," cried the old man ; and accordingly he went on. " Now it is principally in this wonderful faculty of will, Ben, that man differs from the rest of the animal crea- tion. The most sagacious dog never pauses to reflect between its instincts and its acts, neither does it weigh the consequences of doing or not doing this or that thing, nor determine to act one way or the other, according as the action seems likely to be beneficial or hurtful to itself or others." " Of conrse it doesn't," interposed young Ben. "Again, it is will, my boy," the micle continued, "that makes the chief distinction between the same human being waking or dreaming — in in- fancy or manhood — in a state of sanity or insani- ty. No one reproaches himself for his thoughts and feelings — base and savage as they often are — during either sleep or madness, because at such times we have no more power than in infancy to deliberate on our impulses before giving way to them; indeed, we have then neither the sense to judge whether they are right or wrong, nor the moral strength to encourage or restrain them. That our will really sleeps during slumber, you yourself, Ben, must be convinced, from the fact that in your nightmare dreams you are unable to move a limb, or even utter a cry for your protec- tion, and that simply because you have then lost all power over the nerves and the muscles which, in your waking moments, never fail to answer di- rectly to the will that is then aroused in you. It is this will, moreover, that makes us responsible for our actions here ; for as we, unlike the other animals, have been endowed with the power to re- flect upon the tendency of our impulses — to see and weigh the consequences of our acts, and ei- 112 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. ther to foster the good or reject the bad, why, it is but fair that our conduct in this respect should be judged both in this world and the next, my little man." " Oh, now I understand," exclaimed the youth, "what has always aj^peared to me so hard to make out — why dogs and horses should not go to heaven as well as ourselves ! They have only instinct to guide them — isn't it so, uncle ?" " Yes, my boy," nodded the preceptor, " while ice have conscience and will to direct and sustain us. But we mustn't wander from our object, which was — " and the old man paused to see if the lad, in the maze of thought through which he had led him, could find his way back to the point whence they started. " Let me see," pondered httle Ben, " you w^ere going to show me, uncle — but I'm sure I forget what now." " Why, I was going to show you, lad, how will or purpose makes work pleasant. Well, then, my boy, I must tell you — what would appear at first sight to be opposed to such a result — that, Avith the operation of the will, there is generally con- nected a certain sense of effort, and every efibrt we make is more or less trying or irksome to us to sustain. If you determine to lift a heavy weight, lad, you know how painful it is for you to exert your strength to its utmost, and how in- tensely fatiguing it is for you to continue doing so. Again, you remember how, with the violin, the irksomeness of having to move each finger by an express efibrt of your will at each difierent note soon made you grow weary of the task. With the operations of instinct, however, there seems to be little or no fatigue associated. The albatross, that is met with hovering in mid-ocean, far away from any land or even a rock, seems never to be BECALMED. 113 tired of being on the wing; gnats, too, appear to fly all the day long ; and though their wings beat many times in a second — as we know by the mu- sical note they give out — the muscles that move them are apparently as insensible of fatigue as those that stir our own heart." "How, then, uncle, can the exercise of our will be made pleasant to us, since, as you say, there is always this sense of effort and fatigue connected with it ?" inquired the boy, puzzled with the ap- parent contradiction. "Why, lad," returned the elder Benjamin, " such a result may be brought about simply by using the will to strengthen the good and virtu- ous impulses of our nature, rather than to control the bad and vicious ones ; that is to say, by mak- ing the will work loith us instead oi against us. To do a thing that we have no natural inclination to do — to do it merely because our conscience tells us that it is right — is to perform an act of stern duty, and duty always demands more or less of sacrifice on our part. At such times there is a continual battle between the animal and moral parts of our nature ; the flesh struggles to go one way, the spirit another ; force has to be used against force, and hence a strong and continuous effort is required to sustain us. But our impulses are not all bad, Ben. If our instincts would lead us to hate and persecute our enemies, surely they teach us also to love and benefit our family and our friends ; if our appetites, lad, tend to make beasts of us, at least our sympathy with the suf- fering serves to give us something of the dignity of angels. The will, therefore, may be used as much to encourage and sustain our higher and kindlier propensities, as to restrain and subdue our more brutal and savage ones. A man's heart may prompt him to good works as well as evil ; H 114 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. and to will to do the good, in preference to the evil which our heart desires, is at once to work with all the heart and wdth all the soul as well." "I think I begin to see w^hat you mean now, uncle," young Benjamin murmured half to him- self. " There is no finer instance of the untiring en- ergy of the will, my boy, when working in unison with the heart," the old man continued ; " no more striking example of its wondrous power at such times to render even the heaviest labor light and pleasant to us, as well as to support us through trials, by giving us a capacity of endurance that seems to be almost insensible to suffering and fa- tigue, than is to be found in the career of Peter, the present Emperor of Russia." Young Benjamin had heard his father and the chapel deacons, who often " dropped in" to con- verse with Josiah in the evening, refer occasion- ally, in the course of their political discussions, to the Russian monarch as the royal wonder of their time ; but as yet the boy had been unable to gather more than that this same Peter was a king wdio had w^orked as a common shipw^right some- where. The mere mention of the great man's name, therefore, was sufficient to rouse the youngster from the seat on which he had been reclining at full length while listening to the " drier parts" of his uncle's discourse ; so he sat up on the bench, with his elbows resting on his knees, and his chin pillowed on his palms, while he gazed intently hi his uncle's face, eagerly w^aiting for the story he had to tell. " At ten years of age, lad," the old man began, " Peter came to the crown of Russia ; but the Queen-regent Sophia, w^ho was his half-sister, strove to keep him as ignorant as she could, as BECALMED. 115 well as to make him idle and sensual, by placing the most debasing temptations in his way, and withholding from him all means of instruction and refinement. The queen-regent did this not only to keep her brother from the throne as long as possible, but to render him utterly unfit for the exercise of royal power. The rude, ignorant, and self-willed boy, however, was barely seventeen be- fore he burst through the regent's control, and took the reins qf government into his own hands. Then he set to work to educate himself, and mas- tered — entirely without tuition, Ben — a knowl- edge of several foreign languages. He studied also many of the mechanical arts ; for, boy-king as he was, and unprejudiced by the luxurious training of a court, he had too grand an idea of the dignity of labor, and too high a sense of the value, even to a monarch, of industrial knowledge, to consider such occupations either degrading or unfitted to him." " Wasn't it noble of him, uncle !" cried the en- thusiastic little fellow ; " and how strange that a boy like him, without any schooling, should have such ideas !" " Peter had what is even better than education, Ben — better, because it makes us educate our- selves, and gives us a firm reliance on our own powers," Uncle Benjamin made answer. "And what is that, uncle ?" inquired the simple lad. " Why, can't you guess, can't you guess, my clever little man ? — a strong, persistent will," w^as the reply. " The mechanic-king had not only an instinct that made him conceive great things with- out previous training, but a wdll that gave him zeal enough to undertake them, endurance enough to labor long at them, and determined courage enough, come what might, to master them." 116 YOUNG BENJAMIN FBANKLIN. " I see ! I see ! I see !" exclaimed the delighted boy, as he still gazed straight in his uncle's eyes ; "1 see that will is the greatest power in man." " Russia, when Peter came to the throne," con- tinued the uncle, " possessed no sea-port but that of Archangel, on the banks of the White Sea ; and to give ships and commerce to his country soon became the one absorbing object of the boy- king's mind. Before his time the liussian people were merely a race of despised and barbarous Muscovites ; but hardly was the crown on his head, than the bold young czar had determined to create harbors, fleets, trades, manufactures, arts, and schools for the nation. Now what would you, Ben, have done under the same circumstances, with such a purpose in your brain ? Imagine yourself a king, boy, Avith almost infinite means at your command, w'itli a palace for your home, and countless trooj^s and serfs to do your bidding. How would you have set about such an under- taking?" The youth could not help smiling at the idea of his coming even to an imaginary throne; and, delighted to fancy himself possessed of such im- mense power in the world, he cried, exultingly, " Why, I should have set the people to work upon it, uncle, immediately." " Of course you would, like the rest of the world, lad," was the rejoinder. " But Peter was no ordinary man ; so, before setting the people to build ships for him, he resolved to learn how to build them for himself. And how do you think he learned the art, Ben — by having masters to teach him, eh ?" The boy, ashamed of his previous mistake, re- mained silent this time. " Not he !" the uncle added. " A man of his will wanted no masters, lad. Kin^j thouci^h he BIX'ALMED. 117 was, there was but one way of making liiinself thorouglily and practically acquainted with the craft, and that was by learning it as other men learn it — by working at it with one's own hands ; and the idea once formed, his was not the rahid to be shaken from its object." ''Did he then really labor as a common ship- wright, eh, uncle?" timidly inquired the youth. "Assuredly he did, lad — labor, and live like a common laborer too. His heart longed to make liis country a great commercial nation, and his will gave him strength and courage to accom- plish his purpose, as no monarch had ever done before. With his darling object deep in his heart. King Peter traveled as a private person to the two great maritime countries of the time, first to Ilolland, then to England, and worked in the dock-yards of Amsterdam and Deptford as an ordinary ship-builder, living and faring like his fellow-mechanics — his crown laid on one side for a paper cap, a flannel jacket and apron dis- placing Iiis royal robes." Little Benjamin could only cry, "How won- derful! how grand!" as the story went on. "And was the labor of such a life drudgery to such a man, think you, Ben ? No, lad ! rest assured, no! Of all the workmen in those dock- yards, depend upon it, none toiled so zealously, none with so light a heart, so vigorous a hand, or with so little sense of fatigue, as he who wielded a hammer instead of a sceptre. And why, Ben- jamin, was it so ?" " Because he was working with his xohole hearty as you said, uncle, and with his whole soul too," the boy exclaimed, now fired with sufficient en- thusiasm almost to have started on the same mis- sion himself. "Just so, my good little man," nodded his 118 YOrXG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. imcle, approvingly. "He was not laboring like a mere animal, bestirring himself only in quest of food, bnt a high and noble purpose was fast in his mind, a strong and energetic will quick- ening his muscles, and giving courage and vigor to his heart. It was the will withm him, lad, that made the laborer-king do his work with scarcely an effort — this that kej^t him to the task day after day, and month after month, without any flagging, and with hardly a desire for rest — this that made his humble mechanic's home hap- pier than a palace, and his simple mechanic's fare daintier than any royal banquet. So now, Ben, remember, that of all the Avays to make labor pleasant, and even A\aluable, there is nothing like having a noble purpose backed by a noble will." "I shall never forget it, uncle — never," the youth replied, solemnly, as the lesson sank deep into his mind ; " at least so long as I recollect the stories of Columbus and the Pilgrim Fathers, as well as that of Peter the Great." The lesson ended, Uncle Benjamin began to wake up, as it were, to a sense that he and his nephew were still miles away at sea, and without any apparent prosj^ect, too, of being favored with the promised breeze at sundown. " Come, I say, captain," the uncle cried, as he glanced toward the shore, and beheld the sun trembling like a huge golden bubble, as it seemed to rest poised on the very edge of the distant hills, and tinting the air, earth, and sea with a blush that was as faint and delicate as the rosy lining of a shell; "come, I say, master, where's your breeze at sundown ? Pm afraid you're out in your reckoning, my little skipper." Where- upon the couple looked again toward the horizon in the vain hope of discovering the slightest trace BECALMED. 119 of what sailors call a " cat's-paw" on the water. Keither was there a smgle " goat's-hair" nor " mare's-tail'^ to be seen, like whifFs of gossamer, floating in the sky ; for the clouds were still gath- ered into those large cumulus snow-clumps which are indicative of a summer stillness in the air, while the sea itself was so calm and smooth that it looked like a broad pavement of glass, more easy to be walked over than sailed through. The young skipper felt himself called upon to give his little breeches the true nautical hitch as he informed his alarmed godfather that he " real- ly didn't see what was to be done under the cir- cumstances, except, indeed, to whistle, for that was the remedy which the best sailors always prescribed for a lack of wind." "Whistle!" shouted Uncle Benjamin, as he laughed outright at the absurd though desperate predicament in which they were placed ; " and is that the result of all my long moral lessons to you this day, you young monkey?" and as he said the words he seized the lad and shook him play- fully by the ear. "Have I been out with you here ever since the morning, trying to hammer into your little noddle that wdll overcomes all difficulties, and yet you have faith now — only in tohistUng. Why, Ve may stop here the night through, and puff every gasp of breath out of our bodies before we shall get wind enough that way, you superstitious young rascal you (and again he twiddled at the boy's ear), to drive even a wal- nut-shell through the water." " Well, but, uncle, it's impossible to i^uU all the way back to Boston," remonstrated the nephew ; and, as if to assure himself of the fact, he cast a despairing glance toward the coast, that now, as the twilight fell like a thick haze over the water, appeared even dimmer and more distant than before. 120 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. " And you assert that as your deliberate o^^in- ion, eh, captain ?" smiled the old man', as he bowed with mock deference to the j^oungster. "It certainly seems to me impossible," little Benjamin made answer, with a shrug of his shoul- ders expressive of utter helj^lessness under the circumstances. " I can only say, then, that I'm vastly glad to hear it, Master Ben," answered the uncle, chafing his palms together with pretended delight, "be- cause the very predicament we're in will afford you the finest possible opportunity of proving, in a practical manner, the power of the icill in you ; and you'll learn from it, moreover, my lad, how it's much better to depend on that than on any power of whistling in such a position." " But, uncle, it's eight miles to Boston Harbor if it's an oar's length," remonstrated the faint- hearted youngster. " Xever mind, boy. If it were tw^enty, but loill to master the distance, and you'll find it only a hop, skip, and a jump after all. Come, lad !" cried the old man, slapping the little fellow on the back to rouse his dormant energy. "Have faith in your own j^owers — have faith, Ben, for without faith there are no good w^orks, I can tell you. It's easier, any how, to* scull a boat than to build ships. Pete.r liad the welfare only of his country to stir him to do what he did, but you have father and mother to make happy by your brave deeds. Set your heart on home, boy, and your hands will bring you there fast and readily enough. Have you no purpose to lighten the la- bor? Is there no distant glory to rouse in you will enough to sustain you at the work ? Will it be no delight to your parents to find that you can be a fine, noble fellow if you please ? that you have a man's purpo^ now in your heart, and a BECALMED. 121 man's will in your sonl? that you have no longer such a childish dread of continuous toil as to be cowed by a few ugly-looking difficulties. Let them see that you are ready to fight the battle of life Avith a courage that can never waver ; a resolution strong enough to change defeat into triumph ; an energy sufficiently enduring to make you compass what you set your heart upon? Think of this, my little man, think of this, and work to gladden father and mother, as King Pe- ter worked to benefit a nation." " I'll do it ! I'll do it, 'uncle ! You shall see to- night what a man you have made of me. Ay, and father and mother shall see it too." And, without another w^ord, the little fellow proceeded to lower the sail, and then stripping off his coat, he seized the sculls, and began to give w^ay in right good earnest. By this time the lights of Boston city in the distance had come twinkling forth one after an- other, as if they had been so many stars peeping over the horizon ; and as the boy labored at the oars, the uncle cheered him on by reminding him of the moving lights that Columbus had seen on the shore in the night, as he sat on the poop of the " Santa Maria," and he bade him have the same will to reach those shores as had sustained Columbus himself. Next he would tell the lad how John Huss, the martyr, had willed to die for the truth, and how the brave Bohemian had chanted hymns at the stake w^hile the flames were curling about his body. Then he w^ould recount to him the story of Palissy the potter, explaining to liim that Pa- lissy was the discoverer of the means of glazing earthenware — our cups, plates and dishes before his time having been as rude and rough as tiles — 123 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANIiLIN. and that so determined had he been to succeed in his object, that he not only broke up the very bedsteads of his wife and children for fuel for his furnaces, but burnt the flooring and rafters of the house they lived in ; until, at length, the potter mastered all the difficulties that beset him, and realized an immense fortune by the discovery. When, too. Uncle Benjamin fancied he could see the little fellow's spirit or strength beginning to flag^ he would cry aloud to him, " Pull, lad ! pull as King Peter would have pulled under the same circumstances ;" or else the old uncle would make the little fellow laugh by telling him that he himself would try to help him, but he knew he should "catch a crab" the very first stroke, and be hurled backward over the seat into the bottom of the boat. Then, these resources being exhausted, the old man tried to beguile the way to the boy first by chanting hymns, afterward by reciting portions of " Paradise Lost," and next by telling him sto- ries about John Milton, the great Non-conformist. It w^as, however, hard work enough for the lit- tle fellow to hold on ; and, had not the tide been floAving, he must have given in or dropped before half of the distance had been traveled. Nevertheless, the boy labored on and on, reso- lute in accomplishing the task. Indeed, his pride increased rather than flagged as he drew nearer to the harbor lights, so that when his uncle urged him to rest on his oars for a while, he scorned to listen to the suggestion, and fell to with redoubled vigor. Still, the last half mile was ail-but more than little Benjamin could manage. His hands were smarting with blisters, and the muscles of his arms and back aching with their long exertion. Many a time he thought he must drop the sculls. Nev- A strong will can master difticulties which seem insupei'ahle to a weak heart. A NEW WORLD. 125 ertheless, he could not bear to be beaten after all he had done ; so on he went again, looking round almost at every other stroke to note how much farther he had to go. Then the old man, seeing the struggle of the poor boy, fell to cheering him, first clapping his hands and crying " Bravo ! bravo, captain !" and then calling him " Peter the^ Little" and " young blaster Cristofaro," till the little fellow was obliged to laugh even in his pain. And after that he told him to think of the grand story he should have to tell his father and mother, on reaching home, about his young friend Captain Benjamin Franklin, as to how he had saved his old uncle by his great courage and energy, as well as fine sea- manship, from being drifted out of sight of land at nightfall without either provisions or water. Thus, at last, the harbor was gained. And when the little hero stepped from the boat on to the landing-place, he felt, though his arms were cramped with the long labor, that he was really a new man ; that he had learned for the first time in his life to have faith in his own en- ergies, and had found out by experience that a strong vnll can master difficulties which seem in- superable to a vaeah heart. CHAPTER XII. A NEW WORLD. " Hoi, Ben, hoi ! we'll stop here, lad ! stop, you wild young jackanapes — stop, I say !" shouted the uncle through his hands to his young fellow-trav- eler, who had started on ahead, as they burst from out the dusk of a dense wood into the brii^ht sun- shine of a vast open plain. o 126 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. The long, luxuriant grass of the broad meadows before them reached so high above the belly of the shock-coated pony young Benjamin was rid- ing, that the little porpoise-like animal positively seemed to be swimming along in a sea of verdure. However, in obedience to the summons, the boy leaned back on the saddle, like a rower in his seat, as he tugged at the creature's mouth, and cried aloud, " What, stop fiere, uncle — stop here /" Then wheeling round, he galloped back to the old man, and found him already hanging over the saddle in the act of dismounting. The imcle paused for a moment with one foot in the stirrup ; and as he looked across the pommel at the fea- tures of the disappointed lad, he could hardly keep from laughing on beholding his godson's face all lengthened out with wonder almost as extravagantly as if it had been reflected in the bowl of a teaspoon. " Stop here P'' iterated the amazed young Ben- jamin. " Why, there isn't a house for miles round; just you look yourself, uncle ; you can't see a curl of smoke any where about — can you, now ?" And the youth leaned his hand upon the crupper, while he turned himself sideways on his saddle to look well back upon the scene. " I know, boy, there is not a homestead nearer than a day's ride," answered the godfather, still inwardly enjoying the fun of the boy's bewilder- ment, and patting on the shoulder, now that he was fairly dismounted, the old " nag-horse" that had borne him from St. Louis that morning. " Xevertheless, this is our journey's end, Master Benjamin." '^ Tills our journey's end! Well, well!" the youth exclaimed, in greater amazement than ever, as he tossed up his head like a horse with a half- empty nose-bag ; and then drawing one foot from A NEW WORLD. 127 the Stirrup, he screwed himself round once more on the saddle as upon a pivot, so as to take an- other good broad survey of the country. " Why, I thought you were going to show me some large town or other, uncle — or some great shipping place — or grand farm, perhaps; but what your object can be in bringing me out here to an im- mense wilderness in the back-woods, I'm sure I can't tell ;" and the half-sulky lad flung himself oif his pony, and stood almost up to his middle in the grass. Then, by way of consolation, he proceeded to hug the shaggy little steed round the neck, call- ing him the while his " darling Jacky," and " a beauty," and telling the tiny creature, as he cud- dled and caressed it like a human being, "how happy he would be if Jacky only belonged to him, instead of the French farmer they had bor- rowed it from." " Patience, my little philosopher, patience. You shall know all in good time," was the simple re- buke of the godfather while slipping the bridle from his nag previous to turning him adrift in the herbage, that was almost as high as corn. Little i3enjamin proceeded to follow the old man's example, and, having divested Jacky of his head-gear, he advanced toward his uncle with the bit dangling from his hand. Then, as the lad stood on tiptoe beside a neighboring tree, trying to hang the bridle on the same branch as his god- father had used for the same purpose, he exclaim- ed, "But, uncle, you 7nust allow I've had a good bit of patience already. Why, let me see, we've been away from home now" (and he paused to make a mental calculation of the precise time) — " yes ! more than three weeks, I declare ; and though I did worry you, perhaps, a good deal at first — when we were in the sloop, you know, on 128 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. our way from Boston to Annapolis — as to where you were going to take me, and why we were coming so far away from home, still, you remem- ber, when I found you wouldn't tell me any thing about it, but bade me have a little jDatience, as you do now, why, I never said another w^ord to you on the matter, though I must confess I couldn't keep from twisting it over and over in my mind all the time we were in that strange-looking old stage-wagon traveling over the Alleghany Mount- ains to Pittsburg, and that was many days — wasn't it uncle, eh ?" " Yes, you monkey ! but you made up for it well — that you did — on board the 'ark' that we came down the Ohio in," responded the tutor, as he shook his forefinger playfully in the face of the laughing lad ; " for then not a town appeared in sight but it was, 'Are we going to stop here, uncle ?' ' Is this the place you wanted me to see, uncle ?' ' How long will it be before we get to our journey's end, uncle ?' " What are you going to show me this time, uncle ?' and a thousand and one other knagging questions that would have given poor old Job himself an attack of the bile." " Well, I dare say I did tease you a bit, poor unky," replied the wheedling little fellow, as he sat down on the grass beside his godfather, and curled his arm about his neck, while, half abash- ed, he leaned his head upon the old one's shoul- der ; " but you should remember I'm only ' a bit of a boy' still, as mother says. Besides, you have such a strange way of teaching me things, you know — so different from old Mr. Brownwell ; though I am sure he was kind enough to all of us boys in the school. First, you take me out fishing; then we go boating together ; and though I fancied each time you meant merely to treat me to a day's pleasure, I found out afterward that A NEW WORLD. 120 you had planned the trip only on purpose to give me some lesson in life." " Yes, my dear lad," said the kind-hearted old gentleman, while passing his hand over the cheek of his young pupil, "I turned your recreations into matters of study. I used your boyish sports as a means to show you what is a man's business in the world. Children remember their nursery rhymes better than their catechism, Ben, because the lesson is pleasanter ; and when the heart is in the work, the task, you know now, lad — " " Is always lightened," promptly replied the lit- tle fellow. " I recollect, uncle, it was that which made the hard labor of the dock-yard come so easy to Peter the Great. But still, unky, dear, I really can't see what there is to be learned in such a place as this." (The old man shook his head as he smiled at the boy's frankness.) " You said you were going to teach me how to get on in life, but what can I possibly learn of the ways of the world in a part that seems to be almost out of it — where there are no towns, no farms, no crops, no workshops, no shipping — nothing, in- deed, but the tracks of wild Indians, wild birds, and wild cattle ?" "I dare say, my little man, it does seem strange to you," replied the uncle, " and doubtlessly it will seem much stranger when I tell you that I have brought you all this long way from home — many hundreds of miles — to this vast uninhabited plain to teach you — " " What ?" cried the eager boy, unable to Avait for the conclusion of the sentence. " IIow to be rich, my son," was all the reply. "How to be rich!" cried the youth, even more bewildered than ever. "How to be rich! Oh, I sliould like to know about that^ uncle, very much ;" and, boy-like, he chuckled with delight at 130 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. the prospect of getting plenty of money. " But, dear me ! this is an odd kind of place to come to for such a lesson. Why, there are no riches at all here that I can see — nothing but a great barren plain for miles and miles on." " Barren do you call it, you rogue !" echoed the tutor, still amusing himself with the perj^lexity of his pupil. " Well, uncle, there is no corn growing, nor any turnip-fields, nor kitchen-gardens, nor any or- chards either that I can see," explained young Ben. " True, lad," replied the other, as he proceeded to spread out on the grass before him the packet of venison-hams and bread that he had brought from St. Louis for their gipsy dinner that day; " but, uncultured as it is, the finest English park, laid out with the nicest taste, and kept with the greatest care, is not more beautiful ; no farm, how- ever well tilled, has soil so rich as that beneath our feet ; no mea-dows in the world are flocked with finer herds of cattle, or carpeted with a rich- er sward; no plantation is set with nobler trees or greener shrubs ; no squire's preserves in the old country are more abundant in game ; no flor- ist's garden is studded with such a choice profu- sion of flowers as you behold here, spangling the earth as thick as stars in the Milky Way ; nor is any orchard better stocked with fruit, for yonder you see it dangles, as in Aladdin's wonderful gar- den, like balls of gold and big jewels from the boughs. " This is an American prairie, lad !" the old man went on — " one of God's own parks — crea- tion's broad manor, of which every man in a prim- itive state is 'lord' — the noble estate which Na- ture entails on her barbarian children. Yonder are the beeves and the venison with which she welcomes her helpless offspring on their entry A NEW WORLD. 131 into the world ; here the fruits with which she strews their board before they have learned to grow them for themselves; this the soft velvet carpet that she spreads for lier barefooted sons, and these the flowers which she hangs, like bright beads and bells, about the cradles of her first- born." Young Benjamin had never seen a prairie be- fore. He had often read of the immense Ameri- can plains, and often heard of them, too, from the neighbors and deacons who came to chat at his father's house in the evening; he had heard of them also from his companions at school, while telling one another stories of the wild Indians and the wonders of the new country; and from his brother-in-law, " the trader in furs and skins," as well as from the sailors and mates whose ac- quaintance he had picked up at the Boston harbor. Boy-like, he had often longed to learn whether the reality in any way resembled the imaginary picture that repeated descriptions had conjured up in his mind. Up to this time he had seen the great plains only, as it were, in a dream — like the image of a magic lantern gloaming faintly in the dark; and now that the vast tracts themselves were spread before his eyes in all the vividness of sunshine, he was so intent upon learning his uncle's object in bringing him thus far from home, that, until the witching word " prairie" fell from the old man's lips, the little fellow had no sense that he was gazing upon the grand Indian hunt- ing-grounds for the first time in his life. But now the lad began to look upon them with different eyes, and grew eager to detect the many natural charms of which he had heard and read. As he glanced fitfully from spot to spot, he noted the several clumps of trees rising like wood- land islets out of the boundless ocean of verdure 132 YOUXG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. which surrounded them ; the long, luxuriant grass undulating in the breeze with waves that rolled across the plain as if it were one vast liquid law^n, and that kept playing in the light with all the rich, soft shades of moving velvet ; and the gen- tly swelling land heaving here and there in long, sweeping curves, like the sea in the lazy languor of a calm after a summer storm. As far as the eye could reach, the earth was one immense floor of meadows, vast as a desert, and yet rich as a garden, and planted like a ])ark. The broad land was like an endless lake of fields rather than the earth, as we ordinarily know it broken into small patches, and hemmed in by hills and hedges. The prairies were a-flame with the myriads of bright-colored wild flowers that scin- tillated, as so many sparks of fire, in the waving grass, amid which the yellow helianthus bloomed so luxuriantly that it threw a bright amber tint over the entire plains, and made them seem, at a little distance ofi", as gorgeous as a natural field of cloth of gold. The prairie flowers, indeed, were of every scent and hue ; there were the rich prairie violets pur- pling the soil in positive masses of color, and per- fuming the air with luxurious daintiness ; the wild bean-flowers fluttering in the breeze like floral butterflies, and scattering, as they swung to and fro, a delicate odor of vanilla nil around ; the balls of white clover, shaped like fairy Guelder roses, filling the atmosphere witli a honeyed fragrance; the slender rushes of the wild lavender, like little blue ears of corn, nodding redolently amid the blades ; the daisy-like chamomile flowers, twink- ling as though they were a galaxy of silver stars in the grass. In sooth, the rich soil was so preg- nant with sweetness here that, at every tread of the foot, the fragrance of the crushed flowers — A NEW WORLD. 133 of all the infinite variety of little scented herbs — steamed up in rich gusts, and mingled with the other odors, till the exquisite interblending of the several shades and grades of redolence made the air seem to be filled with a very rainbow of per- fumes. Nor was the feast of color less gorgeous. The waxen-stemmed balsams were of every hue, and looked like hundreds of little elfin Maypoles gar- landed with many-colored roses ; the foxglove, with its long stalk hung with bright purj^le bells ; the glowing crimson cups of the monster cactus- blossoms, dazzling as heaps of burning coal ; the vivid amber tufts of the clustering honeysuckle — all made the earth sparkle with the brilliant tints of the kaleidoscope, and look as rich, w^ith its hundred hues, as the marigold window of some ancient cathedral. Then the prairie trees had a grandeur and a beauty unknown to other parts. Now they grew in circular clumps, and seemed like a broad tower of foliage springing from the soil. Here flourish- ed the gaudy tulip-tree, with its huge flowers, glowing among the leaves bright as the tinted lamps upon a mimic Luther's-tree ; there was seen the stately cotton-tree, graceful as a Corinthian column, with the trumpet-flower twining up its stem, and the big scarlet blossoms swinging, like bells of red coral, in the air. The Judas-tree was there too, with its gorgeous hues ; and the carne- lian cherry-tree, with its yellow parachute-shaped flowers, and the red balls of frnit dangling beneath them ; and the beaver-wood as well, with its long, glossy, laurel-like leaves and its blush-white wax- en petals ; and the papaw-tree, with its tall naked stem, spreading like a palm at the top, and its orange-colored custard apples, like balls of gold, pendent from the blossoms. And besides these 134 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. there were oak, and chestnuts, and sycamores, and black wahiuts,and cypresses, and cucumber-trees, and locust-trees, sometimes growing singly, and at others forming a copse or grove, or else fring- ing the banks of some narrow stream that trav- ersed the great plain. The wild fruits, again, were as luxuriant as the wild flowers themselves. There were prairie plums, and wild grapes, and wild strawberries, and gooseberries, and hazel-nuts, and mulberries, and, indeed, a hundred other forest dainties, that were rotting for want of the hand to pluck them. Moreover, to complete the feast, there were wild-fowl forever flitting in long processions through the air. Now there would come a flock of wild turkeys sweeping overhead ; then a cloud of wild pigeons, thick as migrating swallows, would shadoAv the plain ; and these would be suc- ceeded in a while by troops of long-necked geese upon the wing, or long-legged cranes, or huge wild swans, or else a dark multitude of wild ducks, or other 'water-fowl. Farther, the plains themselves were dappled with herds of wild cattle. Far in the distance a black mass of bufialoes might be seen cropping the luxuriant herbage. Nearer, the deer, startled by the howl of the prairie dog, rushed, swift as a sheaf of rockets, across the scene. In one part were wild horses, thick as at a fair, grazing together; in another, a group of long- billed pelicans wading in the crossing streamlet. Nor was the lavish luxuriance of the prairie land to be wondered at, situate as it was on the banks and near the mouths of the mightiest riv- ers in the world ; for the soil of which the great plains had been formed had been worn from mountains and valleys, abraded from rocks and banks hundreds upon hundreds of miles away, and HOW TO BE RICH. 135 this had been washed and levigated by the wa- ters that carried it down till the finer particles alone remained suspended in the current, so that the soft fat " silt" had been deposited there in atoms as minute as if myriads of ants had borne it thither for thousands of years. And thus the plains had grown and grown, layer by layer, and acre by acre, flood after flood, from the very start- ing-point of time itself, till the alluvial soil had become rich and black as a bride-cake, broad as a desert, and deep as a lake. And yet no human habitation was to be seen amid all this spontaneous luxuriance. The patch- es of burnt grass, and the litter of bleached bones here and there, told of some passing Indian camp ; but beyond these there was no sign of man's pres- ence, as if the Lord of the Creation had yet to take possession of his richest manor, for " there was not a man to till the ground" throughout the Eden of the New World. CHAPTER XIII. HOW TO BE RICH. As young Benjamin sat munchiug his venison- ham on the grass, with the great prairie stretch- ing far and wide before him, he noted one after another the various phenomena of the scene. First his eyes would be riveted for a moment upon the endless string of wild-fowl sailing like a winged fleet overhead ; then he would watch some antlered elk that stood by itself staring into the distance ; next he would be taken with the bright balls of custard apples dangling from the trees ; and the moment after he Avas plucking a bunch of the prairie violets, whose perfume came 136 TOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIX. steaming up from the earth beside him, or else he was chewing a cud of the honeyed clover at his feet. Presently he would be up and hurrying off to gather the wild plums that his uncle had direct- ed his attention to ; and the next minute he'd come tearing back from the copse with his little three-cornered hat full of the fruit, together with bunches of hazel-nuts and grapes, and with pen- dents ofcarnehan cherries dangling from his ears, as well as a huge tulip-flower, almost as big as a golden goblet, stuck in his button-hole. The uncle, however, in the brief intervals be- tween the boy's flightier moods, pointed out to him such of the more latent beauties connected with the scene as might otherwise have escaped the youth's less observant eye. It was a long time, however, before the restless lad was tired of running after every bright but- terfly novelty of tlie place — long, indeed, before he could be in any Avay sobered down into atten- tion. The remains of the Indian camp had to be explored ; the papaw-tree to be half climbed ; the deer to be scared, in the vain hope of feeding them ; the wild ducks to be pelted in the air, in his eagerness to take a brace back home with him ; the tumulus, or Indian " barrow," to be scaled ; Jacky, the pony, to be petted and fon- dled ; and, indeed, a thousand and one boyish freaks to be gone through, ere Uncle Benjamin had any chance of being listened to for more than a minute or two at a stretch. Nevertheless, the uncle knew enough of human nature to be aware that a boy's excitement is like summer lightning playing for a time in harmless fitful flashes, but lasting only while the heat is on. So he waited patiently for his pupil to cool down a few degrees, to something like " temperate ;'* HOW TO BE EICH. IST for, like a true artist, the old man was anxious to fix his impression while the scene itself was fresh before the eye. He sought to teach, indeed, as artists sketch, "from Nature," because he had long noted how strongly the associations of place serve to link together ideas in the memory. Hence, in all his counselings, he had ever one object in view, which was to make the lesson he desired to inculcate, not a mere flitting phantasm or shadowy ghost of a truth, but a principle, in- stinct with all the vigor of life itself; and to do this, he sought to mix it up with some strange sight and event of boyhood. In a word, he strove to dramatize, as it were, what he had to teach, with all the real scenery of time and place, and so to interweave it with the web of youthful ex- istence, that the mere recollection of the boyish adventure should serve to recall with it, in man- hood, the golden rule that he wished to be forever tableted upon the mind. At length, however, the bloom had been brush- ed oif the novelty of the scene ; the charm of the "strange place" had lost its freshness with the familiarity of even an hour or two ; and the lad, who at first had run wild as a deer, startled by the strange objects about him, became ere long quiet and sedate as a lark at sundown. The tired boy lay stretched at full length in the tall grass, bedded in it, as if couched in a field of standing corn. The uncle, who sat with the little fellow's head pillowed on his lap, rested his back against the trunk of a huge " black walnut"-tree that stood by itself on the plain as if it had been planted there ; while through the broad foliage, the glare of the southern sun came down, soften- ed into the shade of a cool greenish light, except here and there, where the beams trickled between 13S YOUNG BENJA3IIN FRANKLIN. the leaves, and fell upon the sward in bright lus- trous goutes that flickered, amid the dusk of the bosky canopy, like a swarm of golden butterflies playing about the grass. The silence that reigned throughout the vast plain was so intense that it cast a half-solemnity over the scene. The faint murmur of the distant Illinois River was alone to be heard, and this came droning through the air with every gust, like the dying hum of a cathedral bell. The foliage above them, too, occasionally rustled like silk in the passing breeze ; and now and then the scream of the water-fowl, or the howl of the prairie-dog, or lowing of far-off cattle might be heard. But beyond these, the wide expanse was mute as the sea itself in the deepest calm : not the click of a woodman's axe, nor the moan of a cowherd's horn, nor the snap even of a distant rifle — no, nor, strange to say, the piping of a single singing-bird, smote the ear. " Now, my little man," began the uncle, " if you will but listen to me for a while, you shall learn, as I promised you, how to be rich." The boy nodded as he looked u]) and smiled in his uncle's face, as much as to say that he was ready for the lesson. "Well, you remember, Ben," he proceeded, " that when we went out for our day's fishing, I showed you that work was the prime necessity of our lives ?" " Yes, uncle," exclaimed the youth from out the old man's lap, " you said one of three things was unavoidable — either work, beggary, or starving ; I remember the words well." "That's right, my lad," rejoined the elder one, as he patted his little pupil's cheek till it glowed again with blushes ; " but in such a place as this, Ben, there is no need of labor, nor any fear of starving either." HOW TO BE EICH. 139 The little fellow stared with amazement at the contradiction, and cried aloud, " Then why doesn't father give up that nasty candle-making, and bring mother and all of us out here to the prairies to live without working?" " Ay," replied Uncle Benjamin, with a sarcastic chuckle, " to live the life of savages, my boy — that would just suit your mother and Deborah, I know." *'But why, uncle," again inquired the simple lad, " must we either work or starve in Boston, and not here ?" "Why, my son," the other made answer, "be- cause here the earth is- a natural garden, stored with more than a sufficiency for the supply of man's animal wants. Here, one has but to stretch his hand out, as it were, to get a meal ; but in a city, remember, the land bears bricks, and mortar, and paving-stones rather than food. But even if corn grew in the streets, Ben, the soil of Boston couldn't possibly feed the people of Boston ; for in Boston city there are hundreds crowded upon every acre, so that each acre, however prolific, could yield but little more than a loaf a year for every mouth." " Oh ! I see what you mean, uncle," said the nephew, half to himself, as he turned the problem over in his mind ; " you mean to say, I suppose, that there are so many mouths to feed in Boston, and so few in this enormous great place, that there is plenty to be got here without any hard work, and only just enough there with it." " I mean not only tliat^ my little fellow," the old man returned, " but what I wish you to un- derstand is, that the very necessity for the hard work demanded of man in a civilized state arises from the number of people gathered together in the difierent communities being greater than the 140 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. earth can naturally — or rather, I should say, spon- taneously — support. Here, however, the land yields, of its own free-will, such a superabundance of natural wealth that man has hardly thought it worth his while to begin to appropriate any por- tion of it to his own individual use ; hence the only labor required in such a place as this is that merely of collecting the riches which Nature free- ly offers up to her uncivilized children. Here the fruit has but to be plucked, and the beasts of the field or birds of the air to be slain, to allay the cravings of the stomach, so that a hunter's life is sufficient to satisfy the common necessities of hu- man existence." " Oh yes ; and that's the reason, uncle, why these prairies are called the 'Indian hunting- grounds,' " exclaimed the younger Benjamin, with no little delight, as the true significance of the phrase flashed across his mind. " You will understand, then, my boy," the elder continued, " that so long as the children of Nature are few in number, and their mother-earth yields more than enough for each and all of them, there is no appropriation, no scrambling for the world's riches, no hoarding of them, no coveting of our neighbor's possessions, no theft, nor, indeed, any labor for man to perform, harder than that of gathering the superabundant food as he may want it. Directly, however, the human family begins to outgrow the natural resources of the land over which it is distributed, then men proceed to seize upon the good things of the world, and garner them as their own special property, while others strive to force the earth to yield by cultivation more than the natural supply, so that the more savage members of the tribe fall to fighting among themselves for the possessions obtained by their brothers, and the more peaceable and sedate to HOW TO BE RICH. 141 raise for their own use fruits and grain that the soil otherwise would never have borne. Thus, then, you see, Ben, that as the world becomes peo- pled, and tribes i^ass from a state of nature to civ- ilization, there are developed two new features in human life — the one, the appropriation of what is growing scarce (for no one thinks of gathering and hoarding that which is superabundant) ; and the other, the production of artificial crops and riches, as a means of remedying the scarcity." " I think I can make out now what seemed so strange to me before, uncle," young Benjamin chimed in, as he lay looking up in the old man's face ; " the only work required of the wild Indians out here is that oi gather ing Xho, fruits of the earth, while the farmers and others round about us have to produce them." " Just so, lad ; and while collection is the easi- est form of work, production is a long and labori- ous process," added the tutor. " So it is," the boy made answer, as the differ- ence was clearly defined to him ; " it takes just a year for the harvest to come round, and a deal of work has to be done before that — eh, uncle ?" " Well, then, Ben, the next thing to be consid- ered is, How are the laborers to live between the crops ?" said Uncle Benjamin, as he led his little pupil step by step through the maze of the rea- soning. "Collection yields an immediate return to the labor; but in production th^ producers must wait for the produce, and of course live while they are waiting." " Of course they must," echoed the youngster ; "but then, you know, uncle, they've got all the last year's corn to keep them." " Yes ; but suppose, my little man, some of them made their corn into cakes, and pies, and puddings, as well as bread, and so ate up all their 142 YOUNG BENJAMIN FBANKLIN. Stock before the harvest came round again, what, then, would be the consequence ?" inquired the uncle, watching the effect of the question upon the boy. " Why, then they'd have to starve, of course," was the simple rejoinder, for the youth was still unable to detect the drift of the inquiry. "Ay, Benjamin, to starve, or else to labor for the benefit of those who had been more prudent," answered the uncle, still gazing intently at the youth as he lay with his head pillowed on the old man's lap ; " and thus civihzed society Avould be- come divided into two distinct classes — masters and men, rich and poor." " Oh ! I see," pondered the little fellow, as he woke up to the truth ; " the prudent people in the w^orld become the rich, and the imprudent make the poor." But presently a doubt darted across his mind, and he asked, "But is it ahcays so in Boston and other towns, uncle ? Are riches got only by i:»rudence, and is imprudence the great cause of poverty ?" " I know what is passing through your brain, Ben," interposed the old man, " and I should tell you that many persons are certainly born to rich- es, while many more inherit a life of poverty, lad. In most cases, however, the heritage is the result of their parents' or their forefathers' thrift, or the want of it. If your father, Ben, chose to make a beggar of himself, not only would he suffer, but you and your brothers and sisters would become hereditary beggars, and, most likely, find it diffi- cult in after life to raise yourselves above beg- gary." " Then the sins of the fathers," murmured the thoughtful lad, " are really ' visited upon the chil- dren unto the third and fourth generation,' as it says in the commandment." now TO BE RICH. 143 " Yes, my little man," the elder Benjamin add- ed, " poverty is truly an ' estate in tail.' It de- scends from father to son ; and it is supreme hard work to ' dock the entail' (as lawyers call it), I can tell you. As the mere casualty of birth ennobles the son of a noble, so, generally speaking, does it pauperize the son of the pauper. The majority of the rich have not been enriched by their own merits, boy, nor the mass of the poor impoverish- ed by their own demerits. As a rule, the one class is no more essentially virtuous than the oth- er is essentially vicious. The vagabond is often lineally descended from a long and ancient ances- try of vagabonds, even as the proudest peer dates his dignity from peers before the Conquest. The heraldry of beggary, however, is an unheard-of science. The patrician's pedigree forms part of the chronicles of the country ; but who thinks of the mendicant's family tree ? And yet, lad, the world might gather more sterling wisdom from the genealogy and antecedents of the one than the other. ' Who was the first beggar in the family ? How did he get his patent of beggary ? and how many generations of beggars have been begotten by this one man's folly or vice ?' These are ques- tions which few give heed to, my son, and yet they are pregnant with the highest philosophy, ay, and the most enlightened kindness." The little fellow was too deeply touched with the suggestiveness of his uncle's queries to utter a word in reply. He was thinking how he should Jike to learn from the next beggar he met what had made him a beggar — he was thinking of the little beggar-children he had seen with their fa- ther and mother chanting hymns in the streets of Boston, and wondering whether they would grow up to be beggars in their turn, and bring their lit- tle ones up to beggary also. 144 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. "Moreover, I should tell yon, lad," continued the uncle, after a brief pause, " that in the strug- gle of the transition of almost every race from a state of barbarism to civilization, possessions are mostly acquired by force of arms rather than by industry and frugality; for no sooner does the scrambling for the scanty wealth begin, than the strong seize not only upon the natural riches of the earth, but upon the very laborers themselves, and compel them to till the land as slaves for their benefit. But, putting these matters on one side, boy, what I am anxious to impress upon you now is, that even supposing right, rather than might, had prevailed at the beginning of organized soci- ety, and all had started fairly, producing for them- selves, why, long before the second harvest had come round, some would have eaten up, and some would have w^asted their first year's crop, and these must naturally have become the serfs of those who had saved theirs. Thus, then, the same broad distinctions as exist now among men would have sprung up, and the human world still have been separated into two great tribes — those who had plenty of breadstuff, and those who had none ; while those who had no food of their own would be at the mercy of those who possessed a super- abundance ; so that not only would they be glad to be allowed to labor for the others' benefit, but even constrained to work for the veriest pittance that their masters chose to dole out to them," Little Benjamin remained silent, conning the hard bit of worldly wisdom that had been for the first time revealed to him. The uncle noticed the impression his words had made, and added, " Such, ray Httle man, are the social advantages of prudence, and such the heavy penalties that men pay for lack of thrift in life. But, before we proceed any farther, Ben, HOAV TO BE EICII. 145 let US thoroughly comprehend what this same prudence means." The boy stared at his uncle as he awaited the explanation. " In the first place, then," the godfather went on, " we must not confound prudence Avith miser- liness, nor even with meanness. To be miserly, my son, is as improvident as to be prodigal ; for to hoard that which is of use chiefly in being used — in being used as a means of farther pro- duction — is as unwise as to squander it. To do this is to live a pauper's life amid riches, and thus not only to forestall the beggary that true pru- dence seeks to avoid, but to waste the wealth (by allowing it to remain idle) that is valuable only in being applied as the means of future benefit or enjoyment. To be mean, on the other hand, my lad, is to be either unjust or ignoble; and en- lightened worldly discretion w^ould prompt us to be neither, for there is no real prudence in ignor- ing the duties, the dignities, or even the charities of life." " Tell me, then, uncle, what prudence really «s," asked the boy, who was half bewildered now that he had learned Avhat it was not. " Why, prudence, my little fellow, is simply that wise worldly caution which comes of fore- sight regarding the circumstances that are likely to affect our own happiness. Morally considered, it is the heroism of enlightened selfishness — in- tellectually regarded, it is the judgment counsel- ing the heart ; while in a religious point of view it is the divine element of ' Providence' narrowed down to the limits of human knowledge and hu- man vision. The learned man, Ben, exists mainly in the past ; the thoughtless one lives only in the present ; but the wise dwell principally in the future. And as the astronomer foresees the con- K 146 YOUXG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. junctions of planets, the recurrence of eclipses, and return of comets years ere they hapj^en, so the true sage, in the great universe of circum- stances surrounding our lives, has a prescience of the coming good or evil, and makes the bene- fits of to-day serve to mitigate the miseries of to- morrow." " Dear me !" cried the youth, amazed at the glowing picture his godfather had given of the virtue, " why, I thought prudence merely meant saving, uncle." "Ay, and you thought saving, doubtlessly," added the tutor, sarcastically, "but a poor and paltry good after all. Youths mostly do think so, Ben ; for it is but natural that to take any steps to avert the joerils of old age at a time when they are most remote should appear to the inexperienced as being, to say the least, most premature. Nevertheless, Ben, saving is one of the means by which prudence seeks to change unusual luck into uniform benefit ; to make the strokes of good fortune in the world so temper the heavy blows and disasters of life, that our days shall be one round of average happiness rather than (as they otherwise must be) a series of intermittent joys and miseries. But not only is it by saving, lad, that the enormities of surfeit at one particular time, and of griping want at an- other, are converted into the even tenor of general sufficiency, but without saving there could be no production of wealth in the world." " How so, uncle ?" asked the younger Benjamin. " Why, boy," the other went on, " in order to do any productive work, three things are always necessary : first, there must be something to go to work upon ; secondly, there must be something to go to work with ; and, thirdly, something where- with to keep the workman while working — that HOW TO BE KICH. 14T is to say, the workman, unless duly provided with materials, tools, and food, can do no work at all. A tailor, for instance, Ben, can not make a coat without cloth, or needles and thread ; nor a car- penter build a house without a board, or a saw, or plane ; nor a smith work without metal, or file, or hammer ; nor, indeed, can any handicraftsman continue laboring without ' bite or sup' as well." " Of course they can't," assented the boy ; " but still I can't make out Avhat that has to do with saving, uncle." " Simply this, lad," the godfather made answer. " Such things can be acquired only by husband- ing the previous gains ; for if none of the past year's yield were to be set aside as stock or cap- ital for the next year's supply — if none of the corn grown, for example, were to be saved for seed — none devoted to the maintenance of the smiths while manufacturing the implements wherewith to till the soil, and none laid by for the keep of the laborers while tilling it, there could not pos- sibly be any farther produce." " Oh, I see !" the youth exclaimed. " I've often heard father talk of the ' capital' required to start a person in business, but hardly knew what he meant." " Yes, boy, I dare say," the other added ; " and now you perceive that your father meant by it merely the wealth that is required to make tnore wealth ; the stock that it is necessary to have in hand before any farther supply can be raised. Capital, Ben, is nothing more than the golden grain which has been husbanded as seed for the future golden crop — a certain store of wealth laid up for the purposes of farther production or of trade ; and such store can be obtained, it is man- ifest, only by not consuming all we get. So ab- solutely indispensable, too, is this capital, or stock 14S YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. ill hand, for carrying on the great business of Hfe, that all who would be the masters of the world must themselves either possess a certain portion of it, or pay others interest for the use of it ; while those who have none, and can get none, must needs be the laborers and servants of the others." " ' Interest !' " echoed young Benjamin, catch- ing at the word he had heard so often used in conversation at home, but of which he had as yet scarcely formed a definite idea. " But don't some people, uncle, live upon the interest of their prop- erty without doing any work at all ? Father has told me so, I think ; and how can that be, if work, as you say, is the prime necessity of life ?" " Ay, lad, Ave must either work ourselves or be able to employ othei-s to work for us," was the rejoinder; "and those who live on the interest of their money do the latter, but they do so in- directly, rather than directly, like the real employ- er himself." " I do not understand you, uncle," was all the little fellow could say, as he knit his brows in the vain attempt to solve the worldly problem. " Well, Ben," replied the old man, " I will try and make the matter plainer to you. The fund that it is necessary to have in hand, in order to supply the materials and implements (or, maybe, the machinery) required for producing a partic- ular commodity, as well as to provide the main- tenance of the workmen employed in producing it, may either have been acquired by our own thrift, or it may have formed part of the savings of others. In the one case, of course, we alone are interested in the result ; in the other, how- ever, it is but fair and right that they who supply us with the means of obtaining a certain valuable return should be allowed a proportionate share or interest, as it is termed, in the gains. If a now TO BE EICII. 149 portion of land be naturally more fertile than an- other — if, for instance, the fields in the valley yield, with the same amount of labor, a ten-fold crop over and above those on the mountains, such extra fertility is, of course, a natural boon, and this natural boon must accrue to some one. Well, if the individual who has acquired the right to it do not till the fields himself, it is self-evident that he will not part with such right to others without reserving to himself some share or inter- est in the after-produce. Now this share or in- terest that the landlord reserves to himself for the superior productiveness of certain lands is what the world calls ' rent ;' and your own sense, lad, will show you that a person possessing many such acres might live merely upon the interest he has in the crops that are raised upon them by others, rather than by raising any himself" " Go on, uncle, go on ; I begin to see it a little plainer now," the youth cried, as the fog in his brain gradually cleared away. " Well, my good boy," proceeded the godfa- ther, " capital is as productive as land itself; dis- creetly used, it yields crop after crop of profits ; and interest for money is but the rent or share that the wealthy reserve to themselves for the use of their property, when applied to productive purposes by others. And as the rent of a large number of acres cultivated by tenants may, as I said before, yield a person a sufiicient income to live in ease and affluence without even the cares of conducting the work, or the responsibility of good and bad seasons, so a man with many hund- reds of guineas may leave the fructification of his capital to more active and enterprising natures, while he himself subsists in comfort upon that mere interest or indirect share in the gains which he claims for the use of his savings. If capital 150 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. were as unproductive as barren land, no one would pay interest for the one any more than they would dream of giving rent for the other. And as the scale of rent is equivalent merely to the comparative fertility of different soils, so the rate of interest expresses only the value of capital in the market, according to the individual risk or the general want of money." "I see ! I see !" exclaimed the youth. " Money makes money, boy," the godfather continued ; " it grows as assuredly as the corn grows, for the growth of the grain is but the fructification of the capital that has been applied to the land; and if a hundred guineas sterling put into the soil in the shape of seed, manure, and wages, will yield at the end of the harvest a crop worth say a hundred and twenty guineas, surely, then, the money (which, after all, is but the ultimate crop reduced to its pecuniary value) has fructified at a corresponding rate with the blades themselves. A guinea allowed to remain idle, Ben, is as bad as land that is allowed to grow weeds instead of wheat. Every grain of corn eaten, lad, is a grain absolutely destroyed ; but every grain sown yields an ear, and every extra ear adds to the common stock of food. In like manner, wealth squandered is so much wealth positively lost to the world ; whereas wealth saved, and used as capital in some productive employment, serves not only to find work and subsistence for the poor, but to increase the gross fund of available riches in the community." " It is good, then, to save, uncle," observed the boy. " It is as good to save and use wealth discreet- ly, my lad, as it is base to hoard and lock it up, and wicked to squander and waste it. Saving, indeed, is no mean virtue. Not only does it re- HOW TO BE RICH. 151 quire high self-denial in order to forego the im- mediate pleasure which wealth in hand can always obtain for its possessors, but it needs as much in- tellectual strength to perceive the future good with all the vividness of a present benefit as it does moral control to restrain the propensities of the time being for the enjoyment of happiness in years to come. Again, boy, it is merely by the frugality of civilized communities that cities are built, the institutions of society maintained, and all the complex machinery of enlightened indus- try and commerce kept in operation. If every one lived from hand to mouth, Ben, there could be no schools, nor libraries, nor churches, nor courts of justice, nor hospitals, nor senate-houses ; neither could there be any government, nor law, nor medicine, nor any religious or intellectual teaching among the people ; for as such modes of life add nothing directly to the common stock of food and clothing, nor, indeed, to the gross mate- rial wealth of a nation, it is manifest that they who follow them can do so only at the expense of the general savings. Farther, my lad, a moment's re- flection will show you that roads, and docks, and shipping, and warehouses, and markets, as well as factories and shops, together with all the appli- ances of tools and machinery, can only be con- structed out of the capital stock of the common- wealth ; so that the chief difierence between the wild luxuriant hunting-grounds before you and the great town of Boston in which you live, Ben, is that here even Nature herself is so prodigal that nothing needs to be stored, while there ev- ery thing has sprung out of a wise economy. There the very paving-stones in the streets are representatives of so much wealth treasured., lit- erally, against ' a rainy day,' and every edifice is a monument of the industry and frugality of the 152 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. citizens ; there not a vessel enters the port but it comes ladeu with the rich fruits of some man's thrift and providence ; there not a field is tilled but it is sown with the seeds of another's fore- thought, and not a crop raised that is not a gold- en witness of the good husbanding of the hus- bandman ; there, too, the store-houses are jailed up with treasures brought from the very corners of the earth to serve as the means of future em- ployment for the poor, and the banks sparkle with riclies which, rightly viewed, are but the bright medals that have been won by the heroism of hard work and self-denial in the great ' battle of life.'" "Has all Boston, then, and all the ships in the port and goods in the warehouses," the boy said half to liimself, " come out of the savings of the people ?" "Assuredly they have, lad," was the reply. " Just think liow many pounds of bread and meat it must take to build a shij), and then ask your- self whether there could be a single vessel in Bos- ton Harbor if some one hadn't saved a sufficient store to keep the woodmen while felling the tim- ber, and the shipwrights while putting it togeth- er. You see now the high social use of saving, Ben. It not only gives riches to the rich, remem- ber, but it provides work and food for the poor ; for the prosperous man who duly husbands his gains benefits at once himself and those who have been less lucky or prudent than he. Nor is this all. It is by saving alone that a man can eman- cipate himself from the primeval doom of life-long labor. There are no other means of purchasing exemption from the ban. We are the born slaves of our natural wants — the serfs of our common appetites, and it is only by industry and thrift that we can wrest the iron collar from our neck. HOW TO BE RICH. 153 If, then, in the greed of our natures, we will de- vour all we get, we must either starve or become the voluntary villeins of those who have been more frugal than we. By prudence, Ben, I re- peat, we may become the masters of the world ; by imprudence, we must remain the bondsmen of it. In a word, you must save, or be a slave, lad." '•^Save^ or he a slave^'' the boy kept on murmur- ing to himself, for the words had sunk deep into his soul. " Save, or be a slave." Presently little Ben Avoke up out of the dream into which the burden of the song, so to speak, had thrown him, and he asked, " But, uncle, can people become rich only by saving ? I have heard father speak of j^ersons having made large for- tunes in a short time ; and when you told me that story about Bernard Palissy the potter (you re- member, uncle," he interjected, with a smile, " on the night when we were becalmed, and I rowed you to Boston Harbor), I thought you said Ber- nard made — oh, a great, great deal of money, merely by finding out how to glaze earthenware." " Well said, my child, well said !" nodded the godfather; "and that reminds me that I should tell you there are two difterent and opposite modes of becoming rich : the one slow and sure, and the other rapid and uncertain ; the first is the process of patient industry and wise prudence ; the second that of clever scheming and bold ad- venture. A man may certainly invent rather than earn a fortune for himself; he may stumble upon a gold mine without even the trouble of hunting for it ; or he may discover some new mode of pro- duction, as Gutenburg, the inventor of movable types, did ; or he may insure a vessel that is sup- posed to be lost, and see the ship the next day come sailing into the harbor ; or he may speculate 154 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANEXIN. for a rise in the market-price of a particular com- modity, and realize thousands by the venture ; or he may buy a ticket in a lottery, and wake up some morning and find himself the lucky holder of a twenty-thousand guinea prize ; or, indeed, he may do a hundred and one things by which large sums of money are occasionally obtained, as it were, in an instant." " Oh, then," cried the lad, " where's the good, I should like to know, of going through years of hard work, and stinting and saving, in order to get rich, if it's possible to make one's fortune in an instant, as you say. I know what I shall do," he added, as he sprang to his feet, and faced about, elated with the thought, " I shall try and discover something, as Palissy the potter did, and get a good lot of money by it all in a minute." "Ay, <:?o," gravely responded the tutor, "and you will be a mere schemer your life through, and find yourself most likely a beggar in the end." "Well, but, uncle," expostulated the youth, ".don't you yourself say some people have done such things ?" " Yes, boy, some have, certainly," was the re- ply ; " but in such matters, Ben, success is the one splendid exception ; disappointment, failure, and beggary the bitter and uniform rule. In all the lotteries of life, the chances are a million to one against any particular adventurer drawing a prize. Some one will be the lucky wight assuredly, but then nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand and nine hundred and ninety-nine others will as as- suredly get blanks. It is only fools who trust to accidents or chance ; the wise submit to rule ; and the golden rule of life is that scheming and adventure fail a thousand fold oftener than they succeed, whereas industry and prudence succeed a thousand fold oftener than they fail. The one HOW TO BE RICH. 135 mode of amassing wealth," continued the old man, " may be tempting from its seeming rapidity, but it is far more disheartening in the end, lad, from its real uncertainty ; while the other mode, if al- loyed with the inconvenience of being slow, has at least the crowning comfort of being sure." " I see ! I see what you mean now," ejaculated little Ben, thoughtfully. " Well, then, do you understand now how to be rich, my little man ?" the teacher inquired. *' Oh yes, uncle," cried the youth, delighted to let his tutor see how well he had understood him ; " by living on less than we get." The godfather smiled as he shook his head, as much as to say the lad was at fault somewhere. " That is only one part of the process, Ben," pres- ently he said. "To live on less than we get is merely to hoard, and hoarding is not husbanding. To husband well is at once to economize and fer- tilize ; it is not only to garner, but to sow and to reap also. The good husbandman does not allow his acres to lie forever idle, but he uses and em- ploys all his means with care, and in the manner best suited to produce the greatest yield. To be rich, then, my little man, we must not only work and get, and live on less than we o-et, but — but what, Ben ?" " We must use and employ, as you call it, uncle, what we save," was now the ready reply. " Right, lad," the old man continued ; " we must make our savings work as well as ourselves, in order to make them useful. Nothing, indeed, can be rendered productive without work, and a pound becomes a guinea at the year's end merely because it has been used as the means of giving employment to those who had not a pound of their own to go to work upon." " But, uncle," exclaimed the lad, with eager- 156 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKXIN. ness, as a seeming difficulty suddenly crossed his mind, " how are people to live on less than they get if they don't get enough to live upon ?" " Ah ! Ben, it is that same phantom of ' enough' which is the will-o'-the-wisp of the whole world,'' answered the old man. "The boundary to our wishes is as illusive as the silver ring of the hori- zon to a child at sea: it seems so near and so like the journey's end ; and yet, let the bark speed on its course day after day, and the voyage be as prosperous as it may, there it remains the same bright, dreamy bourn — always apparently as close at hand, and yet always really as distant from the voyager as when he started. There is no such quality as enough, lad, in the world. "We might as well attempt to wall in all space as to limit the illimitable desires of human nature. The capa- cious stomach of man's ambition and avarice is never surfeited. The merchant prince has no more enough than the pauper ; and the man who delays saving because he has not enough to live upon will never have enough to save upon. Let us get never so httle, at least some Httle, even of that little, may be laid by, if we %dll but be frugal, and a store once raised and duly husbanded will soon serve to change the little into more. If we have not sufficient moral control to keej) our de- sires within our means in one station of life, de- pend upon it, lad, such is the expansibility of human wishes, that there will be the same lack of self-restraint in any other.* The really prudent * Benjamin Franklin, the hero of the present book, lived to exemplify how little is required for the satisfaction of man's wants. His diet, when he was working as a journey- man printer in London, consisted merely of 20 lbs. of bread a week, or a little more than half a quartern loaf per diem, with water, as the French say, a discretion ; and this regimen he submitted to, principally, in order to be able to purchase books out of the remainder of his wages. HOW TO BE RICH. 157 are prudent under all circumstances ; and those in adversity, who wait for prosperity to give them the means of laying up a fund for future ease, may wait forever and ever, since prosperity can come only through the very means they are idly wait- ing for. The main object of all saving is redemp- tion from poverty, and the poorer the people, the greater the reason for their pursuing the only course that can possibly bring riches to them, and emancipate them from the misery that is for- ever hanging over them like a doom. It may be hard, Ben, to save under griping necessity, but every penny husbanded serves to relax the grip ; and, hard as it is, we must ever bear in mind that there is no other loophole in the world by which to escape from want to comfort, from slavery to independence." " Ay, uncle, it is as you said, we must save or be a slave," returned the little fellow. " I shall never think of the prairies without remembering the words." The lesson ended, it was high time for the horses to be resaddled, for already the long shad- ows of the solitary clumps of trees had begun to stripe the emerald plains, the black bands con- trasting with the golden green of the sward, burnished as it seemed now with the rays of the setting sun, till the meadows shone with all the belted brilliance of a mackerel's back. And as the couple set out on their journey homeward, the little fellow followed, almost mechanically, in his uncle's track, for he was still busy, as he jog- ged along, revolving the hard truths he had learn- ed for the first time in life, and muttering to him- self by the way, " Save ! save ! or be a slave." 158 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. CHAPTER XIV. AN ALARM. There was a loud knocking at the shop door of the candle-store at the corner of Hanover and Union Streets, in the city of Boston — a knock that sounded the louder from the lateness of the hour and the utter stillness of the streets at the time. The Puritan family were on their knees in the little back parlor, engaged in their devotions pre- vious to retiring to rest for the night; so the summons went unheeded. "We pray Thee, O Lord," continued the fa- ther, as he oftered up the usual extemporaneous prayer, and proceeded to ask a blessing for the last member of his household before concluding the family worship, " to bless our youngest child Benjamin. AVatch over him, O God — " Again the noisy summons interrujDted the sup- plication, but still the prayer went on. *' And so strengthen him with Thy grace that he may grow up to walk in Thy ways for the rest of his life ; and if his body or his soul be in peril at this moment, grant, O grant, Ave beseech Thee, that the danger may be only for the time." "Amen !" fervently exclaimed the mother, rais- ing her head from the cushion of the bee-hive chair before which she was kneeling. Again the knocking was repeated, and this time so vigorously that the mother and Deborah both started back from their chairs, and would have risen from the floor had they not seen that Josiah paid little or no regard to the disturbance. AN ALABM. 159 Nor did the father move a limb (though the noise at last continued without ceasing till he had besought the customary blessing on all his neigh- bors and friends, and even his enemies too. Immediately the ceremony was finished Dame Franklin jumped up and cried, "Who ever can want admission here at such a time of the night ?" Deborah was no sooner on her feet than she ran to her mother's side, and clung close to her skirt as she watched her father move leisurely to- ward the outer shop door. "Be sure and ask who it is before you undo the bolt. Josh !" screamed the wife in her alarm ; but the words were scarcely uttered ere the voice of Uncle Ben was heard shoviting without, "What, are you all gone to bed here, eh ?" On the door being opened, the younger Benja- min flung himself into the arms of his father, and smothered the old man's words with kisses, while the mother and Deborah no sooner caught the sound of the well-known voice than they rushed forward to take part in the greeting. Then came a volley of questionings : " Where on earth have you been to ?" " What have you been doing with yourselves all this time ?" "Why didn't you say you should be so long gone when you started?" "Don't you think it was high time for us to get alarmed about you?" " What have you seen, Ben ?" asked Deborah, on the sly. " How ever did you manage for clean clothes ?" chimed in the mother. " You surely must have run short of money," interrupted the father. But, the greeting over, the boy, who since dusk had been asleep on board the sloop that had brought him and his uncle to Boston, was too tired with the long voyage to enter into the many explanations demanded of him ; and though the 160 YOUNG BENJAMIN PKANKLIN. mother, mother-like, " was sure he was sinking for want of food," young Ben showed such a decided preference for bed to bread and cheese, that Dame Franklin at length hurried the drowsy lad and his sister to their chambers for the night, while she herself staid behind to sj^read the cold corned brisket and cider for her brother-in-law. As the uncle munched the beef, he carried the parents as briefly as possible through the several scenes of his long journey with the boy ; and when he had borne them to the Western prairies, he ran over the heads of the lesson he had imj^ressed upon the youth there. ISTor did he forget, as he brought them back home again, to gladden their hearts by telling them how their son had profited by the teaching ; how he had kept continually re- peating to himself by the ^vay the portentous words, "Save, or be a slave;" how each well- stocked homestead that they passed had served to remind him only of the thrift of the inhabitants ; how he had noted, too, in every factory, the long course of industry and self-denial that had amass- ed the riches to raise it, as well as the enterj^rise that had devoted the wealth to such a purpose ; and how, as some stray beggar that they chanced to meet on the road asked them to " help him to a quarter of a dollar," the little fellow (when he had given him as much as he could spare) would first want to know Avhether he was a born-beggar or not, and then proceed to lecture the vagabond soundly for liking beggary better than work, and preferring to remain the lowest slave of all rather than save. " Bless the boy !" the mother cried ; " I'm glad he gave the poor soul something more than words, though. But I always told you. Josh — you know I did — that you were mistaken in our Ben." AN ALARM. 161 " Have heed, brother, have heed !" was all the father said in reply. " Beware lest you beget in the lad a lust for 'treasures that moth and rust doth corrupt.' " " Never fear, Josiah ; I have not done with my little godson yet. I know well what I took upon myself when I became sponsor for the sins of the child, and do you wait till my worldly lessons are ended," the uncle made answer. " N^ot done with the boy yet, Benjamin !" ex- claimed the father. " Why, how much longer will you keep him away from earning a crust for him- self ? It's high time he should be out in the world, for a lad learns more by a day's practice than a whole month's precepts." " Ay, send him to sea on a mere raft of loose principles, c?o," cried Uncle Ben, " do — child as he is — without any moral compass to show him the cardinal points of the world, or hardly any knowledge of the heavens either, by which to shape his course : that's the way to insure an easy and prosperous voyage for the youngster, certain- ly — that's the way to start a boy in life;" and the uncle laughed ironically at the notion. " But what else do you want to teach the lad, Benjamin ?" asked the mother, anxious to prevent a discussion at that hour of the night. " What else^ Abiah ?" echoed the brother-in- law. " Why, I want to make a man of him ; as yet I've taught him to be little better than an ant. But do you leave him to me only for another week, and a fine right-minded little gentleman he shall be, I promise you. Now look here, both of you : I taught the boy first that he must either work, beg, or starve." " Good !" nodded Dame Franklin. *' Then I taught him how to make his work light and pleasant." L 162 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. " Good !" repeated the dame. " And after that, I taught him how to make the produce of his work the means of future ease and comfort to him." "Very good!" Dame Franklin ejaculated. " I've shown him, in fact," added Uncle Benja- min, "not only how he must slave in order to live, but how, by putting his heart into his labor, he may lighten the slavery ; and also how, by con- tinual saving, he may one day put an end to all farther slaving for the rest of his life." " Yes, brother," added the stern old Puritan tallow-chandler, "you've taught the boy how to become a rich man," and he laid a scornful em- phasis upon the epithet. " Ay, Josiah, I have," meekly replied the other ; " and now I want to teach him how to become a good one. I have the same scorn for mere riches and money-grubbing as yourself, brother — a scorn that is surpassed only by my abomination of will- ful beggary and voluntary serfdom. Is there not a medium. Josh, between the overweening love of wealth and the reckless disregard of it — a mid- dle course between a despotic delight in that worldly power which comes of riches, and the servile abandonment of ourselves to that wretch- ed bondage which is necessarily connected with poverty ? Surely a man is a dog who loves to be fed continually by others ; and there is, to my mind, no higher worldliness that a young man can learn than to have faith in his own powers; to know that the world's prizes of ease and com- petence are open to him, if he will but toil dili- gently and "lieartily, and husband carefully and discreetly. To. teach a lad to be self-reliant is to teach him to have a soul above beggary ; it is to make an independent gentleman of him, even while he is laborino: for his livino;." AN ALARM. 163 " But have a care, brother, I say again, have a care of worldly pride and worldly lust," inter- posed the j^rimitive old father, gravely. " I would rather have my son the meek and uncomplaining pauper in his old age, than an overbearing purse- proud fool ; the one tired of life and sighing for the sweet rest of heaven, and the other so wed- ded to the world, and all its pomps and vanities, that he wants no other heaven than the gross lux- uries of the earth." " I detest mere worldlyism. Josh, as much as you do," returned his brother Benjamin. "But because it is base and wicked to be utterly world- ly, it by no means follows that it is noble and good to be utterly ^^?^worldly. To despise the world about us because there is another and a better world to come, is as wrong as not to value life because we hope to live hereafter. And as it is our duty to promote our health by conforming our habits to the laws of bodily welfare, so is it our duty to conform our pursuits to the laws of worldly happiness — laws which are as much part of God's ordination as the conditions of health, or the succession of the seasons themselves. The laws of worldly life are written on the tablets of the world, and the handwriting is unmistakably the Creator's own. There was no need of any special revelation to make them known to us. If we vnll but open our eyes, we may read them in letters of light ; and surely they are as much for the guidance of our worldly lives as the Biblical commandments are for the regulation of our spir- itual ones." " There is no gainsaying your brother's words, Josh," urged the dame, for she was too anxious to get to bed to say a syllable that was likely to prolong the argument ; and then, by way of a gen- tle hint as to the hour, the housewife proceeded 164 YOUNG BENJAMIN FBANKLIN. to place the tin candlesticks on the table before the two brothers. " Well, Ben, the days of monkish folly are past," responded Josiah as he rose from his seat, " and people no longer believe that true philosophy puts up with a tub for a home. There may be as much worldly j^ride, too, in the austerity of a hermit's life as in the pomp of Solomon ' arrayed in all his glory.' Nevertheless, the heart of man is fond enough of the world's gewgaws, without needing any schooling in the matter." " Can that be truly said, Josiah, so long as three fourths of the world remain steeped to the very lips in poverty?" Uncle Ben calmly inquired. "All men may covet wealth, brother, but that few know the way to w4n even a competence is prov- en by the misery of the great mass of the people. I want to see comfort reign throughout the world instead of squalor ; competence rather than want ; self-reliance rather than beggary ; independence rather than serfdom. I wish to teach a man to get money rather than want it or beg for it ; to get money with honor and dignity ; to husband it with honor and dignity ; and, what is more, to spend it with honor and dignity too. And, please God, that is the high lesson your boy shall learn before I have done with him." " Be it so, then, brother, be it so ; and may he prove the fine, honorable, and righteous man w^e both desire to see him," cried the father. " Amen !" added the mother ; and then, w^ith a "God bless you," the brothers parted for the night. rOUNG BEN GIVES UIS SISTER AN ACCOUNT OF HIS TRAVELS. THE GREAT RAREE-SHOAV. 1G7 CHAPTER XV. THE GREAT RAEEE-SHOW. Young Ben, on the morrow, was a different lad from the tired, drowsy, and taciturn Httle traveler of the previous night; for no sooner was sister Deborah below stairs arranging for the morning meal, than he was by her side, following her, now to the wood-house, then to the pantry, and afterward to the parlor, with a shoe on one of his hands and a brush in the other, busily en- gaged in the double office of disburdening his mind of the heavy load of wonders he had seen on his travels, and getting rid at the same time of a little of the mud he had brought back with him from the country. Then, as the girl began to set the basins and the platters on the table, he fell to dodging her about the room as she rambled round and round, and chattering to her the while of the curious old French town of St. Louis, but still polishing away as he chattered. And though Deborah insisted that he must not clean his shoes over the break- fast-table, on he went, scrubbing incessantly, with his head on one side, and talking to the girl by jerks, first of that darling Jacky, the pony they had borrowed of the French farmer, and next of the " ark" in which they had descended the great Ohio River. When, too, the boy rehired with the little maid to assist her in opening' the store, there he would stand in the street, witji one of the shutters in his hand resting on the stones, as he described to her 168 YOTJNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. the herd of buffaloes, and flocks of wild turkeys, and the deer and pelicans that he had seen in the prairies. Nor would he even cease his prattling during the boiling of the milk ; for while Debo- rah stood craning over the simmering saucepan, the eager lad was close against her shoulder, jab- bering away, now of the lusciousness of the cus- tard apples, then of the delicacy of the prairie plums and grapes, and "only wishmg" she had been with uncle and himself at their gij^sy-dinner off venison-hams and wild fruit in the great hunt- ing plains. During breakfast, however, both the manner and the matter of the boy's discourse were changed ; for no sooner did the father and moth- er make their appearance, than the little fellow grew graver in tone, and talked only of such things as he fjincied his parents would be glad to liear from him. In his desire, however, to let his father see the new man he had become, and what fine principles he had acquired by his journey, the boy, boy-like, went into such raptures upon the art of money-making, and the use of capital in the world, that the simple-minded old Puritan kept shaking his head mournfully at his brother Ben as he listened to the hard, worldly jDhilosophy — for it sounded even ten-fold harder and harsher from the lips of the mere child expounding it. So, when the exigencies of the shop summoned the candle-maker from the table, Josiah could not refrain from whispering in the ear of the elder Benjamin, as he passed behind his chair, " You have a deal to do and to undo yet, brother Ben, before you make a fine man of the lad." But once alone with his mother, the little fellow was again a different boy ; for then, as he jumped into her lap, and hugged the dame (much to the THE GREAT EAREE-SHOW. 169 discomfiture of her clean mob-cap and tidy mus- lin kerchief), he told how he had made up his mind to become a rich man, and how happy he meant to make them all by-and-by ; how she was to have a " help" to do all the work of the house for her; how he meant to buy Deborah a pony (just like dear old Jacky) with the first money he got ; and how Uncle Benjamin Avas to live with them always at the nice house they were to have in the country, with a prime large orchard to it ; and how, too, he was to purchase a ship for Cap- tain Holmes (it wouldn't cost such a great deal of money, he was sure), so that the captain might have a vessel of his own, and take them with him sometimes to any part of the world they wanted to see. All of which it dearly delighted the mother's heart to hear, not because she had the least faith in the fond plans of the boy ever being realized, but because his mere wish to see them all happy made her love him the more. At last it was Uncle Benjamin's turn for a tete- d-tete with the little man (for the household duties soon called the dame away from the parlor) ; whereupon the godfather proceeded to impress upon his pupil the necessity of conti-ming their lessons with as little delay as possible, telling him that his father had given them only another week's grace, and adding that there was much still for the little fellow to learn in the time. " What ! more to be learned, uncle ?" cried the astounded youth, who was under the impression that he was well enough crammed with worldly wisdom to be started in life at once. "Surely there can be nothing else for a fellow to know. Why, you've taught me how to get on in the world, and how to end as a rich man too, and what more a chap can want I'm sure I can't 170 TpUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. " Of course you can't, little Mr. Clear-sighted," replied the uncle, as he seized his godson by the shoulders, and shook him playfully as he spoke. "I've taught you how to get money, lad, but that's only the first half of life's lesson ; the main portion of the problem is how to spend it." " Well, that is good !" laughed out young Ben- jamin, tickled with the apparent ludicrousness of any lessons being needed for such a purpose. " Why, every boy in the world knows how to do that^ without any teaching at all." "It comes to him as naturally as a game at leap-frog, I suppose," quietly interjected the god- father, with a smile. " Of course it does," the youngster rejoined. "Now you just give me half a dollar, uncle," he added, grinning at the impudence of his own argument, "and I'll soon let you see that jTknow how to spend it." " Soh ! you'd spend it directly you got it, would you ; eh, you young rogue ? Is that all the good that is to come of our long journey to the prai- ries?" ejaculated the godfather, as he cujSfed the lad, first on one side of his head and then on the other, as sportively and gently as a kitten does a ball. " Oh no;— no, to be sure, uncle," stammered out the abashed youngster ; " that is, I meant to say, I — I should put it by and save it, of course." " What, hoard it, eh ?" dryly observed the oth- er, as he eyed the lad over the top of his specta- cles, that were almost as big as watch-glasses. " No, no. I didn't mean that, either. You're so sharp at taking a chap up. I meant to say" (and the boy, to set himself right, shook himself almost as violently as a Newfoundland dog just out of the water), " I — I should put the money in the savings-bank, and let it grow and grow there THE GEEAT RAREE-SHOW. ITl fit interest, just as you said the corn does, you know, uncle." " Well, what then, lad ?" asked the old man. " Why then I should keep on putting more to it as fast as I got it, and let it all go on increasing together," was the ready answer. " Well, and what then ?" inquired Uncle Ben. "Why, when I'd saved up enough, I should use it as capital to start me in some business, and so make it the means of getting me more money," responded the youth, who was now able to recall the previous lesson. " Well, and what then ?" the old man demand- ed once more. " Why then — then — oh, then I should get more money still, to be sure. But what makes you keep on saying ' Well, and what then ?' in such a tantalizing way as you do, uncle ?" added the pupil, growing impatient under the continued questioning. " Yes ; and when your capital had yielded you ' more money still,' as you say, what then, lad ?" persisted the catechist. " Why then I should give u]^ business altogeth- er — and — and enjoy myself Yes, that's what I should do, I can tell you," was the candid reply. "Ay, boy, enjoy yourself!" echoed the elder Benjamin, with a sarcastic toss of the head; "ew- joy yourself! that is to say, you'd proceed to spend the Avealth that it had cost you the labor of a life to accumulate. Or maybe you'd spend only the interest of your money, though that is almost the same thing ; for the interest, duly hus- banded, would make your stock in hand grow even greater still." " Well, there's no harm in a fellow enjoying himself after he's done his work, is there ?" the bewildered youth demanded, in a half surly tone. 1T2 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. " True, Ben, there is no harm in enjoyment that brings no harm with it either to ourselves or oth- ers," responded the mentor. " But you see, my little man," he went on, " the end of the argu- ment is the same as the beginning ; the last ques- tion is but a repetition of the first : ' When you've got your money, what will you do with it?' Spend it, you say ; and spend it you, or some one else, assuredly will in the long run. Such is but the natural result of all money-getting. We be- gin with saving, and finish at the very point which we avoid at starting, only that we may have more money ultimately to spend. Still, therefore, the query is, IToio will you spend your money when you've got it? In what manner will you enjoy yourself, as you call it?" The boy stared in his uncle's face as much as to say what ever is he driving at. However, the old man paid no heed to the won- derment of the lad, but proceeded as follows: " The means of enjoyment, my son, are infinite in the world ; some of these are purchasable, and others not to be had for money. Creature com- forts and articles of luxury, for instance, may be bought, but these are among the lowest and most transient of human j^leasures ; whereas love, the purest and most lasting of all earthly happiness, is beyond all price. We can no more bargain for that than we can for the sunshine which is sent down from heaven to gladden alike the poorest and the richest of mankind. Nevertheless, none but an ascetic will deny that money is one of the great means of pleasure in this life ; and if the end of money-getting be to obtain an extra amount of enjoyment in the world, surely we can not mar- ket well, and get a good pennyworth for our pen- ny, unless we know something about the diiferent qualities of the article we are going to purchase. THE GKEAT BAREE-SHOW. 1T3 If we can not distinguish between what is really good and what is comparatively worthless, how shall we prevent being cheated ? And if we do get cheated of our prize in the end, after all our toil and trouble, all our stinting and saving, why, then the labor of a whole life is wasted." " But, uncle," young Beujamin interjected, " surely every body knows what is pleasure to them without any teaching at all." " They do, Ben — instinctively ; but what they do not know is what they have never given per- haps a moment's thought to, namely, the ditfer- ent forms of pleasure of which their natures are susceptible. In their greed to have their fill of the first gratification that has tickled them, they have never paused to weigh one form of enjoy- ment with another — never staid to learn which yields the purest delight for the least cost, or which has the smallest amount of evil, or the greatest amount of good connected with it. What is pleasant to one person is often foolish, or even hateful to another ; and it is so simply because the sources ol happiness appear difierent, not only to difierent minds, but even to the same mind at dif- ferent periods of life. What the child likes the graybeard despises ; what the fool prizes the sage scorns. You will understand by-and-by, my boy, that the art of spending money wisely is even more difficult than the art of getting it honorably." "I think I can see a little bit of ^ what you mean, uncle," added the youngster ; and then, aft- er a slight pause, he asked^ " But how are you going to impress the lesson, as you call it, upon me this time — eh, unky ?" he inquired, in a coax- ing tone, for he was satisfied his godfather had some new sight in store for him by way of en- forcing the precept. " I am going to show you this time, Ben, a cu- lU YOUKG BENJAMIN FBANKXIN. rioiis collection of animals. I.purpose taking you through our great Museum of Natural History," said the old man. " Oh, thank you, dear unky, thank you !" ex- claimed the delighted pupil, as he rose and curl- ed his arm about his uncle's neck. " Are we to set off to-day ? I'm so fond of seeing animals, you don't know. Shall we see any monkeys, unky, eh ?" "Ay, scores, boy, scores ! bears and sloths too; wild asses and laughing hyenas ; mocking-birds and gulls; butcher-birds and scavenger-birds as well," Uncle Benjamin made answer, with a sly smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. The boy chafed his hands together in anticipa- tion of the treat as he cried, "Oh, ivo^i^t it be jolly —that's all !" " But, Ben, the animals I shall show you are not preserved in glass cases," the old man added. "Ah! that's right. I can't bear those stupid stuffed things. I like them to be all alive and roaring, I do," was the simple rejoinder. " Nor are they confined in cages, with learned names, descriptive of the order and family they belong to, stuck up over their dens. No natural- ist as yet has classified them ; none given us a catalogue of their habits, or of the localities they infest;" and, as the godfather concluded the speech, the boy looked at him so steadfastly in the face that the old man Avas unable to keep from laughing any longer. " Come, come, now," cried the lad, " you're hav- ing a bit of fun with me, sir, that you are. I shouldn't wonder but that they are no animals after all." " Animals they assuredly are, Ben," responded the uncle, " but tame ones, and to be seen almost every day in that strangest of all menageries, hu- man society." PLEASURE-HUNTING. 176 " Oh ! then they're nothing but men, I sup- pose. What a shame of you now, unky, to make game of a chap in such a way !" was all that the disappointed lad could murmur out, as he drew his arm, half in dudgeon, from round the old man's neck. " Well, lad," the other remonstrated, " the men I wish to show you are as much natural curiosi- ties in their way as any animals ever seen at a fair; and as you can find delight in gazing at a monkey cage, and watching the tricks and antics of creatures that bear an ugly resemblance to yourself, so, among the strange human animals that I shall take you to see, you may observe the counterpart of your own character portrayed as in a distorting glass, and behold in the freaks and follies of each the very mimicry of your own na- ture, witli your own destiny, if you will, apad be- fore your eyes." CHAPTER XVI. PLEASURE-HUNTING. The couple were not long starting on their cu- rious errand. Little Ben was perhaps even more bewildered than he had ever been. What could his uncle want to show him a lot of queer, strange men for? and what could they possibly have to do with teacliing him how to spend his money ? Still there was some novelty to be seen, and the sight involved an excursion somewhere; so there was stimulus enough to make the boy any thing but an unwilling party to the expedition. The uncle, on the other hand, was busy, with very different thoughts as the two trotted through 1T6 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. the streets of the town. He had so much to show the little man, and in so short a time too, that he was at a loss how to shape the heterogeneous mass of curiosities into any thing like method. Ilrst the old gentleman would turn down one street, then stop suddenly in the middle of it, and after gnawing at his thumb-nail, with his head on one side like a cat at a fish-bone, dart off quite as suddenly in a diametrically opposite direction. Next he thought it would be better to begin this way ; " and yet no !" he would say to himself, as he halted a second time, and stared for a minute or two intently at the paving-stones — " that way we shall have to go over the same ground twice;" so he decided he would take the lad first to see that old — and yet, " stay again !" said he ; " we ought by rights to see that one last of all." And accordingly the route was altered once more, and little Ben had to wheel round after his uncle for the fourth or fifth time, and make straight away for some other quarter of the city. Then, as the old man kept hurrjang along, suck- ing the handle of his cane in his abstraction, and indulging in a rapid succession of steps as short and quick as a waiter's, he was continually talk- ing to himself, muttering either, " Let me see ! let me see ! where does that queer old fellow live now?" or saying to himself, "Didn't somebody or other tell me that Adam Tonks had left the cellar he used to rent in Back Street ?" or else he was mentally inquiring in what quarter of the town it was he had met with some other odd character some time back. At length, however. Uncle Benjamin had made up his mind to introduce the boy to the curiosi- ties of his acquaintance just as they fell in their way, and trust to circumstances, as they went the rounds of the town, either to recall or present to PLEASURE-HUNTING. 177 them such peculiarities as he wished to bring un- der the observation of his Httle pupil. " Now remember, Ben," he said, in a half whis- per, as he stood on the door-step of the first house he was about to visit, with the latch in his hand, " remember, I am not going to show you any hu- man monstrosities, nor any of the more extrava- gant freaks of nature among mankind, but merely to let you see some of the broadly-marked differ- ences of character in men ; to show you, indeed, in how many diverse ways human beings can spend their money — or, what is the same thing, their time ; to point out to you what different notions of pleasure there are among the tribe of so-called rational creatures, and how, though all the big babies in the world are running after the same butterfly, they pursue it like a kno^t of school- boys, dodging it in a hundred different ways, and each believing, as he clutches at the bright-colored little bit of life, that he has got it safe within his grasp." Rational Animal No. 1.* " Give me joy. Master Franklin !" cried a little bald-headed man, who was busy at a table, as the couple entered the room, unpacking the contents of Avhat seemed to be an enormous green sand- wich-box, filled with grass and Aveeds. Indeed, so busy was the host with the green stuff spread before him, that he no sooner withdrew his palm from the grasp of the uncle than he set to work again examining minutely the little wild flower he held in the other hand. " Give me joy, I say ! I have discovered the only specimen of the poten- tilla^ or common silver-weed, that has yet been found in the New World. There it is, sir ;" and the old man held it tenderly between his finger * See Frontispiece. M 178 YOUXG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. and thumb, as he eyed it with increased pride ; "and a I — I — lovely specimen it is, I can assure 5^ou. Now you wouldn't believe it, perhaps, but I wouldn't take a thousand guineas for that^ mere weed as it is. Only think of that, my little chap — a thousand guineas ;" and he laid his hand upon young Benjamin's head as he spoke. "A good deal of money that, isn't it, my little man ? But I've been hunting after that same weed for years — many years, my dear boy — and traveled, I dare say, thousands of miles in search of it. I knew it must exist in North America somewhere, and I w^as determined to go down to posterity as the discoverer of it," and the little ferrety man beat the air with his fist as he said the words. " So you see what patience and perseverance will do, my good l^d. " What are you going to be, eh ?" he inquired. " Ha ! they should make a botanist of a fine little fellow like you, with a head like yours. No pur- suit like that in the world — the greatest pleasure in life — hunting after the wild flowers and plants ; always out in the open air, either up on the hills or down in the valleys, or wandering by the brook-side, or along the beautiful lanes, or else buried in the woods. You'd have to go fine long walks into the country then, my little man ; but you like walking, I suppose. Bless you, I'm out for weeks at a time, and think myself Avell repaid for all my trouble if I can only bring home a rare specimen or two. Look here, little what's-your- name," he went on, talking so fast to the boy that the Avords came tumbling one over the other out of his mouth ; " here is a little bit of my handi- work." And the botanist slid from the top of an old bureau near him a large folio volume, con- sisting of sheets of cartridge paper bound togeth- er, and then spreading it open at one side of the PLEASURE-HUNTING. 179 table, he showed the lad that there was a dried and flattened plant stuck upon every page. *' There .^" he cried, exultingly, with such an em- phasis upon the word that it sounded like a deep sigh, " look at that^ my man ! but it hasn't a twentieth part of the plants I've collected in my time ; though where's the wonder ? I've been at it all my life — ever since I was a boy of your age, and walked thousanc^-s and thousands of miles, ay, and spent hundreds upon hundreds of guineas to complete my collection. There, my fine fel- low, that's the Campanula sylvestris^'' he con- tinued, chattering as he turned over the pages be- fore the boy; "that's the Crambe marithna^ or common sea colewort, and a very fine specimen too." And so he kept gabbling on until Uncle Benjamin thanked the old gentleman for his kind- ness to the lad, and said they would not intrude on his time any longer. Rational Animal I^o. 2. " What, Adam ! in the old state, eh ?" cried Uncle Benjamin, as he and his nephew descended the steps of a dark cellar in one of the back streets of Boston, and found a man there asleep as he sat, with his unkempt head resting on his elbow, at the edge of a small deal table, and with a piece of salt fisii lying untouched on a broken plate by his side. The uncle had to shake the sleeper violently to rouse him, whereupon the man stared, with his bloodshot eyes, vacantly at his visitor for a time, and then, with a scowl, flung his head back upon his arm as he growled out, "Well, and if I am in the same state, what's that to you ? You don't pay for the jacky, do you? Besides, you like what I hate — psalm-singing ; and I like what you hate — a drop of good stuflf— like they sell at 'The 180 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. Pear-tree' round the corner. I>wn vivimus viva- mus is my motto, and you don't know what that means, Master Franklin, for a pot now. Come, I say, mate, are you game to stand a quartern for a fellow this morning — yuck ?" and, as the man said the words, he raised his head again ; and then little Benjamin (for the boy's eyes had got used to the dusk of the place by this time) could see that the drunkard's cl6thes hung in tatters all about him, while his dark, unshaven beard con- trasted with his blanched face as strongly as the black muzzle of a bull-dog. " I ask your pardon. Master Franklin, for mak- ing so free," the sot added, in a wheedling tone ; " but, you see, I had a little drop too much last night," the man went on, " and I sha'n't be quite right till I get just a thimbleful or so of the neat article inside of me." " I'd as lief pay for a quartern of poison for you, Adam," said Uncle Benjamin, mournfully. " You Avould, would you ?" roared the other, springing up like a wild beast from his lair, and clutching the broken back of the chair on which he had been sitting ; and he was preparing to strike his visitor down with it, but he staggered back lumpishly against the wall. The boy flew to his uncle's side, and whispered, " Oh, come away, pray do, uncle ! I have seen enough here !" The uncle, however, swept past the youth, and going toward the dram-drinker, said kindly, " Adam ! Adam ! think of the man you once were." The drunkard's head dropped upon his bosom, and the next minute he fell to whining and weep- ing like a child. Presently he hiccoughed out through his sobs, " I do think of it — yuck ! — and then I want drink to drown the cursed thoughts. PLEASUEE-HUNTING. 181 Come, now, old friend," and he vainly tried to lay his hand on Uncle Benjamin's shoulder, "send the youngster there for just a noggin — only one, now — from ' The Pear-tree,' and then I shall be all right again." The friend shook his head as he replied, " You won't, Adam ; you'll be all wrong again — as wrong as ever, man. Isn't it this drink that has beggared you, and despoiled you of your fortune, and of every friend too — but myself? and yet you are so mad for it still that you crave for more." "I do — I do thirst for it; my tongue's like a bit of red-hot iron in my mouth now with the parching heat that's on me. I tell you it's the only thing that can put an end to care, and (sing- ing) drown it in the bo-wo-wole. " Chorus — We'll drown it — yuck ! — in the bo- wo-wole. Ha ! you should have seen Adam lasht night. Blessh you, I was as jolly as a shand-boy — the d'light of the whole tap-room. I tipped 'em some of my best songs — vain songs as you call 'em — and you know I always could sing a good song if I liked. Master Franklin. Come, I'll give you a stave now if you'll only send — yuck ! — for that little drop of jacky. The young- ster here, I dare say, would like to hear me — wouldn't you, my dear .^" (but as there was no answer, he added), "What! you won't send for the gin ? Well, then, leave it alone, you stingy old psalm-singing humbug ; I wouldn't be behold- en to you for it now if you were to press it on me. But never mind ! never mind ! never mind ! May — may — what the deuce is that shentiment ?" (and he rubbed his hair round and round till it was like a mop) : " tut ! tut ! and it's such a fa- vorite shentiment of mine, too, after a song. Well, all I know is, it's something about, may something or other — yuck! — never shorten friend- 182 YOUXG BEXJAMIX FEAXKLIN. ship. But never mind ! never mind ! Lawyer Muspratt is going to sell that little reversion I'm entitled to on my maiden aunt's death ; it's the only thing I've got left now — but never mind ! never mind ! — and then won't Adam Tonks and the boys at ' The Pear-tree' have a night of it ! Yes, ' dimi vivhims mvamus' is my motto — yuck ! —if I die for it." The man was silent for a minute or two, and then he said, as if waking up from a dream, " I wonder who ever it was saw me down the cellar steps last night. But never mind ! never mind ! who's afraid ? — not Adam Tonks, not he. Come, friend Franklin — for you have been a right good friend to me often, that you have, old cock — if you won't send for that drop of jacky out of your own pocket, will you lend me half a dollar to get it myself — yuck? I'll give it you back again when the reversion's shold. Oh, honor bright ! — yuck ! — honor bright, friend !" " If it was for food, Adam, you should have it and welcome," was the plain answer. "Food be cursed!" shouted the madman, again roused to a fury; "there's that bit of stinking salt -fish I've had for the last week as a relish, just to pick a bit ; there, you can carry it home with you — you can, you Methodistical old hunks ; take it with you ;" and, with a violent effort, the man flung the piece of dried haddock toward Uncle Benjamin; but so wide of the mark, and with such a sweep of the arm, that it struck the wall against which the drunkard himself kept swaying. Whereupon the godfather, in obedience to the boy's repeated entreaty, took his departure. Rational Animal Xo. 3. The couple were soon in one of the most fash- ionable streets of the town ; and in another min- PLEASURE-HUNTING. 183 ute little Ben stood in the middle of a grand sa- loon, Avheeling round and round as he gazed with uplifted eyes, first at the huge mirrors reaching from the ceiling to the floor, then at the pictures that covered the other parts of the walls, and then taken with the marble busts and figures that were ranged in different corners of the room. " The chairs are all gold and satin, I declare ; and the tables and cabinets of different-colored woods, worked into the most beautiful patterns; and. the chandeliers, too, just like clusters of jewels," thought the astonished lad to himself. " Who are we going to see here, uncle ?" he said, in a whisper to the old man, as he twitched his uncle timidly by the skirt. Presently the door of an anteroom was flung open, and a voice drawled out, " Kem iu, Frank- lin, kem in ; I don't mind you. I've only got my knight of the goose and kebbage here, and you would hardly believe the trouble I have with these varlets : half my time is taken up with them, I give you my Avad, Franklin, and that merely to prevent them turning me out aw — aw — perfect skeyarecrow. A man of your fine kimmon sense knows as well as any body, Franklin, that appear- ance is every thing to a man who — aw — aw, the wald is keyind enough to regeyard as aw — aw — an arbiter elegeyantiarum, I believe I may say, Franklin, eh ? for, thank the powers, the coarsest- minded, inimy I have in the wald couldn't say that Tam Skeffington isn't, and always has been, the best-dressed man in all Boston. I know well enough, Franklin, that with persons of your per- suasion (by-the-by, can I offer you a kip of choc- olate, or a gless of Tokay ? oh, don't say No), with persons of your persuasion dress is utterly ignored — ut-ttarly. But, deah me ! with a man in my station — looked up to, as I said befar, as 184 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. being something like aw — aw — an arbiter ele- geyautiarum in matters of the tilette — only think, now, the kimmotion there'd be among the siipe- riah clesses of this city if Tam Skeffington was to make his appearance in the streets — you'll pardon me, Friend Franklin, I know you will — in a coat like your own, for exemple !" and the arbiter ele- gantiarum was so tickled with the mere straw of the joke that he dabbed the patches on his face with a handkerchief that was like a handful of foam, as he tittered behind it as softly as summer waves ripple over the sands. Presently he gasped out, between the intervals of his simpering, " By-the-by, now, Franklin, do permit me, there's a good fellah, just to behold myself fcfr one minute in that duffle dressing-gown you've kem out in to-day, and to see how you'd look in this new plum-colored piece of magnifi- cence of mine. I'm sure you'll obleege me, Frank- lin, for I give you my wad the double sight would throw me into an ecstasy of reptchah." The motive of Uncle Benjamin for bringing his godson to the house was too strong to make him object to an exchange of costume that, under any other circumstances, he would assuredly have re- fused ; so, to the intense delight of the fine gentle- man, and even the attendant tailor, the old Puri- tan proceeded to disrobe himself of his own coat of humble gray, and to incase his body in the gaudy velvet apparel of the beau. And when the temporary exchange of gar- ments had been duly effected, and the elegant Mr. Tam Skeffington beheld himself in the cheval glass attired in the quaint garb of the Puritan, and old Benjamin Franklin tricked out in the florid cos- tume of the exquisite, the sight was more than the delicate nerves of the dandy could bear ; for he had to retire to the sofa, and bury his head for PLEASURE-HUNTING. 186 a while in the squab, or he assuredly would have laughed outright. The tailor, however, who believed he had nev- er seen any thing half so comic in the Avhole of his life, chuckled as loud and heartily as a child at a pantomime ; nor could he stop himself till his more refined customer had demanded "how he dairh'd to laff in his presence ;" and even then, poor man ! each time he happened to turn round and get another peep at the Puritan in the plum- colored suit, the laughter would burst out at the corners of his mouth with the same noise as the froth gushing from beneath the cork of an over- excited bottle of ginger-beer. Neither could little Benjamin himself refrain from joining in the mirth at first, though in a lit- tle while the smiles of the lad subsided into frowns, as the sense that his uncle was " being made fun of" came across his mind. In a few minutes the arbiter elegantiarum was sufficiently himself to rise from the sofa. " I give my wad, Franklin," he said, as he twisted the old gentleman round by the shoulders, "you'd punish a few of the geyirls at a dannse at the State House in a coat like that — you would, even at your time of life, I give you my wad (Do you snuff, Frank- lin ? — it's the finest Irish bleggeyard, I assure you) ; and I mean to play the same havoc with the poor things, I can tell you," he went on, as the tailor helped them one after the other to ex- change coats once more ; " for if they can with- stand Tam Skeffington in that plum-colored piece of magnificence, why then they've hearts as im- penetrable as sand -bags; and heaven knows I don't find that the case with the deah creachyos generally ; for I'm sure they're good and keyind to me. Master Franklin, they are indeed, I give you my wad; though they know, I believe, my 186 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. greatest pleasure is to afford them one moment's happiness, and there isn't a lovely woman in the Wald that Tarn Skeffington is not ready to lay down his life for — his life, Franklin. I'm snre only last year it cost me a fortune in trinkets, and essences, and bouquets for the sweet creachyos. But then, you know, Franklin, a man in yny posi- tion — a man who is allowed to be — by both sexes, I believe I may say — a j^erson of some little taste, and, thank the powers, of some little refinement too — a man like myself, I say, key ant spend his money on terrumpery ; that, you see, is the pen- alty one has to pay for being an aw — aw — arbiter elegeyantiarura^ as I said befar. And yet, after all, surely such a title is the proudest that can be bestowed upon a gentleman; surely it's some- thing to have lived for, Franklin, eh ? to have gained that much — to be the admired of all ad- mirers, as Hamlet has it; for who would not rather be the jiotentate of fashion and haut ton — the supreme authority in all matters of good taste and elegance — the dictatah of superiah mannahs and etiquette — than even be like this same famous Petah the Great that every body is talking about now — the monarch of a million savages ? But perhaps your little boy here," he added, with the faintest indication of a bow to young Benjamin, " would like to see the pictyahs, and statues, and objects of vertu^ and knick-knacks in the next room." And then, as the arbiter elegantiarum opened the door for them, he continued, " You'll find, I believe, some rather ch'ice works of art among them — at least the wald tells me so^and heaven knows I've nearly ruined myself in forming the kellection." Then, still holding the door for the couple to pass through, he bowed profoundly as they made PLEASURE-HUNTING. 18T their exit, the dandy saying the while, " Your obeejent humble servant. Master Franklin, your humble servant to kemmand." Rational Animal No. 4. " Who's there ? who's there, I say ?" shouted an old man. " Who-o-o's there ? who-o-o's there, I say ?" was screamed out, in the shrill treble of senility and fright, from behind the garret door at which Un- cle Benjamin and his little companion were pres- ently knocking. " Come, Jerry ! Jerry ! we're no robbers, man alive; it's Benjamin Franklin, of the Hanover Street Conventicle, come to see yon," shouted the uncle through the chink of the door, as he rattled impatiently at the latch. There was a sound of jingling metal and a hur- ried shuffling within the room, accompanied with a cry of " I'll open the door directly. Friend Frank- lin — I'll open it directly," said the speaker, with a sniggle of affected delight. " The old fellow's scrambling together his mon- ey to hide it before we go in," whispered the god- father in the ear of the lad. In a minute or two they could hear the gaffer gasping away as he endeavored to remove the heavy bar from behind the door, and saying the while, in the same forced giggling tone as before, " Dear heart ! dear heart ! I quite forgot the door was barred, to be sure." Once within the room, little Ben found the mi- ser's garret even more squalid and poverty-strick- en than the drunkard's cellar. The broken win- dow-panes were stuffed with bundles of dirty rags, and the principal light that entered the lit- tle dog-hole of a home dribbled in through the cold blue gaps in the roof. The plaster had fallen 188 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. in large patches from the walls, and left huge ul- cerous-looking blotches there, while the flooring in places was green and brown as rusty copper from the soddening of long-continued leakage through the tiles. In one corner of the apartment there was a hil- lock of mouldy crusts, spotted Avith white hairy tufts of mildew ; in another, a litter of half-putrid bones, mingled with pieces of old ochre-stained iron and nails ; and along one side of the room was ranged the mere skeleton of a bedstead, cov- ered witli a sack stufled with straw by way of mattress, and one solitary blanket that was as thin, and almost as black as coffin-cloth. The only chair was like an old bass fisli-basket in its rushy raggedness, and a huge sea-chest stood in the mid- dle of tlie room to do duty for a table, while the whole place reeked with the same damp, musty, fungusy odor as a ruin. The old miser himself was as spare and trem- ulous as a mendicant Lascar, and he had the same wretched, craven, crouching, grinning, nipped-up air with him too. His black and restless little eyes, with their shaggy, overhanging brows, gave him the sharp, irritable expression of a terrier, and there was a continual nervousness in his man- ner, like one haunted by a spectre. He wore a long duffle coat that had once been gray, but was now almost as motley as a patchwork counter- pane, from the many-colored pieces with which it had been mended ; and on either cuff of this there was stuck row after row of pins, that he picked up in his rounds, as close as the wires to a sieve. As the uncle and nephew entered the apart- ment, the miser retreated hurriedly from the door- way; and then, scrambling toward the bedstead, seated himself on the edge of it, with his arms PLEASUBE-HUNTING. 189 Stretched out, so as to prevent either of his visit- ors corning there. " Well, you see, Master Jerry, I've brought a fagot of firewood with me this time," said the elder Benjamin, as he telegraphed to his nephew to deposit the bundle of sticks he had been carry- ing down by the fireplace. " I'm not going to sit shivering again in your draughty room, wdth the roof and the windows all leaking rheumatisms, catarrhs, and agues, as they do, without a handful of fire in the grate, I can tell you." And, so say- ing, he proceeded at once to turn up the collar of his coat, and to pantomime to his ne2:)hew to undo the fagot, and get a fire lighted as quickly as possible. The little fellow, however, was too much taken up with the strangeness of the place, and the quaint figure and odd ways of the queer old man seated on the bedstead before him, to make much haste about the matter ; so, as he knelt down to do his uncle's bidding, he kept fumbling at the withy band round the fagot, with his eyes now riveted upon the miser, and now fastened on the mounds of refuse stored in the difierent corners of the wretched-looking chamber. " How you can manage to live in such a place as this, Jerry, is more than I can make out," con- tinued Uncle Benjamin. " Well, you know. Master Franklin," respond- ed the old hunks, in a whining tone, and grinning sycophantically as he spoke, "rents are uncom- mon dear, and I can't afford to pay any more than I do here. A quarter of a dollar a week for a mere place to put one's old head in is a great deal of money, ain't it, now ?" " Can't afford, man alive ! why, you could afford to rent a mansion if you pleased," was the scorn- ful reply. 190 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. " How you do talk, Friend Franklin, to be sure ! You always seem to think I'm made of money, that you do," returned the miser, with a faint chuckle, as he pretended to treat the notion of his wealth as a mere joke. "Hah! if I'd only listened to such as you, I should have been in the poor-house long before this — he ! he ! he !" he added, with another titter. "And if you had been, Jerry, you would have been both better housed and fed there than you are here," the elder Benjamin made answer. " Ye-e-es ! I dare say I should ; a great deal, and for nothing too," grinned the old man, as he gloated for a moment over the idea of the gratu- itous board and lodging ; the next minute, how- ever, he added, with a sorrowful shake of the head, " But they wouldn't admit me into the poor-house, you see, because they know I've al- ways had the fear of dying of hunger in my old age before my eyes, and managed to save up just a dollar or two against it. No, no, it is only the prodigals and the unthrifts they'll consent to keep there for nothing ; and a pretty lesson that is to preach to the world, ain't it, now, Master Franklin ?" " Well, but, Jerry, Jerry," expostulated Uncle Benjamin, anxious to bring the miser to some- thing like common sense, " what on earth is the use of your having saved uj) this dollar or two, as you call it, against that eternal bugbear of yours — 'dying of hunger in your old age,' if you con- tinue to starve yourself, as you are doing now, day after day ?" "Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Master Jerry, in re- turn, and with as little unction in the laughter as though he had been a hyena rather than a man ; " and you'd have me spend all my hard-earned savings in eating and drinking, I suppose. Ha ! PLEASUEE-HUNTING. 191 ha ! and a deal the better I should be for that, when my money was all gone, and I left without a penny in my old age ! No, no, Friend Frank- lin ; so long as I've got a dollar or two by me, I know no harm can come to me ;" and the gaffer chafed his weazened hands together as he chuck- led over his fancied security. "Madman!" muttered the elder Benjamin, aside; "and yet you suffer continually in the present the very harm you dread in the future." " Do you know. Friend Franklin," the miser went on, " what is the only delight I have left in the world now ? (I don't mind telling you as much, for you won't let any one know I've got a few dollars by me here, will you ?) why, it's to sit and look at the few pieces I've managed to save — though they are but a very few, I give you my word — for it's only when I've got them spread out before my eyes, and keep biting 'em one after another between my old teeth, to con- vince myself that there ain't a bad coin among 'em, that I feel in any way sure that I sha'n't die a beggar after all. Ye-e-es, Friend Franklin, that's the only ha23piness I have in life now ; but you won't tell any body that I let you know I'd got a fqw dollars by me here, will you now ?" the miser added, abruptly, in a carneying tone, as a misgiv- ing stole over him concerning the imprudence of the confession he had made. " Oh ye-e-es, Friend Franklin, I'm sure I can trust to you, and" — said he, with a cunning whisper, as he pointed toward little Ben — " and the boy yonder too, eh — eh ?" The latter part of the speech drew Uncle Ben- jamin's attention once more to his nephew, and the progress he was making with the fire ; so he called out, as a cold shudder crept over his frame, " Come, I say, Master Ben, look alive and get the logs lighted" (for the boy had been attending 192 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. more to the conversation than the grate) ; " I de- clare there's a draught here almost as strong as the blast to a furnace ;" and, so saymg, he set to work stamping his feet and chafing his palms, to stir the blood in them. Then, drawing his hand- kerchief from his pocket, he proceeded to tie it over his ears. The quick eye of the miser noticed something fall upon the floor as his visitor pulled his ker- chief from the hind part of his coat ; so, springing from the bedstead, he began groping on the ground for the article the other had dropped. " Oh ! it's only a piece of string, after all !" the old fellow cried, as he rose up on his feet again with a violent eftbrt. " But perhaps it's of no use to you. Friend Franklin," he added, with a true beggar's air; "and if so, I'll just take care of it myself, for I can't bear to see any thing wasted ; besides, it will come in handy for something some day." Whereupon, without waiting for the other to tell him he was welcome to the twine, the old niggard proceeded to wind it into a figure of 8 on his finger and thumb, and ultimately to thrust it into the wallet-like pocket of his coat. As the miser sat at the edge of the bed, thus engaged for a while, he said, after a slight pause, " You haven't run across that minx, my Mary, of late, have you. Friend Franklin? — the heartless hussy, curse her!" And as he spat out the last words from between his teeth, there was a savage fury in the tone which it made young Benjamin almost shudder to hear. " Come, I say ! I say ! remember, the girl is your own flesh and blood, man," cried the elder Benjamin, reprovingly. " I do ; and therefore I say again. Curse her ! curse the jade forever and ever !" and the bitter- hearted old graybeard ground out his anathemas PLEASUEE-HUXTIXG. 193 with a double vindictiveness. "Didn't she go away with that fellow she's married to, and leave her old father here alone, and almost helpless, without a soul in the world to attend upon him, or do a thing for him in his eleventh hour ? — no, not unless they're well paid for it, they won't, the mercenary wretches ! I told her to choose between me and the beggar she took up with, and she preferred the beggar to her old father ; so she may starve and rot with the beggar for what I care, for not so much as one stiver of mine does she or hers ever touch. No," he added, with all the intensity of a miser's lust and uncharitable- ness, " not if I have my money soldered down in my coffin, and take it into my grave with me," said he, as he ground his fangs and clenched his bony fists. This was more than Uncle Benjamin could bear ; so, starting from his seat, he turned sharply round upon the old hunks as he cried, in the fury of his indignation, " Your grave, man ! Do you think you can take your beastly gold and silver to hell with you ?" adding, half aside, " for they won't have it in heaven, I can tell you." " Well, well, I dare say not," answered the miser, as he shook his head backward and for- ward, and half cried over the ugliness of the re- proof; "though what's to become of it all, and who's to get it and squander it, after the trouble I've had to save it, costs me many an anxious thought ; so sometimes I think that it will be bet- ter in the end, perhaps, to have it buried along with me, and so have done with it altogether. Still, come what may, Mary shall never finger so much as a copper-piece of mine, I'll take care." There was a pause in the conversation for a minute or two, and then Jerry said, in a widely different tone, " You wouldn't believe it, Friend N 194 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Franklin, but the other day the minx sent me a jug of soup. She thinks to get round me in that way, the artful bit of goods ; but she'll find her- self sorely mistaken, he ! he ! he ! I knew she sent it," he went on, "because the cloth it was tied up in was marked with her married name. When I found out who it had come from, do you know I was going to chuck it out of window ? but then, you see, I can't bear any thing to be wasted, so I put it in my cupboard there, and there it'll bide. Friend Franklin, till I'm dead and gone, I can tell you." By this time young Benjamin had laid the logs in the grate ; and having taken from his pocket the tinder-box and matches with which his god- father had provided him (for Uncle Benjamin knew well enough it would be idle to look for such things in the miser's room), he was begin- ning to chip away with the flint and steel as he knelt in front of the grate. No sooner, however, did the sound of the re- peated clickmg smite the miser's ear, than he darted from the bedstead, as if some sudden ter- ror had seized upon his soul; and, rushing to- ward the lad, laid hold of him by the collar, and nearly throttled the boy, just as he was in the act of blowing, with his cheeks pufled out as round as a football, at a stray spark that had fallen on the tinder. "What are you going to do? what are you going to do, boy?" the old miser shrieked, while he trembled from head to foot as if palsy-strick- en. " You can't light a fire there ; you'll set the chimney in a blaze." " Haugh ! haugh ! haugh !" roared Uncle Ben- jamin, derisively. " Set your chimney in a blaze, Jerry ! Why, it has never had a fire in it since I've known you. There, go along with you, man ; PLEASURE-HUNTING. 195 there's no fear of your having to pay for the en- gines : the flue's as free of soot as a master sweep on a Sunday, I'll swear. Besides, I'm frozen, Jerry — chilled to the very marrow, and must have just a handful of hot embers in the grate to warm me — at least, that is, if I'm to sit here any longer, and tell you any thing about your Mary ; for while you were raving and cursing just now, I hadn't an opportunity of edging in a word about the girl, remember." " Well, I dare say ! I dare say !" whined out the old miser, divided between the fear of fire and his curiosity as to the " circumstances" of his runaway daughter. "But you'll 2:)romise not to make much of a flame, w^on't you, now, good lad ? Besides," he added, " I can't bear to see wood burnt extravagantly ; and you don't know how close and hot this room does become with even the least bit of fire." " No, nor do you know much about that either, Jerry, I'm thinking," giggled Uncle Benjamin. "There, go back to your seat, man, and listen quietly to what I've got to say about your child. Come, you shall have all the w^ood that's left ; and, bless me ! we sha'n't burn a penn'orth of it altogether." The niggard suffered himself to be led back to the bedstead by his visitor, while young Ben, who had now lighted the smaller twigs, remained kneel- ing in front of the grate, blowing away at the burning branches in order to kindle the mass, " Well, you know, Jerry," proceeded the uncle, "I saw your Mary at the Conventicle last Sab- bath morning — " "Did you? did you?" cried the old fellow; " and what did she say ? Is she sorry for her disobedience ? Does the jade repent, and want to come back again to me — eh — eli ?" 196 YOUXG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. There was no time for Uncle Benjamin to an- swer the questions, for a loud cry from the boy at the fire made the pair of them start to their feet in an instant. The dry twigs, with which the grate had been nearly filled, had, with young Ben's continued pufling, become ignited all at once, and as the long tongue of tiame licked into the narrow mouth of the flue, the little fellow looked up the chimney, and fan(?ied he could see something a-light there ; so the next minute he cried aloud, " The chimney's a-fire, I'm sure. I can see some- thing burning in it." " Something burning in the chimney ! — what ! — what !" roared the distracted miser, as he tore his gray locks, and gesticulated as wildly as a maniac. The boy, who was still on his knees, with his head twisted on one side, as he watched the smouldering mass up the flue, seized one of the largest logs that he had placed against the wall, and thrust it far up the chimney, so as to rake down the ignited mass. " What would you do, boy ? what would you do ? It's my bag — my bag of money that's burn- ing there, I tell you !" and no sooner had the miser roared out the words, than a golden shower of guineas poured down the mouth of the chimney, and fell in a heap into the very midst of the blaz- ing logs and embers. The miser was fairly crazed as he saw his treas- ure descend, in a cataract as it were, into the very heart of the fire ; and, in the phrensy of the mo- ment, he thrust his bony hands into the midst of the burning wood, and dragged the heated coins, handful by handful, from out the flames ; till, writhing with the agony of his burnt palms, he was forced i fling the pieces down on the floor ; PLEASURE-HUNTING. 197 and there they rolled about, some falling between the chinks of the planks, and others strewing the boards so thickly that the wretched, squalid lit- tle garret seemed at last to be paved with gold. Then the old hunks fell upon his knees, and scrambled after the coins, crying like a child the while ; but presently, roused by a sudden fury, he sprang wildly to his feet again, and seizing one of the flaring brands he had just thrown under the grate, screamed as he whirled it madly in the air, " Begone, robbers ! thieves ! begone with you ! It was Mary that sent you here to do this ; she told you w^here my money was hid. Curses on you all ! begone, begone, I say !" It was no time to parley with the frantic man ; so Uncle Benjamin pushed his nephew out of the miser's reach, and then, as he thrust the boy into the passage, closed the door before the maniac had time to harm either little Ben or himself. And as the couple descended the creaking stairs, they could hear the old niggard in his phrensy, raving and sobbing, while he barred and bolted his garret door ; and then, counting the pieces, as he collected the remains of his treasure, crying, " One, two — curse the girl ! — three, four, five — curse her and hers, forever and ever !" Rational Animal No. 5. " What is money to me, my friend ?" exclaim- ed the inmate of the next garret they visited, aft- er Uncle Benjamin had narrated to the young man they found alone with his books there the scene that had just occurred at the lodgings of old Jerry the miser. " I care not to hive any of this human honey, Master Franklin, for it is honey that the golden- bellied wasps of the world distill only from weeds and tares. The sweet yellow stuff may be tooth- 198 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. some to man in his second childhoocl, but to me there is a sickliness about it that clogs and dead- ens the finer tastes and natural cravings of man- kind." Young Ben gazed in all the muteness of deep wonder at the speaker. Every thing around him — the dingy and cheerless attic — the cold, empty grate — the scanty bedding — the spare and crazy furniture — the lean cupboard, with its solitary milk-can and crust of bread — all told the boy, even inexpert as he was at deciphering the sun- dry little conventional signs as to a person's " cir- cumstances" in life, that the poor garreteer had no more of the world's comforts to console him than either the drunkard or the miser. And yet the poverty seemed to invest the man with all the moral dignity of a hermit, whereas it had appeared to steep the others in all the squa- lor of habitual mendicancy. How different, too, was he in look and tone from either of those they had previously visited ! There was a gentleness and a music in his voice, as if his very heart- strings vibrated as he spake, and a high-natured expression in his features, that lighted up his blanched countenance like sunshine upon snow. His forehead was fair, and round as an ivory dome ; and his full liquid eyes were intensely blue, and deep as the sea far away from land ; while, as he talked of the world's vanities and glories, there was the same passionate play of nostril, and the same proud Avorking of the neck as marks a blood-horse's sense of his own ^^ower when pawing the ground at his feet. " But the long-eared Midases of the world. Mas- ter Franklin," the poet continued, " they who re- joice in the power of transmuting all they touch into gold, must be ever deaf to the grand har- monies of life and nature, ay, and blind as corpses PLEASTJEE-HUKTING. 199 too — ^having their eyes forever closed with pieces of money — to the beauty which floods the earth with hght, color, and glory, as though it were the very halo of the Godhead shining over creation. Such as these affect to speak with pity of the poor poet ; but, prithee,, friend, who so poor in heart and soul as Dives himself? — as Dives, who can not taste a crumb of the ideal feast that is spread even for the mendicant Lazarus ? — Dives, in whose leathern ear the sea-shell sings not of the mighty mysteries of the ocean-deep, and to whom the little lark never warbles of the crimson grand- eur of the sky, the air, and earth, at break of day ? — Dives, in whose dull eyes the wild flowers show no grace, nor the tiny insects the least touch of art ? — ^Dives, the veriest pauper amid the richest of all riches — he of the stone heart and leaden brain ? Was Andrew Marvel poor, think you, when the libertine Charles sought to bribe him into silence ? Not he ; for he was richer than the king in honor and dignity — rich enough to be able to spurn the royal bribe, even though he was so poor in pocket as to be forced to borrow the means for a dinner the moment after." Little Ben had never heard such utterances be- fore ; and as he sat there, still staring intently at the speaker, he was marveling which w^as right — his uncle, who taught him that he must either save or be a slave, or this young man, whose very dignity and independence of spirit seemed to spring from his contempt for mere worldly wealth. The elder Benjamin could almost guess what was passing in his nephew's mind ; nevertheless, it was neither the time nor the place to clear up the difiiculty, so he remained as silent as the lad himself, and merely nodded his approbation as the poet conti§iued. " Nor -would I have the world's wealth, friend. 200 YOU^'G BEXJAMIN FEANKLIN. at the world's price," the young man ran on. " What if the stomach icill sometimes crave for food, at least I have an ethereal banquet here in my little stock of books" — pointing to the few shelves slung against the wall — " a banquet that the gods themselves might revel in ; ay, and a banquet, too, that the pampered belly has seldom any zest for. These are the men. Master Frank- lin," he cried, his eyes glowing with the fervor of his soul as he turned to his favorite authors, " who are the blessed comforters of the poor, if the poor but knew them as poor I do ; these the worthies that care^not hoAV humble the dwelling they enter ; these the true hearts that have a good and kind word to whisper in every ear. As Francis Bacon says, they are the 'interpreters' between God and us — the ' interpreters' of that subtle myth which makes the soul of man a mere grub here and a butterfly hereafter ; the great translators of the miglity poem of creation — each rendering, as did the Septuagint of old, some special canticle or glorious passage in the Book, and each catching the sense and spirit of the great Original as if by inspiration. Can a man be poor, friend," he asked proudly, " when he can find any amount of treasure in these volumes merely by digging a little beneath the surface for it? Have I no jewels, when in this casket there are gems brighter and more precious than ever adorned a monarch's brow ? Have I no posses- sions, when such an inheritance as this has been bequeathed to me ? — no grounds, when I have these interminable gardens and academic groves about me to wander in as I list — gardens that are l^lanted with exquisite taste, and filled with all the flowers of the Elysian fields of innnortality — flowers that bloom forever in the b^oni after they are plucked, and whose perfume blends with PLEASUKE-HUNTIXG. 201 the soul, till the mind itself becomes sweetened with their grace ?" The boy was entranced as he listened. lie had never before heard words uttered with such ar- dor ; they came ringing in his ear, and stirred his soul like a trumpet. The only zeal he had ever seen displayed as yet had been among the fanatics of the conventicle to which his father belonged ; but here was a man speaking with all the fervor of the most devout religion upon the grandeur and glory of mere poetry ; a man loving poverty with all the enthusiasm of an ascetic — not from any superstitious delight in the daily martyrdom of the tlesh, but because his taste found more re- fined joy in the sublimities of nature and thought than in the sickly sweetmeats of the world ; a man worshiping the divine element of beauty and truth in all things, and loathing the world's vani- ties and sensualities as the great uglinesses of life. It was impossible not to have faith in him. His creed was manifestly not a mere afiected sen- timent, but an all-absorbing passion — a passion that flashed like lightning in his eyes, and stirred his limbs like branches tossed by a hurricane. " How different," presently he continued, talk- ing half to himself till he became fired again with his subject, "does the possession of such wealth as this make us from what the world's wealth does ! Your money-riches are sure, sooner or later, to transform the heart into a mere iron chest — a coffer that no human key can open. They breed only lust and greed, as the muck-heap hatches vipers, and case the soul in an impenetrable armor of selfishness, whereas the treasures of the mind are as generous as wine to the spirit, unlocking the heart and the whole nature. Did these noble fellows," he cried, as he seized the volumes that lay on the table before him, and hugged them 202 TOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. fondly to his bosom, " play the misers with their precious possessions?" Did these lords of Wis- dom's broad manor fence in their estate, and keep the ever-green fields of their fancy and philosophy to themselves ? or did they give them as a park to all the world, for even the poorest to ramble and sport in ? Yes, they shared their gifts and gems freely with such as me, and so made poor me almost as rich as themselves. And what would I do now ? why, I'd fall upon my very knees to you, if I could but get you and this lad here to share this same wealth with me in return — only to make you feel the same foretaste of heaven as I do when communing with these great souls, sj^irit to spirit, and giving back love for love." Then he paused for a moment ; and suddenly tossing his head till his long hair shook. like a lion's mane, he scowled at some imaginary social jackanapes as he asked indignantly, " Who dares taunt me with lack of fortune or want of fine friends, when I have Will Shakspeare here day after day by my side, humming the sweet music of his sonnets in my ear ? Why, if I knew all the high and mighty carriage-folk of the town, could it be half as grand to ride out with them as it is to travel with the spirit of John Milton into the very heavens themselves, and hear the blind old poet pour forth his wondrous pa3an on the light ? Can such as I feel it a privation to be denied the fellowship of empty-headed lords and dukes, when here, in my garret, I can have the best of all good company — the very pick of the noblest blood that ever flowed in human veins ? Am I sad ? then can I not have Butler here to make me laugh with the quaint wit and odd logic of his Hudi- bras ? If the hours hang heavy with me, are not Herrick, Carew, and Suckling ready to sing to me ? Do I want to learn how the world wags ? PLEASURE-HUNTING. 203 why Massinger, and Forcl, and Webster, and Beau- mont and Fletcher, ay, and Shakspeare himself, will come at my beck to show me how the pup- l^ets are moved by every passion, and to lay open my own and every other heart before my eyes, as if poor human nature was but a piece of clever clock-work. Or, if I long to travel, is there not brave Raleigh waiting to take me with him round the world ? Or, if my mood be more sedate, can I not invite old Burton here to charm me with his wonderful lore of melancholy ? ay, and even, if I please, get Newton, or Bacon, or Hobbes to talk philosophy with me, and lay bare the subtle mechanism of the universe itself? Ah! my friend," he added, as his face beamed with all the refined pride of his heart, " this is the royal pre- rogative of intellect — the blessed privilege that comes from a devout love of books. It can make the poorest among us richer than the richest; grant luxuries to those in want that even the beef-witted Crcesus himself could not purchase ; and give the most luckless in the world the right of fellowship with the most gifted and most illus- trious of mankind." Rational Animal No. 6. Again the scene shifted, and the lad and his uncle were away in the suburbs of the town, at the shooting and hunting "box" of one who thought " sport" to be the great charm of life. Here, as they entered, a kennel of fox-hounds made the woods ring with their cries, and dogs of every breed met them at every turn. There were spare and high-haunched greyhounds, ready coupled for coursing; gentle-looking and docile pointers and setters, with their eyes ever fixed , on their master; and shock-coated water-dogs, and wiry little rat-dogs, with their teeth gUsten- 204 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. ing like gintraps, as they snarled at the new-com- ers ; and ugly-looking bandy-legged bull-dogs, too, with mouths and jowls like prize-fighters. In one of the out-houses was a long-backed ferret, with hair as white and eyes as pink as an albino, ready for the next day's sjDort at the rabbit-warren. In another there were globular wire cages full of brown rats, restless as a knot of worms, that had been traj^ped to settle some important wager as to how many of the vermin little " Wasp," with the gintrap-like teeth, could kill within the hour. The stables were filled with as many different kinds of horses as the yards swarmed with differ- ent breeds of dogs. Here was the satin-coated hunter, with limbs almost as slender as those of the greyhounds ; the sturdy little shooting-pony, whose legs seemed as short and thick as those of a four-jjost bedstead ; and the fast-trotting cob, that had done its fifteen miles within the hour, and won no end of money in its time. The interior of the house, too, was as typical of the tastes of the owner as the out-buildings themselves. The little hall bristled with antlers and buffalo horns jutting from the walls, and from the hat-j^egs hung huge jack fishing-boots and hunting-whips, while the rooms within were liter- ally crowded with tokens of the " sporting charac- ter" they belonged to. The sides of the chamber into which they were shown were covered with prints of celebrated winners of races ; and paint- ings of favorite horses, Avith some favorite groom standing at their head; and representations of far-famed fast trotters, with a gentleman in a tall skeleton gig, with big misty wheels, in the act of scrambling through some prodigious feat of ve- locity. There were engravings, too, of sundry shirtless heroes, in knee-breeches and *' ankle- jacks," with muscles as big as cannon balls UU' PLEASUKE-HUNTIIs^G. 205 der the skin, striking an attitude of self-defense ; and memorials of some illustrious encounter be- tween two cliestnuty and fiery-faced game-cocks, as close cropped as felons, and with spurs as long as cobblers' awls fitted to their legs. Then there were colored sets of pictures representative of "going to cover," "breaking cover," in "full cry," and " in at the death," with others of " partridge shooting," and " wild-duck shooting," and bits of " still life," together -with a huge illustration of some extraordinary leaj) at a "steeple chase," where a fcAV of the liorses and riders were floun- dering in the bi*ook, others flying through the air, and others scrambling with their steeds up the opposite bank. Moreover, there were glass cases filled with two or three stuffed partridges feeding among some imitation stubble, and an- other inclosing an enormous preserved pike, with his scales as highly varnished as a coach-panel. Upon the table lay foxes' brushes set in silver handles, and made into little whisks for dusting knick-knacks ; and foxes' heads mounted as snuff- boxes ; and stags' feet, with little silver hoofs, fit- ted to the blades of knives ; while high above the mantle-piece was stretched a huge wild swan, with wide-spread wings, that measured goodness knows how many feet from tip to tip, and which had been shot by the owner of the establishment in the winter of such and such a year. In the different corners of the room, too, stood the sev- eral implements of the sportsman's art : fishing- rods, and double-barreled guns, and powder- flasks, and leathern wallets covered with netting, and riding and driving whips, and dog-whistles, and spears for otter-hunting, and felt hats with the crowns wound round with all kinds of lines and flies, and brown leathern leggins, and shoot- ing-boots as heavy and clumsy-looking as navi- 206 YOUXG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. gators', ay, and boxing-gloves, basket-hilted sin- gle-sticks, targets, and cases of dueling pistols too. The sportsman himself was busy at his morning meal of bread and chine, with a tankard of foam- ing home-brewed ale by his side. The manner in Avhich he scrambled down the food, coupled with the scarlet coat and black velvet cap in Avhich he was costumed, told that he Avas in haste to join the hounds somewhere ; and as he munched away, he described to "his visitors, with his mouth full, what a glorious day he expected to have, as Squire So-and-so had recently bought a score of foxes, and turned them all loose on his estate, for really their subscription pack had pretty well cleared the country before that. Then he remembered some particular magnificent run they had had some seasons back, and gave the couple a vivid description of the chase as he filled his jDOcket- flask with brandy from the liqueur-case. Next, as he sat down to exchange his slippers for the highly-polished top-boots that stood beside the fireplace, he wanted to know whether the young squire there, alluding to little Ben, had ever been at a hunt, and told the lad, as he screwed his mouth up till his face looked like a knocker, and tugged away at the boot-hooks, that a good run was the finest thing in life, and that there was nothing like fox-hunting in the world. After that he fell to hastily admiring the boy's figure, ask- ing how old he was, and calling hhn a nice little light weight. Then he wanted to know whether he had ever been licked at school, and whether he had taken any lessons yet in sparring; and said he wished he could stop and piit the gloves on for a minute, and have a round or two with him. Presently he asked Uncle Ben whether he had heard of the match that he had coming ofif short- ly; he had staked a hundred pounds that he PLEASUEE-HUNTING. 20T would bring down nineteen pigeons out of twen- ty — and he was sure to win, for he had bagged thirty brace of birds in a few hours only a few days back, and, what was more, he could snuff a candle with his dueling pistols at twenty paces three times out of four. Then, as he bustled about the room (rummaging among the litter of fish-cans, bullet-moulds, boxing-gloves, and books of flies, now for his riding-gloves, and now for some particular pet whip that he wanted), he told the boy that if he would come over some day he'd give him a ride on the pony, and take him out for a day's coursing, and then he should see some prime sport, if he liked, when the dogs slipped their couples. Why, he had one of the finest greyhounds in the world, the sportsman said, and had refused a hundred guineas for her over and over again. But he only wished he could stop longer with them, he added, as he slipped his great-coat over his scarlet jacket, though he wouldn't miss the meet that day not to please his own father, that he wouldn't. So he shook them both heartily by the hand, and then hurrying to the door, leaped into the saddle on the hunter young Benjamin had noted in the stable but a few minutes before, and, digging his spurs into the flanks of the steed, dashed doAvn the road, waving his little nut-shell of a hunting-caj^ to young Ben as he turned round in his saddle, and, cracking his whip, shouted " Yoyicks ! Yup ! Yup ! Yoyicks !" to the delighted and astonished boy. Rational Animal No. 1. The next character they visited differed again from all they had seen before. It was neither " sport," nor poetry, nor gold, nor drink, nor yet flowers that delighted this one, 208 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. but merely " antiquities," as they are called. A mere bit of old brick — a tile marked with the stamp of one of the Roman legions was sufficient to throw the old antiquary into an ecstasy of en- thusiasm. A "celt" — an axe with a rude flint head — had greater joy for him than the finest work of art in the world. His house was filled wdth cabinets and glass cases, in which were stored heaps of what a good housewife would have denominated " rubbish," but which, in the antiquary's eyes, were far more precious than gold. The old oak chairs here were so knubbly with their carvings that it was impossible to rest either the back or arms against them without their leaving a series of lumps and bumps on the flesh ; the spoons were all " apostle spoons," as they are called, and so knobby that they could not be held with any comfort ; the walls were hung with bits of tapestry that were as ragged as a beg- gar's smock ; the pictures, queer old things, with gilt backgrounds, and figures of saints as limj)- looking as your " lean and slippered j^antaloon ;" the china, too, was of the queerest shapes and patterns, while the ornaments consisted of small bits of tesselated pavement dug up from some ancient Roman station, and which seemed like fragments of petrified draught-boards; besides little green-crusted and worn bronze urns, and small Egyptian clay figures that had been found buried with mummies, together with cracked Etruscan vases, and noseless Grecian busts, and statues without arms, that had much the look of Greenwich pensioners "in the abstract." Then there were satin cases filled Avith coins that had no more impression left on them than a charity- boy's metal buttons ; copies of hieroglyphic in- scriptions, and models of the Parthenon and Co- losseum ; tiny copies of Cleopatra's Needle and PLEASUKE-HUNTING. 209 Trajan's Column, and an infinity of odds and ends besides — all of which had cost no end of money, time, and patience to collect, as well as study and learning to comprehend, and which the queer little old gentleman (who was only too delighted to exhibit them to little Ben) frankly confessed, as he led the couple round the place, that he had nearly ruined himself in getting together, and he had serious thoughts, he said, of leaving it all to the nation after his death. Rational Animal No. 8. After this the lad was conducted to an invent- or's house, and here he found the rooms filled with curious models of machinery, and working-draw- ings and plans of the queerest-looking apparatus, while the doors and windows were fitted with the strangest contrivances by way of fastenings. Here were extraordinary kinds of j)umps, and nov- el arrangements of water-wheels, and ships with revolving sails, like wind-mills, and flying ma- chines, and velocipedes, and vessels to travel under the water or along the bottom of the sea, and boats to sail upon land, and plans for heating houses too by flues sunk into the earth to such a depth as always to insure an equable temperature without the cost of fire. Besides designs for per- petual motion, and projects for discovering the longitude, and new motive powers, and plans for obtaining an inexpensive and inexhaustible force by taking advantage of the magnetism of the earth. "This notion alone," said the sanguine schemer, as he pointed to some pet notion, " is worth twen- ty thousand guineas at least ;" then " that," he told them, " was a sure fortune to any one ;" while if another " only answered," it would be impossible for any one to estimate the amount of money it would reahze. O 210 YOUXG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Little Ben looked with inordinate wonder at the individual as he heard him speak of the im- mense value of his projects one after another, and marveled how, if he was the possessor of such ex- traordinary wealth, there should be so poverty- stricken an air about his dwelling. Xor was the boy's astonishment in any way decreased when he heard the man, as he stood on the door-steps assuring them that he wouldn't take a hundred thousand guineas, if any one would lay the money down on the stones before him, for even a half share in his flying machine, whisper immediately afterward in his uncle's ear, just before leaving, that he'd consider it a great favor if he would let him have half a dollar for a day or two. Rational Animal No. 9. From the inventor the couple wended their way to the chief astronomer of the town, and this man they found scarcely able to speak to them, for he was busy sweeping the heavens for a new planet, which, after years of laborious calculation, he had ascertained should exist somewhere be- tween the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. He had been engaged in making observations upon this matter almost night and day, he said, for the last twelvemonth, and had laid out hundreds upon a new reflecting telescope, the speculum of which alone had cost more than half the money, for he was determined to make the discovery all his own. To him there was no pleasure but in watch- ing the stars — no use for money but in the pur- chase of equatorials, astronomical clocks, transit instruments, artificial horizons, mural circles, and micrometer glasses, etc., etc. pleasure-hunting. 211 Rational Animal No. 10. The visit to the astronomer was followed by a peep into the household of an entomologist, where the boy found the study of the stars replaced by that of insects. It was no longer distant worlds, but the tiniest things on earth that absorbed the entire time and means of this individual. Here cases of spittedr butterflies and cockchafers delighted the big baby^ christened " philosopher." Here the telescope was laid aside for the microscopic, and the every- day world of human passion ignored for the hid- den one of animalcular life and habits. The inhab- itants of a drojD of water were, to the magnified vision of this particular sage, creatures of the live- liest interest, whereas those of the next street were hardly worth a moment's thought. To see the blood circulate in the web of a frog's foot, this worthy spent pounds and pounds upon an *' eighth," but to know how the heart of man was stirred he would not give a doit. What an ex- quisite charm there was to him in enlarging the dust of a butterfly's wing to the magnitude of an ostrich's feathers, or in looking at the proboscis of a blue-bottle under a " high power!" but how " stale, flat, and unprofitable" to bring even a "low power" to bear upon the parasites of society, or to scrutinize the economy of the human blood- sucker ! In a w^ord, to brother man not the slight- est heed, nor even a penny was given, whereas to brother tadpole an entire life and a small fortune were devoted. Even little Ben, as he was whirled, so to speak, from one house to another by his uncle, and in- troduced to the most opposite characters in rapid succession (for the old man strove to bring out 212 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. the "high Hghts" of the picture of human life in all the black and white of strong contrast), could hardly help philosophizing, in his own simple way, upon the puzzling problem that had been brought under his notice. "How strange!" mused the lad to himself, as he jogged along ; " one man finds no pleasure but in studying the stars, another no delight but in contemplating insects ; one in perpetually spying through magnifying glasses at little specks of light which are ' millions of miles away,' the oth- er forever looking through the same kind of glass- es at tiny creatures that are almost as far removed from himself! One declares there is no happi- ness in the world like that of sporting ; another vows the only true joy is to be found in books ; a third that it lies in show and dress. One sac- rifices every thing to get drink, another to get money ; this one to collect Aveeds and wild-flow- ers, and that man to collect bits of old pavement, old tiles, and vases. How odd it is ! and one and all, too, are ready to give up their lives and for- tunes to their particular pursuit." The view of hfe seemed as inconsistent to the little fellow as the jumble of scenes in a dream. "Ha! my man," smiled Uncle Benjamin, de- lighted to listen to the boy's reflections, " I dare say the riddle of human nature does puzzle you a good bit ; and, to tell the truth, it occasionally puts me to my wit's end to comj^rehend it, even old stager as I am, and up to most of the antics of the mummers too. To run the round of one's acquaintances in this way, lad, and see the differ- ent characters one meets with in his journeys from house to house, is to my mind very much like going over a large lunatic asylum, and learn- ing, as you pass from cell to cell, the various queer manias with which the several inmates are pos- sessed." PLEASURE-HUNTING. 213 But there was no time just then to reason on the matter: the first object was to see and ob- serve ; to draw conckisions was an after consider- ation. So on the old man and boy hurried to in- spect some more of the shows in the great "Van- ity Fair." " Walk up ! walk up !" cried Uncle Ben to the lad as they approached the next human curiosity, " and see now the most celebrated epicure in all the town." Rational Animal No. 11. They met the worthy, hobbling along with a punnet of tomatoes in his hand (with one ele- phantine foot done up in flannel, and incased in a huge list slipper), on his way to the fishmonger's at the end of the street where he lived ; and there, as he stood picking out a prime bit of sal- mon — "just a pound or two from the thick part of the fish" — he told them how he had been suf- fering from his " old friend the gout," though he was happy to say his dyspepsia was a leetle bet- ter, for he had been dieting himself a good bit of late. He had cut ofi" his " night-cap" of Maras- chino punch after supper, he said, for he had found out at last that that had been doing him a deal of harm, though it was delicious tipple, to be sure. Then he had given up his toast and caviar in the middle of the day ; for his medical man had told him caviar was too rich for him, and that really his stomach was so weak that he must be most careful about what he ate — most careful. " You see, Franklin," continued the gourmand, as he jerked at his acre of waistcoat, that was dappled with gravy-spots all down the front, and tried to force it over the huge wen of a stomach that bulged out like the distended crop of an enormous pouter pigeon, " you see, Franklin, I 214 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. make flesh so fast that, do what I will, I can't prevent myself running into corj^ulency. Why, I've even reduced my quantum of Madeira, I give you my word, to half a pint per diem ; and if there's one thing I like more than another," he added, by way of parenthesis, " it certainly is a glass of good Madeira ; but it must be good, you know, Franklin — good, or it's apt to turn acid with me ; for my medical man assures me all fer- mented liquors make fat. But, though I go on with my dinner-pills (and my doctor, I must say, has given me one of the best pills of that kind I ever met with), and take more exercise than I used, still, the deuce is in it, I can't keej) the bulk down — ccoiH keep it under, Franklin, anyhow;" and again the worthy gave another twitch at the waistcoat, that ivould keep rucking u]) over the rolls of his abdomen. Then, having at length settled about the fish, he slii^ped one arm into that of the elder Benjamin, and resting the hand of the other on the shoulder of the younger one (for he had given the boy the little basket of love-apples to carry), he began hobbling back to his house between the two, stopping every now and then to writhe with the agony of some passing twinge. " W/ii/ I should be plagued with this infernal gout as I am," he exclaimed, as he stood still in the street, and screwed his face up till it assumed the expression of a compressed gutta-percha head, "I'm sure I can't tell. My doctor says it's all stomach ; and heaven knows no man can be more particular about his feeding than I am. Indeed, I never could bear coarse food, Franklin — 7iever. I think every one of my friends will allow that. But the misfortune is, you see, I have such deli- cate nerves, though few persons would think it, perhaps, in a man of my build ; but I can assure PLEASURE-HUNTING. 215 you my belief is that '; lerves — nerves — or I may say, indeed, a natiuL'J ^vant of stamina — that is at the bottom of all oiy sufferings. The least thing I take seems to disagree with me. Now what was my dinner yesterday: why, nothing could have been simpler in the world, Franklin — nothing. First I had just a little vermicelli soup, with a sprinklino- of grated Parmesan over it. By-the-by, Frankan," h« asked suddenly, as he stopped and lookv9d Uncle BonjamiiJ. fuJJ iu thQ face, " did you ever try the grated cheese with the vermicelli ? Well, do ! 1 give you my word it's a marvelous iraprovemerc — m-w-mar-velous ! Then there was a 11 tie ^vater-souci ; and you know there's notK ing ligher than water-souci in the world; but it's-, n a^i^rite dish of mine, Frank- lin, for, 'pon my hor , I think it's the most deli- cate flavor in life ; avile you, Franklin, but really this gout," and he made another ugly face as he emphasized the words, " is the most excru- ciating torture, I can assure you — ex-x-c?'00-ciat- ing!" Rational Animal Xo. 12. Nor did the gallery of character portraits cease here. Uncle Ben was anxious that his little pupil should see every phase of human eccentricity of which he could muster a specimen among the circle of his acquaintance; so now he took the PLEASUEE-HUNTING. 219 lad to some inveterate politician, and let him see how this man's thoughts and time were entirely absorbed in attending vestries, and denouncing the overseers of the parish as the " robbers of the poor," in opposing rates, influencing elections, in declaiming at public meetings, and holding forth to the fuddled frequenters of bar-parlors in the evening on the rascalities of all governments, the dishonesty of ministers, and the rights of man, as well as the iniquities of the taxes. RATiojiTAL Animal No. 13. Next he would lead the little fellow to some gentleman turner, who spent hundreds upon a lathe, his rose-engines, and eccentric chucks, and who passed his days in amateur carpentering and cabinet-making, with a French polished mahogany tool-chest, and the most elegant rosewood-han- dled chisels and gimlets ; turning now ivory cups, and balls, and chess-men, and now fanciful needle- cases, and thimbles, and tobacco-stopjDers for his friends, or else fashioning marquetry-work, or buhl work-tables, or mounting fire-screens for the more favored ladies of his acquaintance. Rational Animal No. 14. And after this the boy would be introduced to some experimental chemist, and find this strange specimen of humanity surrounded with retorts, alembics, stills, crucibles, and furnaces ; gasome- ters, theraiometers, and pyrometers ; together with specific-gravity scales and acetometers, ba- rometers, hygrometers, and eudiometers ; blow- pipes and test-tubes ; electrifying machines and magnets ; and, indeed, such an infinity of necro- mantic-looking apparatus, that made little Ben regard the proprietor of the laboratory more as sorcerer than sage. 220 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Then here the youth would learn that the grand object of life and study was to separate some lump of earth, or bottle of liquid, or jar of air, into its elements, or to compound some new body out of the diiferent kinds of matter existing in the world. Here he was told that the pursuit of truth for truth's own sake was the noblest thing in life; that poetry was mere prettiness, and added nothing either to man's knowledge of the world in which he was placed, nor to his progress in it ; that there was a profound charm in lighting on a new discovery, or evolving some new fact or law in nature, which transcended all other forms of happiness ; that the study of the subtle forces of creation — the secret affinities of things — the strange sympathy of this bit of mat- ter with that, and its inexplicable antipathy to some other substance — the continued contempla- tion of those wondrous powers in the world, lying as they did at the very heart of the great mys- tery of nature and life, yielded a delight — the philosopher assured the boy — that at once satis- fied, enlightened, and elevated the mind. Rational Animal ISTo. 15. But scarcely had the words of the natural phi- losopher died in the little fellow's ear than he was in the studio of a young artist ; and him he found as enthusiastic about art and its glories as the philosopher had been about science, or the poet loud in his praises of poetry ; for the young paint- er spoke of the old masters with all the venera- tion of a zealot and the affection of a son. Now it was "magnificent old Michael Angelo;" then, " glorious old Rembrandt ;" and " dear old Ru- bens;" and "fine old Titian." He loved them, and worshiped them, every one, he said, with all the intensity of a woman's affection ; and when PLEASURE-HUNTING. 221 he had gone into raptures at the mere remem- brance of the special excellence of each, as the vision of their Avorks flitted one after another before his mind, he asked, " What is all art but the highest type of power in man, even as the Almighty himself is the Great Artist above all, because He is the All-powerful? Are not the works of God signal evidences of God's tran- scendent art? and is not this art the chief evi- dence we have of His transcendent power ? We, lad," he said to the boy, " are but the poor copiers of the one great work — the one grand tableau of creation, and he the Great Original ; we but the mere shufflers of the infinite varieties of form about us into new arrangements, and He the Great Inventor of all forms and figures ; we but the petty balancers of light and shade. He the great Creator of the clear and the obscure through- out the world. And while it costs us poor paint- ers inordinate pains and study to compound our colors and give luminousness to our works. He, by the mere craft of His will, illuminated His handiwork with infinite brightness in an instant, and made the lovely landscape of the new-born earth flash into a thousand difterent hues with but one touch of the wondrous pencils of light as they fell upon the woods, the fields, the mountain peaks, and the sky, for the first time of all. If, then," said the artist, " there be art in divinity, at least there must be some touch of divinity in art. " The Divine attributes," the painter went on, " are goodness, wisdom, and power, and the hu- man exponents of these qualities in the world are the clergyman, the philosopher, and the artist; but the artist transcends all. Art, for instance, must take precedence of science ; for what is all natural science but the explanation of God Al- mighty's art as seen in the works of creation, 222 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. even as all criticism is but the expounding of hu- man art as displayed in the works of man's im- agination. Human wisdom comes from experi- ence, but art is intuitive, lying in the innate 2:>er- ception of the beautiful, and the inherent faculty to render it either pictorially, musically, or poet- ically. Again, without a sense of art there could be no worship) ; for the feeling of worship comes only from the admiration and the reverence that a sense of the mighty power manifested in all objects of creation naturally begets in the mind. There is indeed," he said, " a spontaneous wor- shij^fulness naturally uj^rising from the love and appreciation of art ; for who could be conscious of standing in the august presence of a power in- finitely superior to his^wn, without a feeling of veneration for the All-powerful overshadowing and humbling his soul ?" " Did not the zealous old painters pray" — he asked — " j^ray as few pray nowadays, before they dared to try and hobble after the great creative power? and who but a man accustomed to be continually thinking of the Artist in all the works he looks upon — to have an ever-abiding sense of the prompter, as it were, behind the scenes — could contemplate nature with half the reverence in his eye and mind that a true and high artist really does ? To such a one a glorious picture is not a mere piece of prettily-colored canvas, nor a no- ble statue only an elegant toy in stone. Xo !" the painter exclaimed, with all the enthusiasm of his ardent and reverent spirit ; " the exquisite counterpart of nature hanging against the wall is to the artistic sense radiant with all the glory of the counterpart of the divinity that created it, and the marble bust animate Avith all the fine in- telligence and power of the divine spirit that made the stony bosom heave with life. Even bo PLEASURE-HUNTING. 223 the world of beauty itself, which, to the blear eyes of the vulgar, the prosaic, and ascetic, is but a prettiness, or utility, or a vanity at best, appears to the artist, who is ever thinking of the Artist in all he sees and admires, as a gorgeous, colored, and jeweled veil, through which the unspeakable grandeur of the Godhead is everlastingly beam- ing with infinite love and grace upon mankind." Rational Animal No. 16. The musician, whom the boy saw soon after- ward, discoursed nearly to the same tune, though with some slight variation. To him there was a lovely melody forever flowing through all crea- tion ; the very succession of the seasons — the passage from night to day — the revolution of the planets — the rush of comets — the stately proces- sion of the clouds — the mighty surging of the tides — the pulsing of the human heart — all this was but the latent music of the world ; for to the finely-attuned ear and mind it suggested a corre- sponding rhythm of melodious and stirring sounds, that seemed like the distant hum of the great an- gelic choir heard in the soul, even as one hears the murmuring of the waves in the shell after it has been cast out of its ocean home. There was no joy, the musician told the youth, so pure, so en- trancing, so transporting as that of music. It fell like an ethereal dew upon the fevered spirit of man, and flowed like the softest and subtlest balm into the wounds of the bruised heart. It was the manna of the mind — a kind of honeyed rain from heaven, sent down to sustain us in the wilderness of life and trouble. " What would the voice of man be without its natural tones ?" the musician inquired. " Why, words," he answered, " were the mere black and white of speech ; it was tone and expression that gave its true color to Ian- 224 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. guage. Was there not an innate and special rhythm to each particular feeling — a different key-note to almost every different passion in our souls ? Fear shrieked in discord, whereas love always lisped in music. Then the universal har- monies of things that philosophers and poets spoke so much about — what was this but the light melting into melody as it fell on Memnon's head ? All science was but the music of reason — the har- monizing of different passages from the great op- era which was forever being performed about us ; while all art was but the attempt of a few fiddlers to " render" the grand organ-peal of the universe — to give expression to some stray little bit of special beauty, that the spirit fancies it has caught up from the works of the Great Master. Every thing was music, music every thing." Little Ben was bewildered beyond utterance with what he heard. "Which was right?" he kept wondering ; " which was right ?" But, be- fore he could give vent to any thing beyond the crudest astonishment, the uncle had brought him to some fresh " rara avis" among men — some new version of life's whims and oddities. And when the boy had been taken to see trav- elers and jjhilologists ; tulip-fanciers, entomolo- gists, and meteorologists ; chess-players and phys'- iognomists (there were no phrenologists nor mes- merists in those days), old book collectors and stat- isticians, or mere fact and figure collectors ; ama- teur actors, amateur sailors, and amateur stage- coachmen as well — ay, and almost the whole army of your hobby-horse volunteers in existence, the tutor and his pupil at length returned home, fair- ly tired out with their excursions in quest of the pleasure-seekers of human life. " But, uncle," said little Ben, for the hundredth PLEASURE-HUNTING. 225 time of asking, as they sat resting their outstretch- ed limbs in front of the wood fire in the little back parlor of the candle-store, " of all the queer people we have seen, and the many queer tastes and fancies we have found them indulging in, which do you really think now is right ?" " Well, lad," answered Uncle Ben, " I look upon them all, as I told you long ago, as a lot of big- boys chasing one and the same butterfly. If they were so many puppets, Ben, with a wire up their back-bone, and pulled by some invisible hand, they couldn't be made to play up greater antics, or be more assuredly set in motion by one and the same cause." "Yes, uncle, I know," rej^lied the impatient youngster ; " but you haven't answered my ques- tion. Now, which of all the many different pur- suits we have seen is, in your opinion, the most rational ?" " Hah ! my little man," returned Uncle Ben, with a philosophic sigh, " there are so many dif- ferent roads to happiness in this life, that, unless we have the ground we are to travel over clearly mapped out before our eyes, it is difficult to say off-hand which is the shortest cut, or even the cleanest or most agreeable way to it. Unfortu- nately, too, there is no sign-post set up at the point where the different cross-roads meet to di- rect us along the right path, or to say, 'This LEADS TO misery' 'THIS IS THE EOAD TO EUIN' — 'this is the nearest way to shame' — 'this IS THE HIGHWAY TO FOLLY,' and SO on ; so that when we come to this juncture in our journey through life, and stand deliberating as to which of the many turnings we had better take, why, we may be led by an infinity of circums4:ances to strike into the wrong path, and find out, when it is too late to retrace our steps, that what we fancied at P * 226 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. starting to be a perfect palace in the distance, sur- rounded by the most extensive pleasure-grounds, is merely the poor-house, or the county jail, or some great lunatic asylum after all." " But, uncle," exclaimed the eager lad, determ- ined not to be put off, " you onicst have some opinion yourself on the matter. Which of all the persons we saw do you think, now, was going the right road, as you call it ?" "Which do 7" think — was going — the right road, lad ?" echoed the old man, with the most tantalizing tediousuess. " Is that what you want to know, Ben?" " Yes, uncle ; which do you say — which ?" the boy inquired again, as he leaned forward in his anxiety to catch the answer. " Well, then, let us see — let us see," was the sole rej^ly. CHAPTER XVII. THE RIGHT ROAD. '' Well, uncle," said little Benjamin, after a slight pause, " go on ; which is the right road, as you call it ?" "Ay, but wait a while, Ben, wait a while," said the other, as he knit his brows, and nibbled away at his thumb nail with all the vigor of a mouse at a cheese-paring, muttering to himself the while, " There's nothing like making an impression while the wax is warm." Then he suddenly looked up, half vacantly, at his nephew, and inquired, "What kind of a night is it, Ben ?" " Oh, quite fine and bright starlight, I declare," answered the boy, as he thrust his head between the curtains of the little back window. " But, THE RIGHT ROAD. 227 l^ray, what has that got to do with the right road, iiDcle?" " Yes, nothing hke making an impression while the wax is Avarm," he mumbled again to him- self; and then asked aloud, "And which way's the wind, lad ?" " The wind, uncle !" echoed the youngster, more and more puzzled ; " why, it's as near as possible due south,"Jie called out, as he went again and peeped between the window-curtains. " I can see by the smoke yonder coming out of old Mr. Brownwell's chimney. But what are you up to, uncle, eh ?" " Southerly, is it !" was the reply ; " so much the better — so much the better, for then it's sure to be warm. Give me my hat and spencer, Ben- jamin," he said, starting suddenly from his chair. " Why, you're never going out at this hour ?" exclaimed the godson, in utter bewilderment. " There, never mind, lad, but do you go and get your top-coat, and come along with me," the god- father went on. " There's no possibility of go- ing over the matter here, with that shop-bell tinkling away every minute, and the people dodg- ing continually in and out," he kept mumbling half to himself, as he stood with his arms stretch- ed out behind him, waiting mechanically for the boy to slip the sleeves of his spencer over them. And then, as he turned round suddenly, and found his nephew had never stirred from the spot, but was still staring at him in wonder as to whether he could really be serious in what he was doing, he cried out, " Why, you young rascal, I'm not going to carry you off to the prairies again, never fear ! You're a bit tired, I dare say, Ben, but Ave're not going far ; so look alive, or we shall have your father putting up the shutters before we start." 22S YOUXG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Some half hour afterward the nncle and his nephew were seated on a solitary lump of rock that jutted just above the sands on the sea-shore, scarce a mile beyond the town of Boston. The night was almost as bright as day; and liad it not been for the silvery rays of the full moon, which seemed to cover the earth with a sheet of snow, one might have fancied, from the luminousness and transparency of the air, that it was the cold blue twilight of an earfy summer's morning. The sky was frosted all over with " star-dust," and sparkled like the sea at night in the tropics with its million points of lire. Down the centre of the firmament streamed the broad phosphores- cent band of the " Milky Way," with its " fire- mist" of stars, looking almost as fine and infinite to the naked eye as the minute particles that go to make up the bloom on a butterfly's wing, and seeming as though the curtains of the heavens were parted there, and one could just catch the dazzle of the countless multitude of lights about the Godhead's throne. On either side of this, the bright figures of the more marked constellations shone out in lustrous lines, solemn as the symbols traced by the Unseen Hand in strokes of fire upon the wall; and here and there, some larger star or stray planet arrested the eye, as it was seen shining alone in the pale violet air — a little ball of white light, bright as a glow-worm in a hedge- row. Xot a cloud was to be seen; the moon, which had not long risen, hung a little above the horizon, like a big pearl upon some Indian prince's neck, and poured from out her opal urn such a flood of virgin beams that the white lustre came streaming across the ocean to the shore in a nar- row rippling rivulet of molten silver, flowing as it were through the parted waters of the sea ; THE RIGHT ROAD. 229 and as the billows fell languidly upon the beach, the very moonbeams seemed to curl over there, and then spread themselves out into a broad, shallow sheet of splendor far along the sands. The earth itself was almost as lovely as the sky and sea. Though all color had faded from the world, and Nature looked sombre as a sister of charity in her sad -colored garb — though the woods had no more tint in them than black clouds of smoke welling up out of the ground — though the roadways were white as snow-drifts with the moonlight, and the fields like plates of steel, with the cottages glistening in the beams as if they had been cut out of marble, still, what exquisite "value" did the neutral tones and half dusk of the night give to the little sjDecks of light that were seen sliining here and there in the distance, now alone from out the windows of some solitary homestead, and now thick as a swarm of fireflies from amid the haze of some far-off village ! The neighboring town of Boston itself, with the moonlight drenching its endless ridges of roofs, so that they appeared to be positively wet with the beams, and the dusky forms of the tall steeples and towers melting, spectral-like, into the cold gray background of the sky, was indeed a noble sight at such an hour. The million window- panes were like so many squares of burnished gold with the multitude of the lights in the houses, and these were reflected in the tide that washed the peninsular pedestal of the city, so that the water seemed a-blaze with the long bright streaks of fire mirrored in it ; and there they kept flashing with every ripple of the waves, till they appeared, now like so many fiery snakes diving deep into the ocean, and now like a flight of rockets shoot- ing downward in long meteor-like trails. There was hardly a sound to be heard. The ■rM YOUNG BENJAJIIN FKANKLIN. rippling of the Avaves upon the sands was as gen- tle as a summer breeze rustling through a forest. The clatter of the work-day world had ceased; the hum of the town Avas hushed ; the country- silent as a tomb. The only noises that came fitfully upon the ear were the occasional barking of some startled farm-dog far away in the coun- try, or the muffled throb and splash of some poor fisherman's oars at work in the ofting, or else the bells of the many church clocks of the town toll- ing the hour, one after another, in a hundred dif- ferent tones. " Now, my little man," said Uncle Benjamin, after he had sat for a while silently contemplating the grandeur of the exquisite scene before him, "here at least we shall be secure from interrup- tion ; and here, lapped in the very sublimity of creation, let us try and find out which is the right road to worldly happiness." The little fellow curled his arm about the old man's neck, and looked into his face, as much as to say he was ready and anxious for the lesson. " Well, then, Ben, of course you have never asked yourself how many difterent kinds of pleas- ure there are of which human nature is suscepti- ble," began the tutor. " No, that I haven't, I'm sure," was the frank reply ; " but, bless me, uncle, I should say, from the specimens we have seen, that there are as many difierent pleasures as there are men in the world, for each person we visited seemed to find enjoyment in almost the very opposite pursuit to that of his neighbor." " Ay, my son ; but those you saw," said Uncle Benjamin, " were each a type of a large class in life. I showed you, purposely, but one member of each different order of characters among man- kind. But had we, instead of picking our way Air ! (<' 1 UNCLE LLN ^0*^TS OLT THi. EIGHT EOAl) TO V\01iDL\ UAPPINESS. THE RIGHT KOAD. 233 throngli the town, gone regularly on from house to house, you would have found that there are many misers in society like the one we saw, and a whole multitude of drunkards differing but little from the individual drunkard we visited, as well as a host of poets, and a large family of gluttons, philosojDhers, and fops, besides innumerable sports- men, musicians, amateur mechanics, artists, and antiquaries, and that they have all, more or less, the same peculiarities and propensities as the types I introduced you to ; so that, though geog- raj^hers divide the several branches of the great human family into nations, according to the mere patch of earth they are located upon, there is, nevertheless, more difference of nature often to be found between African and African, or Spaniard and Spaniard, or even between Yorkshireman and Yorkshireman, than between miser and miser^ or drunkard and drunkard." " How strange it would be, then, uncle," re- marked the boy, smiling at his own idea, " if all the misers were made to live together, and parted off into a separate nation, as well as all the drunk- ards, and poets, and philosophers, and sportsmen, and others too. Then we should have the king- dom of Misers and the empire of Drunkards, I suppose, or Hunksland and Sotland, as they would be called perhaps — as England and Scot- land were, you know, after the Angles and the Scots ;" and the boy laughed outright at the no- tion as he said, " Wouldn't it be droll, eh ? and I'm sure it would be a much better arrangement than now, for then all of the same tastes and dis- positions would be gathered together, like one family in the world." " But you'll find out, my lad," rejoined the un- cle, "before you have lived many years longer, that ' birds of a feather do flock together^ as the 234 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. saying goes ; your drunkards liob-a-nob with their brother drunkards in the tap-room ; gluttons fra- ternize with gkittons at public dinners and feasts ; fops with fops at evening parties and balls ; schol- ars with scholars in colleges and learned societies ; sportsmen with sportsmen in the field and at bet- ting-places ; and philosophers with philosophers in scientific academies and institutes. The world is broken 11^3 into sects as much by the ' non-con- forming' of tastes as of religion, Ben, and each diflerence of creed is the same heresy to those who have a pet faith of their own. But we must keep to our point, lad," he added. " I asked you how many diflerent kinds of pleasure human na- ture is susceptible of and mind, I say ' kinds,' not species, but classes, which include a large number of difiereut varieties of pleasure within th^m." " I'm sure I can't say," the little fellow rephed, with a shake of the head ; " I can hardly under- stand the words you use, uncle." " Well, then, let me explain," continued the oth- er. "Every state into which our mind can be thrown must be either a sensation, a thought, or an emotion ; hence it follows that any pleasura- ble state of mind must be either a pleasure of the senses, a pleasure of the intellect, or a pleasure of the heart, so to speak, supposing the heart to be the organ of the emotions." " Oh ! I think I see what you mean now, un- cle," returned the youth, with considerable quick- ness, jumping as he did at once at his uncle's idea. " You would say, I suppose, that all pleas- ures must belong to one of those three kinds of pleasure ; they must be either sensual pleasures, or intellectual pleasures — or — or — what's the name for the other ?" " Moral pleasures," said the old man, " thougli THE KIGHT ROAD. 235 it is but a sorry title at best ; still, as it is the term usually applied, we will not stop to split hairs, or quibble, hke lawyers, about words." " So, then, all the different pleasures that we found the persons pursuing in our journey through the town," the lad went on saying, half to him- self, delighted now that he had got hold of some- thing like a clew to the mystery, " were either sensual, intellectual, or — or moral ones. Let me see ! let me see !" he continued, musing, " wheth- er I can make it out by myself. The drunkard's was a — a — sensual pleasure, of course, and so was the epicure's ; and the poet's was an intellectual one. Yes, of course it was, and so was the phi- losopher's too ; and the miser's was — was — what would you call the pleasure the miser found in his money, eh, uncle? It can't be intellectual; 1 should think it's sensual, isn't it ?" " No, lad ; the love of money belongs to the class of moral pleasures," was the answer. " Why, there's nothing moral about that., I'm sure," returned the pupil, with more frankness than deference to his teacher. "There is no more true morality in money- grubbing, Ben," added the old man, " than there is*profound intellect in collecting bits of old pave- ment and old tiles; and yet it is avarice that makes the one pleasure congenial to the miser, even as knowledge gives a zest to the other with the antiquary." " But avarice is greediness after money, isn't it, uncle? and if the greediness of the epicure is sen- sual, why shouldn't the miser's gluttony for the guineas be called the same?" argued the boy, who was not at all pleased to hear the passion of the old hunks dignified into a moral pursuit. " Why, my lad," answered Uncle Benjamin, *' simply because it is not the senses that enjoy 236 YOUNG BENJAMIN PEANKLIN. the money, as the palate does the food or drink, but the sordid heart that finds dehght in it. Granted the greed of the one is no more enlight- ened or refined than that of the other — for there are degrading moral pleasures as well as degrad- ing sensual ones, Ben ; but the delights of human nature are simply sensual, intellectual, or moral, I say again, according as they are enjoyed either by the senses, the mind, or the heart of man." " Oh, I understand now," responded the pupil. " But, imcle," he cried, the moment afterward, " what's the use of these grand names and nice distinctions? they don't seem to me to give a chap any real knowledge of the nature of the pleasures themselves, after all." " Well said, my son, well said !" the old man replied, as he pressed the pet boy to his bosom. " I'm glad to see you are not to be put ofi" with mere big words, Ben. But it so happens in this case that the grand terms are not simply hard names invented to confound the vulgar, but they mark distinctions which enable us to study a num- ber of different things at once — to group together a large variety of human pleasures, and thus find out what is common to all of that same kind, in- stead of our having to criticise each isolated pleas- ure successively ; so that when we have once par- celed out all the delights of mankind into the de- lights either of the senses, intellect, or heart, we can ascertain the peculiar attributes of each dis- tinct class of delight merely by attending to the peculiar characteristics of sensation, thought, and emotion in all mankind." "Ah ! I see," exclaimed the boy, thoughtfully ; "but isn't it very diflicult to find out what are these peculiar characteristics, as you call them ?" "The knowledge can be gained only by pro- found reflection and long attention to the mat- THE EIGHT EOAD. 237 ter," was the answer. " However, let us begin at once with the sensual pleasures, and see what worldly wisdom we can gather from even a cur- sory review of them, my little man." The boy again placed himself in a convenient po- sition for listening as he said, "Yes, uncle, go on." THE PLEASURES OF THE SENSES. " In the first place, then," commenced the god- father, " I should tell you that a sensation, accord- ing to the strict meaning of the term, always re- quires an external cause to give rise to it, where- as a thought has always an internal origin, being excited in the mind, in every case, by some pre- ceding mental state. For instance, this rock pro- duces in me a sensation of roughness as I draw my hand along it, and this makes me think of the texture of other rocks, and then, inwardly com- paring the one with my remembrance of the oth- er impressions, I judge what quality of stone it is by the mere touch. The external body thus ex- cites the sensation in my mind, and this inward sensation produces the thought of other bodies like it, and that thought again induces the com- parison and ultimate judgment. The first im- pression had an outward origin ; the ideas which followed it were all excited within me, the one mental state giving rise to the other." "I understand," said the attentive listener. "A sensation" — and he went over the distinction so as to impress it the better on his memory — " comes from something outside of us ; a thought is excited by something within." "Well, then, my boy," continued the other, " this being understood, of course it follows that we can have as many different sensations as we have different means of communicating with the outward world, or as there are, so to speak, dif- 238 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. ferent doors and inlets to our mind. Now, how many diflerent organs of sensation have we, lad ? You know that^ Ben, I suppose ?" " Oh yes, uncle, we have five senses, I know," replied the youth. " Let me see, wdiat are they? Seeing" (and he told them oiF, one after the other, on his fingers as he spoke), "hearing, tasting, smeUing, and feeling; yes, that's the five, all told." " True, my man," added the uncle ; " but a per- son may have many other sensations than such as come in through the organs of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. These are the five principal gates to the brain, certainly, but beyond them there is the general sense of heat and cold, as well as the several ap23etites of the body, all of which have an external origin as much as any other sensations of which we are susceptible. The gastric juice, for example, from the action of which on the stomach the feeling of hunger is said to proceed, is as much external to the mind as the soft, warm breeze which I feel now as it sweeps past my cheek." " Go on," said the boy, as the old man paused for a minute to see whether the little fellow could follow him. " And besides these, Ben," the godfather pro- ceeded, " there is that indefinite sensation which comes from the natural and genial action of every function throughout the human frame Avhen in a state of absolute health, or the sense of convales- cence, as it is termed, and which has no particu- lar organ to develop it, but arises from the fit operation of all the different parts of the system at once. Then again, lad, there is the sense we have of physical exercise, or that peculiar feeling which arises in the mind on the contraction of our muscles and play of our limbs, as well as the sense of effort that we experience when we en- THE EIGHT EOAD. 239 deavor to exert our power in any great degree. And farther, there is the sense of ease or satisfac- tion that we feel either after resting from fatigue, or on the allaying of any appetite, or the relief of any bodily pain. Lastly, there is the sense of stimulus or inordinate excitement, such as we ex- perience when the particular functions of our body are performed with unusual vigor, as upon the quickening of the circulation, or u^^on being thrown into that peculiar vivid state called mental emotion, and which seems to affect the body al- most as much as the mind. The same sense of stimulus also manifests itself in that peculiar im- pression of increased liveliness of system Avhich is usually called 'animal spirits.' And here, so far as I know, Ben," concluded Uncle Benjamin, " ends the catalogue of the distinct sensations of which mankind is susceptible." "Very good! very good!" cried the little fel- low ; " and now let me see whether I can remem- ber them all. First come the five principal sen- sations of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling; and then — let me see, how did you go on ? Oh yes ! then there is the sensation of heat and cold, and of the bodily appetites ; and after that you mentioned the sensation with the long name, you know — the sensation of— of perfect con — con — convalescence — yes, that's it; and — and — what's after that ? — don't you tell me, uncle. Oh, ay ! I've got it — of exercise and of effort; and then there is the sensation of ease or satisfaction; and, lastly, that of stimulus or — or — whatever was it you called it ? — some hard word or another, I know it was." " Or inordinate excitement," prompted the teacher. " Oh yes ; inordinate excitement, so it was," cried the boy (clapping his hands as the remem- 240 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. brance of the words started back into his brain). "Do you think I went over those pretty well, uncle ?" " Excellently, my little man ; and I am the more pleased, because the ease with which you recalled my words shows the intentness with which you must have listened to them," returned Uncle Ben- jamin, as he again fondled the little fellow, and told him, more by caresses than flattery, how de- lighted he was with his long patience. OF SENSUOUS PLEASUKE ITSELF. " Well, Master Ben," the old man resumed, "as we know the difierent sensations of which human nature is susceptible, we are now in a position to begin studying the pleasures connected with them ; for each organ of sense, I should tell you, boy, is not only capable of giving us some pecul- iar perception like those of light, heat, sound, odor, flavor, and substance, but it is also endow- ed with a fundamental capacity for conveying pain and pleasure, delight and disgust, in connec- tion with such perceptions ; and thus the light and heat, etc., which we perceive may be either painful or pleasant, agreeable or disagreeable to our feelings. Now it is with these additional or superimposed qualities that we have to deal, lad, rather than with the mere abstract percej^tions or impressions themselves." " I see," murmured little Ben. " But first let me point out to you, my son," the old man went on, " the bounty and the grace of this addition or extra endowment to our senses. The simple percej^tion of light and color only, for instance, or even of sound alone, would, it is ob- vious, have been quite suflicient for all the jDur- poses of mere sight and hearing ; but the adding of the aesthetic qualities, as they are called, the THE EIGHT EOAD. 241 making of light and color beautiful, and sound melodious to us, is surely an act of high and spe- cial benevolence — a touch of gratuitous and lavish kindness, which, as it adds nothing to the utilities of life, but is a source of some of the purest and most generous of all earthly happiness, is a signal evidence of the goodness of God to us. Again, even the institution of 25ain itself, which has so puzzled the controversialists as to ' the origin of evil,' is, when physiologically considered, merely another motive to action in man. You know I told you before, Ben, nothing can move without a cause, and that there is a reason for every one of the actions among human beings and the lower animals which are continually going on in the world. With mankind, as you have seen, the chief stimulus to action is the pursuit of pleasure; it is the sense of delight to come that generally leads men to act in this way or that. But while the love of pleasure draws us almost insensibly along by the silken cord of our innate desires to- ward that which is agreeable to us, our inherent aversion from pain makes us instinctively shun that which is noxious to us. Like the two i^oles of a magnet, the one attracts and the other re- pels, but both act toward the same end : the re- pellent force not only drives the body away, but it turns it at the same time toward the attractive one. And as the opposite poles of the magnet, when it is bent into the form of a horseshoe, so that they may both operate simultaneously, act and react on each other, and have thus more than double the power of either force singly, so, lad, with pain and pleasure ; they are but two causes instead of one to produce the same effect — a dou- ble motive power to induce us to seek the good and avoid the evils of life. Then surely if it were benevolence to make us delight in goodness, as Q 242 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. the means of drawing us by the insensible attrac- tion of our own instincts toward that which is fit and proper for us, so was it even still greater benevolence to give us a natural loathing for what is hurtful to us, and thus to create in us an invol- untary aversion from the several ills the flesh is heir to. Viewed in this light, lad, evil is the very counterpart of goodness itself, and pain the twin- sister to pleasure." " So it is," exclaimed the little fellow ; " though I must say it does seem at first sight like as if pain, misery, and want had been created by an evil spirit rather than a good one — doesn't it, uncle ?" THE PLEASURES OF THE FIA^E PRINCIPAL SENSES. "And now, Ben, primed w^ith this knowledge as to the fundamental use of pain and jDleasure in the world, we will proceed forthwith to the con- sideration of the pleasures of the senses," the god- father went on. " Well, then, my boy, as each sense has been made susceptible of a certain form of pleasure and delight, it follows, of course, that there must be as many difterent forms of sensual pleasures as there are distinct sensations in man- kind." "Ah! I begin to see now why you wanted to make me acquainted with the diti:erent sensations themselves first," ejaculated little Ben. " There are, of course," added Uncle Benjamin, " the pleasures of the five princij^al senses to be- gin with. Above all, there are the pleasures of the eye ; and these mostly consist in the natural charms of lustre and splendor, bright colors and graceful forms, and hence the delight of all na- tions in pomp, show, and dazzle, as well as gaudi- ness and gewgaws. Hence comes the love of the precious metals, as being the more pleasing to the THE EIGHT ROAD. 243 sight ; and the love of those pretty crystals call- ed jewels, as being the brightest hued and most brilliant little lumps of matter in the world about us ; hence, too, the love of fine robes, grand halls, gilt carriages, and gay liveries among the rich, as well as among monarchs and lord-mayors, and of tinsel and frippery even among chimney-sweeps ; ay, and of bright beads and peacocks' feathers among barbarous nations and savages. Nor is this all : the natural delight that even the most educated and refined feel in the contemplation of nature when decked in all the glory of summer vegetation ; in beholding the golden corn — the purple clover — the green meadows — the jeweled orchards — the bright blue sky — the snow-white clouds — the crystal waters — the sparkling fount- ains — the many-colored flowers, and the rich lus- tre of the sunlight, as well as the blanched sjol en- dor of the moonhght, and fiery fretwork of the stars — all is due principally to that wondrous palate of the eye, which makes such perceptions more or less pleasurable to the sense of vision in all mankind." " Go on, uncle, I like to hear this," exclaimed the boy, delighted with the crowd of pleasant as- sociations now called up in his mind. "Then, lad," he continued, " there are the pleas- ures of the ear, such as the warbling of the birds — the sweet plaint of the cuckoo — the rich notes of the nightingale, and the dulcet rapture of the lark ; the sound of woman's gentle and kindly voice — the laughter of infants — the murmur of the brooks — the hum of busy insect life — the buzz of the waterfall — the drone of the far-off sea — the chiming of the church bells — the ' soughing' of the wind, and even the negative delight which the same sense finds in the stillness of evening, the quietude of the Sabbath, and the solemn silence of the forest." 244 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKXIN. The boy nodded as much as to say " Proceed." "ISText we have the pleasures of the j)alate, Ben," said the uncle, " and these are made up of the sweets and fruits of the earth, and the choice flavor of spices and ' sweet herbs,' as well as the pecuhar and grateful sapid qualities of the differ- ent kinds of meat, roots, and grain that constitute our food. Besides these, too, there is the deli- cious freshness of a draught of cool and sparkling spring water — the softness of milk — the richness of wine, and the pungency of spirits. Nor should we here forget the strange perverted taste for to- bacco, which, from being loathsome even to nausea at first, becomes, if long persisted in, not only pleasant, but generates an absolute craving, as hunger does in the system. "Farther," he added, after a slight f)ause, " there are the pleasures of the sense of smell, and these are not less manifold than the others. To this sense man owes a great part of his de- light in flowers and fruits, and also his taste for the cloying luxury of artificial perfumes — the fine aroma of spices — the rich fragrance of incense ; while among the daintier charms of the same or- gan may be included the delicate natural odor of early morning — of the new-turned earth — of new-mown hay — of burning weeds — of the nutty smell of the woods, and the fresh redolence of the sea ; moreover, even the negative delights of pure air and cleanliness spring partly from the like faculty. " Again, my boy, there are the charms peculiar to the sense of touch or feeling — that sense which is confined not alone to the finger-ends, but dif- fused over the whole skin. Among these may be ranked the delight we find in softness and smoothness, as well as in elasticity or yielding- ness. It is this sense which makes man feel pleas- THE EIGHT EOAD. 245 Tire in' fine linen and velvety textures — in easy- chairs, soft couches, and beds of down ; and it is the peculiar fresh and glibsome feel of the skin in a state of perfect cleanliness that constitutes one of the main inducements to personal ablution. Farther, it is doubtlessly in the delight that the hand experiences in the palpabilities of finely rounded and gently swelling forms that lies the very foundation of our notions of beauty in lines and figures." "Now that's all the five senses, uncle," re- marked the boy, as his godfather came to a pause. " But then, you know, there's the sense of heat and cold, and the sensations of the diflerent ap- petites, and the sense of perfect what d'ye call it — perfect con — con — I never can remember that name ;" and, but for this little hitch in his mem- ory, the lad would assuredly have run through the whole catalogue once more. " Ay, boy ; but one thing at a time, Ben," cried out the uncle, who was getting anxious to bring this part of the lesson to a close. " The pleasures derivable from the sense of heat and cold are chiefly such as are afforded by warm clothing in winter, and cool, light garments in summer. It is this sense that makes a fine warm spring day so intensely delightful to us all ; this which ren- ders the sea-side, wdth its fresh, invigorating breezes, so pleasant in summer, as w^ell as the cool shady lanes of the country, and the exquisite umbrage and subdued light of the forest, so agree- able to every one at the same season. In the winter, on the other hand, the same sense makes us find pleasure in the shelter of our house and the cosiness of our own fireside ; and when the keen and stinging east wind is heard whistling without, or when the earth is white as an infant's pall with its sheet of snow, and we think of the 346 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKUN. ■wretched shoeless wanderers with nothing but their rent rags of clothes to cover them, and no roof to shelter their heads, why then, like the hypocrites of old, lad, we thank God we ' are not as one of these ;' and then our natural love of warmth makes us find a special blessing in the comforts of our own home, and the bright substi- tute for the sunshine that is glowing in the centre of our own hearth." THE PLEASURES OF HEALTH. " And now for the pleasures of the bodily ap- petites !" exclaimed little Ben, as soon as his god- father had finished with the other. "Nay, child, all in good time," was the an- swer ; " they must stand over for a while, till we come to the pleasures we experience from a sense of ease or satisfaction. The next subject is the pleasures of health, or those which arise from our sense of perfect convalescence." " Ah ! that's the word I wanted," shouted Ben, intensely pleased to get hold of it once more. " Perfect convalescence — perfect convalescence ; I won't forget it in a hurry again, I warrant." "Well, lad," said Uncle Benjamin, "the pleas- ures of health are of so indefinite aud subdued a character, that it is only when they are brought out by the contrast of a long illness that we are fully sensible of the great natural delight there is in a state of convalescence. Then, as the blood begins to tingle again softly in the veins, and to set every nerve sparkling, as it were, with the re- turning circulation, while the whole skin becomes alive with the faint tickling of its revived action — then, as the warm sunshine is felt to sink into the frame like a honeyed balm, and to pervade the body as if it were in an absolute bath of light, and the fresh breeze seems positively to play and THE EIGHT EOAD. 247 fondle with the cheeks, softly as a woman s hand, as it sweeps past them, and to breathe the very- breath of life into the frame with the refreshing fanning of every gust — then, and then only, are we thoroughly conscious of the fine sensuous de- light that health affords us. It is the same prin- ciple of contrast, again, which gives the sense of health such charms in the memories of the old — ay, and even in their imaginations, too — Avhen they behold the stout limbs, the plump and rosy cheeks, the pinky and smooth skin of hearty chil- dren, and see the little things run and frisk with all the sportiveness and springiness of lambs, and hear them laugh with the fine wild joy of utter carelessness, full of life even to overflowing, and gushing with spirits, and with every fibre of their frame glowing and quickened with the delightful enlivenment of thorough bodily sanity. Ah! tTien what would not the aged and decrepit give for one hour's enjoyment of this same sense of perfect health again !" THE PLEASURES OF EXERCISE. " Now are you going to do the pleasures of the appetites, uncle ?" inquired the boy, who seemed to be still anxious that his teacher should keep to the order which he himself had laid down. " No, lad," the other made answer ; " the next sensual pleasure I shall touch upon is the natural delight of physical exercise, though in the slight glance I have just given at the enjoyment chil- dren find in their sports and gambols I have some- what forestalled the subject. The delight of ex- ercise (apart from the charms of external nature, and that enjoyment of change of air, which al- ways serve to increase, more or less, the pleasure we find in walking or riding) — the delight of ex- ercise, I say, seems to arise principally from the 348 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 'working off' of that muscular irritability which is called ' fidgetiness' when it becomes excessive in the system. The blood, as it travels through the body, tends to irritate every fibre of the flesh and nerves, and this irritation gives the muscles a natural tendency to contract, in the same manner as if they were excited with the mere point of a pin, and hence the allaying of the uneasiness oc- casioned by the muscular irritability becomes a source of no slight pleasure to mankind. Again, in the act of exercise the whole system becomes quickened, and every function stimulated, while the health is improved as well as the spirits en- livened ; so that even were there no special de- light of its own connected with the sense of exer- cise, the mere pleasures of increased health and excitement would be sufficient to make it agree- able to us. But the delight that youths find in what are called athletic sports and games — the fine, manly pastimes of cricket, rowing, running, leaping, climbing, skating, riding, and even the more effeminate amusement of dancing — all OAve the greater part of their charms to the natural love of exercise in human nature. Again, the en- joyment of traveling (though of course the pleas- ure of seeing strange countries and customs enters largely into that kind of gratification) borrows not a few of its delights from the same sense ; and even that love of wandering, which is termed ' vagabondage' (in those who can not afibrd to pay hotel bills), may be referred to the same cause. Indeed, it admits of a great question, too, whether that high princijile of freedom, which is called ' the love of liberty,' is not part of that natural vagabond spirit in man, which, springing from an instinctive dehght in exercise, makes us averse from all restraint, and ready to burst through any impediment that may be opposed to the free THE EIGHT EOAD. 249 use of our limbs or the natural exercise of our will." THE PLEASURES OF THE APPETITES. " And now, I suppose, you're going to touch uj)on the pleasures of the a2Dpetites — ain't you, uncle ?" again inquired the youth, after another pause ; for, boy-like, he was not a little taken with the subject. " Yes, my boy, they come next," the godfather returned ; " but the pleasures of the appetites — now that we have gone over those of the palate, which gives to eating and drinking the main part of their positive gratification — are mostly of a purely negative character — that is to say, the pleasure that essentially belongs to them consists chiefly in the removal of that pain or uneasiness, and consequent craving, which is the characteris- tic feeling of the appetite itself, and in the substi- tution of a state of perfect ease and satisfaction in its stead. As I said before, Ben, if hunger had been made a pleasure, man would have sat still and starved with delight ; and as the pain of hun- ger, or want, is one of the chief ills in the world, we have here another marked instance as to the benevolent origin of what is called ' evil.' But, though our appetites, lad, have been made pains, or at least uneasinesses, and that merely with the view of exciting us to seek the things necessary to appease them, the act of appeasing them has assuredly been rendered a special delight to us ; for not only has taste been superadded to the ap- petite, so as to make the food agreeable to the palate, but the feehng of satisfaction, ease, and contentment, which follows in the mind immedi- ately the craving is stopped, has been rendered one of the most tranquil and yet enjoyable states of which our nature is susceptible. Indeed, the 250 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. delight that all men find in a sense of ease and satisfaction is j^erhaps one of the strongest ' cues to action' in human nature ; for not only does this pleasurable state of negation from pain or uneasiness immediately succeed in the mind on the allaying of the craving of the bodily appetite, but it follows every other state of bodily or men- tal disquietude that man can suffer, and makes the sense of relief from physical torture as intense a pleasure as any in life. The sense of effort, for instance, I have before told you, is always irk- some, and hence the uneasiness of what is called hard labor; and this is what all the world is en- deavoring to escape from, and ultimately settle down into a state of ease and comfort in their old age. No man in existence likes work, though there is a cant abroad that industry is pleasant ; for work is essentially what is irksome, whereas, directly the work becomes pleasant, it is ' play' or * amusement.' But man must work, as I said, to live, and all prefer even the irksomeness of toil to the agony of starving, while most men put up with the uneasiness of their present labor and strife for the purpose of acquiring the means of future ease and rest. But effort is not only irk- some, lad, even when exerted in a slight degree, but it is absolutely painful when prolonged to a great extent ; and it is always fatiguing when long sustained, and ultimately is overpowering. ISTow it is this sense of fatigue which invariably follows any long-continued series of efforts that makes the ease of rest and repose a source of intense de- light to the weary. You yourself, Ben, remember how you enjoyed your bed after that long pull at the sculls, when we were becalmed in the offing yonder ; and every one who has felt the fatigue of a very long walk, and known what it is to have every muscle positively sore and tender with the THE EIGHT KOAD, 251 protracted exertion — the limbs stiff and cramped, and the joints seeming to grate against the bones with every bend — knows also that there is per- haps no luxury in life like rest. To many a la- borer, lad, who is forced to be working hard all the week, and to whom even the sleep of the se'nnight is insufficient to take the crick out of his back and aches out of his arms, the Sabbath is often a sabbath of mere bed, or, at least, a large slice of the enjoyment of the blessed day of rest with such people consists in a sleep in the fields. But not only does the natural delight in ease," he went on, " show itself in this way among the poor and hard-working portion of society, but the same principle is also strongly developed in the rich and indolent members of every community. It is this love of ease that makes your fine folk de- light in carriages, so that they may be dragged along through the air rather than be put to the exertion of walking ; and it is the same feeling which makes them delight in a retinue of serv- ants, to save them the trouble of doing the least thing for themselves. Again, the nice charm there is in what are called the ' comforts' of life derives its pleasure from the same source, for such comforts are but the means of removing cer- tain little household uneasinesses ; and the very delights of home itself may be referred to this same love of ease and quietude. To every En- glish heart, home and comfort are the main en- joyments of life, and yet it is but the love of ease and quietude that makes the peace and cosiness of our own hearth so acceptable after the day's labors, the day's cares, and the day's hubbub. And, finally, it is this very love of ease, rest, and tranquillity that makes the tired pilgrim through life (when the limbs are aching with their long journey, the back is crooked with the heavy load 252 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. of years, and the ear is deaf with the noise and strife of the world) sigh for the long rest and sweet repose of heaven itself — the peaceful home of the spirit — the blessed comfort of the soul." THE PLEASUEES OE PHYSICAL EXCITEMENT. " And nQW," said the little fellow, " you've got to do the pleasures that come from what d'ye call it ? — that other long word you used." "Inordinate excitement, Ben," added the old man. " Yes, my boy, and these will not take us long to specify, for I have already, while speaking of the deUghts of health and exercise, pointed out to you how large a share of those pleasures are due to the increased stimulus given by them to the circulation, as well as to every function of the body. There is, of course, a strong physical en- joyment in feeling the blood go dancing through the veins, and in having a fine glow of new life, as it were, diffused throughout the entire frame ; to be conscious of a new vigor being infused into every fibre, and a fresh energy thrown into every limb ; to find the animal spirits suddenly rise and gladden our nature, like a burst of sunshine upon the earth ; to see the mist of the megrims grad- ually melt away from before the eyes ; to have bright and happy thoughts coAie bubbling up, one after another, into the brain, and feel the heart flutter with the very thrill of the invigo- rated system. Every one delights in the gentle excitement of cheerfulness as much as they dislike the wretched depression of melancholy — or ' low spirits,' as it is called ; and it is the sensual charm which is to be found in a state of increased bodi- ly excitement that leads your drunkard and your opium-eater to fly to potions and drugs as a means of producing it, while the gourmand, Avhose stom- ach and palate have grown dull and dead from THE EIGHT EOAD. 2M long indulgence in the highly-seasoned food of epicurism, resorts to the strong stimulus of sauces, spices, and shalotes, Cayenne, curries, and 'devils,' as the means of stinging his overworked gusta- tory nerves into something like liveliness. It is the more remarkable, too, that it is only with weak and diseased appetites and natures that such stimuU or inordinate excitements are required. The drunkard, whose stomach is jaded and spent with the continued goading of his ' drams,' must have a 'relish' — some salt, savory snack — before he can bring himself to touch any solid food ; the sick person, recovering from a long illness, is al- ways more or less squeamish in his taste, and re- quires the little that he does take to be cooked in some peculiarly dainty manner, in order that the rare delicacy of the dish may ' tempt' him, and so serve as a gentle stimulus to his flagging appetite. The same delight in excitement, indeed, prevails in every one of the sensed. The eye loves the ex- tra vivid impressions produced by the contrast of opposite colors — the juxtaposition of black and white, red and green, for example ; and even the natural antipathy we have from darkness, and the desire to revel in a ' blaze of light,' have their or- igin in the same tendency to delight in unusual vividness. To this principle, too, may be referred the charm we find in the solemn grandeur of the thunder-storm: in the instantaneous flash that lights up the whole heavens and the earth at once, and then suddenly leaves it in pitchy darkness ; in the unnatural stillness that reigns throughout all nature before the storm, to be broken at last by the wild clatter of the thunder-burst, that seems like the roar and tremble of an earthquake in the heavens themselves. These are not only the brightest and loudest eflects in the world, but contrast serves to render them even brighter and 254 YOUXG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. louder than they naturally are. Again, lad, in the sports and games of youth, it is the excite- ment of the play that lends as great gratification to the amusement as even the exercise itself." THE PLEASURE OF HABIT. " And now you've done, uncle, haven't you ?" said the boy, as the old gentleman came to a pause. " Not quite, my lad," the other made answer, " for there is still the sensual pleasure of habit to be mentioned in order to complete the catalogue. This pleasure, again, like those of health, exer- cise, ease, and excitement, has no particular organ to which it can be referred, but it is rather a de- light that admits of being connected with any or all of the more special sensations themselves. Of the strange pleasures which habit has the power of developmg in us — of its power to transform what is naturally irksome and even painful into delights, and to change aversions into propensi- ties, I have before spoken. I have pointed out to you that all which is required to work this mar- velous change is long-continued repetition, and that, too, at frequent and regular intervals ; but the change once wrought, the pleasure we derive from the object or practice to which we have be- come habituated is, perhaps, as great as any of our natural enjoyments. For instance, there is no doubt that the taste, and maybe even the smell of tobacco, is innately repulsive ; and yet, let any one persevere in the use of it — let him continue either smoking, chewing, or snuffing it, and after a time habit is sure to set in, and transform the instinctive loathing into a cultivated longing — the natural abomination into an artificial delicacy. It is the same with the eating of opium and the drinking of neat spirits. With the muscular ac- THE EIGHT ROAD. 255 tions of the body, again, as well as the objects of the senses, the same principle of transformation holds good. You have already been told how the irksomeness of labor, Ben, can be converted into a comj^arative pleasure by habit, and it now only remains for me to draw your attention, lad, to some few other j)leasures of the same kind. Tlie pleasure of exercise, we all know, is so much increased by the habit of walking daily, that per- haps the chief punishment in imprisonment lies in the mental and bodily irritation which is felt when indulgence in the habit is prevented. Again, as I said before, there is pleasure even in whittling or paring sticks with a sharp knife, as you see the people continually doing in this part of the world; and, indeed, the simple habit in children of biting the nails produces so strong a desire to continue the practice that their hands have occasionally to be muffled, or their arms straj^ped behind, to pre- vent them indulging in the practice. Farther, there is the well-known story of the barrister, who always kept twiddling a piece of string when he was pleading, and who could be most eloquent while habitually engaged in unraveling the twine, but who couldn't get a word out if some wicked wag only stole the string before he began his ad- dress to the jury. Nor is this all ; so strong a hold does habit lay upon the mind, that the na- tional customs of a country are often as much re- vered as even the national religion itself; and not a few revolutions have been caused by the at- tempts of rulers to alter the habits and ceremonies of a people. There, now I have done, Master Ben," added the uncle, " and given you, I believe, a full list of the purely physical pleasures that our nature is capable of enjoying." 256 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEAKKXIN. THE result: the business of life. "Thank you, nncle," said the lad, as he rose from the rock on which he had been seated ; " and now, I supi^ose, we can go ;" for, to tell the truth, though little Ben was a good listener for his years, he had almost had enough lecturing for one sitting. " Go, boy !" echoed the elder Benjamin, with pretended disdain ; " why, what did we come for, you rogue ? We came. Master Ben, to put you on the right road, but as yet we haven't advanced a step. We are only staring up at the sign-post still, and haven't even decided whether it will be better to go the way the senses would lead us, or whether we shall follow the path the intellect points out, or take the road the heart would coun- sel us to pursue." " Oh, ay ! no more we have, uncle. Do you know, I had forgotten all about tliat^^ answered the frank lad, who was too little skilled in the subtleties of dialectics to be able to keep the point of the argument always in view. " Well, then, I suppose,_now that you've explained all about the sensual pleasures, you're going to show me next why they're not so good as the intellect- ual or moral ones." " I never yet gave you to understand, lad, that they Avere not as good, in their way, as the oth- ers," was the gentle reproof. *' When kej^t with- in due bounds, and held to their proper objects, there is assuredly no harm in the pleasures of the senses." " Yes ; but what are those due bounds, as you call them, uncle ?" inquired the youngster. " The bounds of nature, boy ; the bounds of the fitness of things," the teacher replied. *' See here, Ben, and mark well what I say. The three THE EIGHT ROAD. 257 main objects of life are these : business, amuse- ments, and duties. . It is the chief business of life to get food and clothing for the body ; to pro- vide ourselves and those who belong to us with shelter, and, if we can, with the comforts of exist- ence, as well as to lay by such a store as shall in- sure us the means of ease, if not affluence, in our old age. The main business of life, then, you per- ceive, lad, is merely to minister to the wants and delights of our senses, or, in other words, not only to prevent the pains and uneasinesses of the flesh, but to obtain some small share of the animal pleas- ures of existence. The addition of the feelings of delight and disgust to the mere perceptive facul- ties of the senses, Ben, I have before shown you, is a signal evidence of God's goodness to his creatures. Food is necessary only to reinvig- orate the body and allay the pains of appetite. No other quality was required for the mere pur- poses of continued animal existence ; but the Al- mighty has made food agreeable to the palate also. Light and color were all that was w^anted for vision, but He has made them beautiful as well ; sound alone would have been sufficient for hearing, but he has superadded melody and har- mony ; and it is only an ascetic bigot, therefore, who is insensible to the bounty of God's benev- olence in the world, that believes he is leading a righteous life in shunning all the graceful charms of sentient nature." The boy stared with astonishment to hear his half-Puritan godfather give vent to such senti- ments, and inquired, " Then why, uncle, were the epicure and the drunkard such oflfensive charac- ters?" . "Because, my lad, they ignored the stern busi- ness of life, and gave every thought of their mind, every affection of their heart, to mere animal pleas- R 25S YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. lire. That form of pleasure which, kept withm its own natural bounds, is, remember, an a/i(er-grace, they made ^iwimary pursuit of; the sensual de- lights, which have been superadded as a graceful reward after the hard business of life has been done, they made the whole and sole business of their lives ; in other words, they strove, like dunces, to get the reward while they shirked the task," was the response. " The rudest form of an- imal life, Ben," he went on, " the last link in the long chain of sentient existence, is a polype, with- out eyes, limbs, heart, nerves, or, indeed, any or- gan of sense, and hardly of motion ; a mere an- imated stomach ; a living thing that you can turn inside out, and which still goes on performing its one function of eating and drinking as compla- cently as ever ; an animate creature that is all bel- ly and nothing else. The epicure and the drunk- ard, lad, are human polypes — the 'gastropods' of mankind, whose belly is the only organ that moves them, and stirred by which, like slugs, they go crawling and slavering along through the brief term of human existence. The business of life, my son, is to get the means of living ; but the means of living are wanted not merely to tickle the palate, but to enable us to satisfy all the crav- ings, requirements, and aspirations — all the du- ties, affections, and yearnings of our nature. The grand object, Ben, is to make the business of life a pleasure, and not the pleasures of life a business." " I think I understand what you mean by the business of life now, and see why the drunkard and the epicure are not worthy people." "There is but one other point now," said the old man, " and then I have really done, my child." " And what is that, Uncle Ben ?" the boy ask- ed, as he grew a little fidgety. " Well, lad," the godfather went on, " you re- THE EIGHT EOAD. 2S9 member I pointed out to you at the beginning of the subject that our sensations all come from without ?" " Oh yes, I recollect you said that sensations always had an external cause, and thoughts an in- ternal one — those were your words, unky, dear," exclaimed the little fellow, roused by the i^ride of having an opportunity of showing how attentive he had been. " They were, Ben ; and such impressions, com- ing from without, of course do not depend upon ourselves," added the uncle. " We must go and hunt in the world for such objects as we desire to act pleasantly upon our senses. But these objects are often to be procured only by extreme labor on our parts, or at great cost, in order to induce others to part with them for our benefit. Hence sensual pleasures are always the most costly of all pleasures. The delights of the palate, for in- stance, are found chiefly in the more expensive viands, fruits, and wines, as well as the rare deli- cacies which are either brought from the farthest corners of the earth, or forced into maturity by great care and trouble at unusual seasons of the year. For the luxurious gratification of the eye, again, we need the show of superb services of plate — the dear finery of* jewels, and silks and satins, velvet and lace — the magnificence of state- ly halls, elegant furniture, and sj)lendid decora- tions — the prettiness of gay gardens, and the no- ble grandeur of parks. And it is the same with every other sense appertaining to human nature ; for the highly-prized objects of delight to each of the physical faculties are sure to be highly priced also. Indeed, the only means of sensual- enjoy- ment that we have really within our own power, and which does not require some external object for its gratification, is that of exercise ; for the 860 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. objects upon which exercise expends itself are our own limbs and the muscles of our own body. Hence the games and sports which make this physical indulgence so agreeable to men as well as youth are sources of harmless and healthful pleasure always within our grasp, and hence the very exercise of labor itself, when quickened by the excitement of will or purpose, or transformed into a propensity by long habit — of labor, which is not only necessary to our independence, and even continued existence in the world — is a fac- ulty that Hes literally at our fingers' ends, and which may be made to contribute at once to our well-being and to our happiness. Finally, I should impress upon you, my boy, that with the undue indulgence in any mere physical delight there is al- ways some peculiar bodily evil connected. Over- indulgence of the palate brings gout, dyspepsia, apoplexy, and the utter ruin of bodily health; overdrinking causes delirium tremens, softening of the brain, and the soddening, even to fatuity, of the mind. Overwork, on the other hand, pro- duces premature old age and decay; and over- ease, in its turn, begets indolence, corpulency, and positive helplessness. These, my lad, are the worldly punishments instituted by the Great Judge over all — the brands which the Almighty prints on the brows of the fools and human beasts of the world, and that are intended to whisper * Beware' in the ears of the more wise and pru- dent." " Well, then," said the little fellow, " I think sensual pleasures are but sorry pleasures after all, uncle." " They are, as I said, lad, designed to render the business of life agreeable in the end, and hence were never intended to be made the primary pur- suit of man's existence ; and those who wrest THE RIGHT EOAD. 261 them from their true pm*pose, and seek to trans- form them into amusements, must suffer for their folly. If men have no want of food, and Avill yet eat for the mere pleasure of eating some savory dish, they not only lack the natural relish of food, but they break a natural commandment, which ordained that hunger should stir men to seek food, and that the pleasure of eating it should be the reward of getting it. And the breach of this natural commandment brings, sooner or later, its own peculiar natural punishment — bodily enfee- blement instead of strength and vigor — injury rather than well-being — suffering and disease in the place of happiness and health." The words were barely uttered when Uncle Benjamin started as he cried "Hush! what o'clock's that?" and the sound of the big bell of the State House clock was heard booming in the silence of the night resonantly across the water. "One! two! three! four!" counted the old man, following each stroke as it burst upon the air. " It's nine, I'm sure, uncle," interjected little Ben. " Five ! six ! seven !" continued the other. " It must be nine," added the boy, " for we can't have been here more than two hours, and it wasn't quite seven, you know, when we started." "Eight! nine!" Uncle Benjamin kept count- ing as the other talked, and then, holding up his finger as he reckoned the ninth stroke, he waited for a moment or two, and at last shouted out, as he rose hastily from his seat, "Ten! as I'm a living sinner. Come along, Ben, come along; we shall have them all in bed before we get home, I declare." YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. CHAPTER XVni. THE NEXT TURNING. The following night the same couple were seat- ed on the same lump of rock, looking at the same bright moon and stars, and engaged in solving the same subtle problem, "Which is the right road through life ?" " Now, then, Master Benjamin," began the good-natured old tutor, as freshly as if he ij^ere never tired of counseling his little godson as to how to live a righteous and sober life, " we have seen where one of the roads leads to ; we have learned that if we follow the path of mere sensual pleasure we must expect to pay heavy tolls and taxes by the way, and shall come to only disease and anguish at the end. So let us take a peep down the next turning, and see what looms in the distance there." " The next turning, as you call it, uncle, looks like a nice, quiet, shady lane to me," remarked the pupil, only too pleased to carry out the figure. " It's the path of intellectual pleasure, isn't it ?" " It is, my son," the other answered ; " and as the main object of the business of life is to stay the cravings and relieve the uneasinesses, as well as to contribute to the natural delights of the senses, so, with the amusements of life, intellect- ual pleasure is, or should be, more directly con- nected. The physical word for amusement, Ben, is recreation ; and a fine term it is, as expressing that re-enlivenment and reinvigoration of the ja- ded powers of body and mind which come from mental diversion. Enlightened amusement is THE NEXT TURNING. 263 really mental refreshment — a cooling draught from a shady spring, that sobers and revives the soul after the heat of the work-day world far more than any of the fiery stimulants which the senses delight in. I told you, lad, you remember, when treating of the sense of effort, that it was always irksome, occasionally painful, and, if long- continued, fatiguing, and ultimately overpower- ing, for us to take any severe exertion. Now the natural means of removing fatigue is by rest ; for the sense of weariness, which oppresses the limbs after protracted labor, is merely the Almighty's voice whispering ' Hold ! enough !' and warning us not to overtax the powers He has conferred upon us ; and when this weariness sets in, the craving for rest which he has implanted in us tells us that mere repose alone is sufficient for the re- cruitment of the spent animal strength and spir- its. But the change' that rest produces in the frame passively^ amusement, or mere diversion of the mind from the laborious pursuits, brings about actively. The action of diversion recreates and reinvigorates as much as positive inaction or re- pose, and hence amusement after the day's busi- ness and labor have been done is as healthful as rest itself — ay, and as necessary too, for the res- toration of that elasticity of energy — that spring of body and mind — which is requisite for the doing of the business and labor of to-morrow." Little Ben was delighted to learn the philoso- phy of amusement, for, boy-like, he was quite suf- ficiently in love with recreation to be glad to hear that there was not only an excuse, but really a reason for indulging in the pleasant pastimes of life ; so he chimed in, " Yes, uncle, I've often heard you tell father that ' all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,' and now I know the truth of the saying." 264 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKXIN. " Ah ! lad, but always bear in mind the con- verse of the proverb," was the rejoinder, " ' that all play and no work makes Jack a beggar-boy.' " THE PLEASURES OF THE INTELLECT. " Well, Ben, with this little preface," the uncle resumed, " we now pass on to consider the sev- eral intellectual pleasures themselves. To each intellectual faculty of our nature, then," he be- gan, "there is, of course, some special associate mental delight attached, in the same manner as there is some peculiar kind of animal pleasure connected with the various organs of Sense ; and I might proceed with this part of our subject by explaining to you, in due order, all the particular pleasures of the memory — the pleasures of the imagination — the pleasures of the judgment — the pleasures of reason — the pleasures of art — the pleasures of abstraction, and so on. But this mode of procedure would convey to you, compar- atively speaking, but little knowledge as to the mainsprings or sources of such pleasures, and I want to give you a deej^er insight into your own nature, my child, than comes of mere classifica- tion or orderly arrangement. I want to let you see that the general capacities for enjoyment in man are really the same in the intellect as in the senses themselves, and that the only difference is, that with the various forms of mental delight the pleasure comes in through the operation of the thoughts, while in the various kinds of animal delight the gratification enters through the action of some organ of sensation. Now, lad, let me hear whether you can enumerate the different kinds of sensuous pleasure of which human na- ture is susceptible, over and beyond those which belong to what are called the five senses, and also that of heat and cold, for these we have done with." THE NEXT TUENING. 265 Young Ben put his head to one side, and rub- bed away at his scalp as hard as a cat does occa- sionally at its ear, as he exclaimed, " Let me see ! there's the pleasure of the sense of perfect conva- lescence ; I remember that, because of that plaguy hard word. And then there's another one, with a long-winded title, too, but he comes at the last, I know ;" the boy went on talking away, as he tried to recall the sensations in the -order his un- cle had gone over them. " Oh yes ! then there is the pleasure of exercise, and the pleasure of ease and satisfaction ; and then comes Mr. Crack- jaw, and he's called the pleasure of — of — don't you tell me now — of — inordinate excitement. Yes, that's it !" he added, as the thought came out with a pop, like the cork from a bottle of soda-water. " Oh ! but wait a minute," he cried, as he saw his uncle still looking at him, as much as to say he had forgotten something — " and then there's the pleasure of habit as well." "Bravo, little man, bravo!" cheered the old boy, for really the uncle was as pleased with the feat as the little fellow himself. "And now, omitting the pleasures of health, I want to show you, Ben, that we find the same delight in mental exercise as in the exercise of our bodies; the same pleasure in the satisfaction of our minds, and freedom from any state of mental uneasiness, as in the allaying of any bodily craving or un- pleasantness ; the same gratification in vivid thoughts and perceptions as in extra-lively sensa- tions and bodily stimulants ; and the same enjoy- ment in the indulgence in particular habits of thinking as well as feeling." "How strange!" murmured the lad; "but I can't see how you'll ever make it all out, though." " The delights of exercise, satisfaction, inordi- nate vividness, and habit," continued the god- 266 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. father, " are as strongly marked in the mind as in the body; and as the corresponding physical impressions appear to come in through no special organ of sense, but to be impressions that admit of being associated with all or any of our physical faculties, so the capacity for these kinds of pleas- ure would seem to be general capacities that are capable of being united to the operations of the mind as well as that of the senses, and to be the means of enjoyment, as it were, underlying all our bodily and mental powers at one and the same time." THE PLEASURES OF MENTAL EXERCISE. " Let us begin with the pleasures of mental ex- ercise." The lad nestled up close to his godfather, and, curling the old man's arms about his neck, ar- ranged himself in a comfortable j^osture for list- ening. " The principle of the ' association of ideas,' as it is called," commenced the tutor — "that prin- ciple by which thought is linked with thought in the mind, and which causes conception after con- ception, and remembrance after remembrance to keep on forever sweeping through the brain (like the endless procession of clouds across the sky, or the interminable succession of waves over the sea) is the principal means by which the mind is moved from object to object, and made to appear, even to the individual himself, to pass through a series of images and recollections rather than the images and recollections seeming to flit success- ively through it. It is this movement of the mind, this transition from one state to another, which corresponds with that gradual change of place and play of limb which is termed exercise in the body ; and as we are conscious of a continued THE NEXT TURNING. 26T action going on within our physical system every time we move our muscles (apart from the mere sensations of the flesh), so are we sensible of the same kind of action perpetually occurring within us during the process of mental exercise. Indeed, as our limbs move, whether voluntarily or instinct- ively, only in answer to some preceding fiiental state, it is probably nothing more than the suc- cession of these difierent mental states — the con- tinued acts of volition or series of instinctive im- pulses felt in the mind — that impresses us with the sense of bodily exercise itself. "Well, lad," Uncle Benjamin went on, after a brief pause, " having now settled that the sense of exercise is one and the same feeling, whether the action be in the body or mind, let us pass on to the enumeration of the mental pleasures which proceed from it. That there is a natural charm in the mere exercise of the mind — in the contin- ued gradual transition from one mental state to another — is shown in the delight that is generally felt in indulging -in those kinds of ideal pano- ramas, those long trains of flitting fancies, that pass half-pictured before the 'mind's eye' even in our waking moments, and which are termed ' day-dreams,' or ' reveries,' or ' wool-gathering.' Again, the pleasures of contemplation and medi- tation — of ' brown studies,' as they're termed — are due to the same principle ; and so is the de- light that some find in planning and inventing, and even in building what are called ' castles in the air.' Indeed, any mental process that excites thought after thought readily and steadily within us produces (as the ideas keep sweeping through the mind) a kind of mellifluence, as it were, in the brain, that is essentially agreeable to our nature. Again, the pleasures of conversing, discoursing, and reading may be all referred to the like cause ; 268 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. for, apart from any special charm there may be in the different ideas thus introduced into the mind, there is a dehght in the mere mental occupation and exercise that such acts afford us. Farther, it is in the suggestiveness of certain subjects and ideas, as well as of certain objects in nature, and consequently in the exercise they afford to the mind, that a great part of natural and artistic beauty inheres. It is also on account of this sug- gestive property that keepsakes, relics, heir-looms, portraits, and mementoes generally, make up the most highly-prized portion of every person's treas- ure, serving, as they do, to revive or recall a long train of happy associations in connection with some beloved object, and that with a vividness and force that mere memory, without some such sug- gestors, could not possibly attain. For the same reason, the favorite old haunts of former days, or the birthplaces or residences of the illustrious dead, and the ruins of ancient countries, castles, or abbeys, are objects of more or less beauty in the eyes of every one, and they are so principally for their power of suggesting to us the thoughts of all the glory of the times connected with them. Again, many of our mental pastimes are sources of pleasure only as affording exercise, or acting as springs of suggestion to the mind. This is the case especially with the light amusement of rid- dles, and those tantalizing charms called ' puzzles.' Moreover, many forms of wit — the wit of innuen- does and inferences, for instance — derive their de- light simply from this principle of mental exercise, i. e., by leaving the mind to suggest the thought intended to be conveyed. Thus, in the old joke, we are told that a townsman said to a country- man, who was leaning listlessly over a gate, that he looked as if he couldn't say * Boh to a goose ;' whereupon the chawbacou shouted ' Boh' at the THE NEXT TURNING. 269 other in reply. Now in this * lively sally,' as it is called, it is obvious that the liveliness lies not alone in the readiness of the retort, but in the sly way in which it suggests to us that the townsman is one of the silly old birds that are sometimes caught by chaff. So, too, in the anecdote — " " Yes, uncle, that's right," interposed little Ben, who was still chuckling over the relish of the last jest, and all agog with delight at the prospect of another anecdote. " Go on : isn't it prime, that's all!" " In the anecdote, I say, lad, where a would-be witty officer is said to have asked a Roman Catho- lic priest why the papist clergymen were like donkeys, and to have answered, when the priest * gave up' the riddle, ' Because they all had crosses on their backs ;' whereupon the sly old papist, who was determined not to be outdone, demanded in his turn whether the soldier could tell what was the difference between a military officer and a jackass ; and on the other shaking his head, and saying he ' couldn't see it,' the priest added sim- ply, ' No more can I !' — in this anecdote, I repeat, we have another illustration of the same kind of suggestive wit, namely, in the sly inference of the priest that he couldn't see any difference between the two creatures." " Oh, I take it now !" exclaimed the lad, thump- ing the air with his fist as his godfather threw in the explanation. " Th^ priest was a sly rogue of a fellow, wasn't he, uncle ?" the boy added, while he rolled about, and went into such convulsions of positive horse laughter that the chuckle sound- ed very much like a neigh. "Ay, Ben ; and the delight you find in such sly roguery shows you the pleasure there is in sug- gesting or inferring rather than saying what we have to say, and thus leaving it to the mind to 270 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. take up the sense by some act or exercise of its own. In irony, moreover, the very opposite is said from vrhat is meant to be understood, and the true sense implied only by the tone and man- ner of saying it, as when I call you ' a young rogue' and ' a little rascal' by way of endearment, Ben" (and, as the old man uttered the words, he shook the pet boy playfully by the ear). "In poetry, also, the like principle of suggestion is often made to act as a stimulus to the imagina- tion, and to give by such means a high beauty to the art. Slilton, for instance, in speaking of death, says very finely, " 'And on what seemed a head he wore a crown.'* "Indeed, a hundred such examples of the beau- ty of the suggestive principle in art might be giv- en ;f so that there can be no doubt, Ben, that exer- * The same beauty of the suggestive principle in pictorial art is shown in shrouding with the hands the features of fig- ures in extreme grief; while in musical art, Beethoven's pastoral symphony, and Gliick's overture to "Iphigenia," and Mendelssohn's "Midsummer Night's Dream," are illus- trious instances of the suggestivity of the works of the high- est composers. t The three most suggestive poems, perhaps, in the En- glish language are Wordsworth's "We are seven," Cole- ridge's "Ancient INIariner," and Edgar Poe's "Raven ;" and they may be said to take precedence as to beauty in the or- der in which they are here set down. The little unadorned gem of Wordsworth is assuredly the finest thing of the kind ever penned. The opening prelude, as to the great mystery of death to a little child, and then the exquisitely-innocent and touching manner in which the wee thing numbers the dead brother as one of the family still living, and the sweet, tender, and yet profound grace of the recurring burden " We are seven, " is such a masterly opening-up of the highest su- pernatural speculation, in connection with the simplest and prettiest little bit of nature conceivable, that the mind, after reading the verses, oscillates between the tender and inno- cent rustic beauty of the child, and the mystic, shadowy sub- limity of death, rapt in a profound day-dream of delight and THE NEXT TURNING. 2T1 cise of the mind is as grateful as that of the body ; and that whatever serves to stir the thoughts, wonder. How different, on the other hand, and yet how grand, is the weird, curse-like tone of Coleridge's preternat- ural ballad ! It wants the gentle beauty of Wordsworth's little morsel to charm us, but it has, at the same time, an al- most Shakspearian power about it to awe us. Coleridge car- ries the terror and grandeur of nature to the very verge of the imagination. He takes the mind, as it were, to the far end of the earth and ocean — to the edge of the great preci- pice, and gives us just a peep of what lies beyond ; he lets us look down, so to speak, into the dizzy well of infinite space. But Wordsworth lifts us above all natural things. The spirit flies with him away out of space altogether, and is lost in the lovely dream-land of the immaterial world to come. We are set thinking of the angels, and listening to angel music, by the innocent words of one who seems like a little earth-angel herself. Edgar Poe's poem, on the con- trary, derives its force from its overcasting the mind with a totally different feeling. There is a fine haunted sense left upon the soul after reading it. We have an oppression of fatalism, such as loill come upon us (despite all our philoso- phy) after reading about death-fetches, omens, forebodings, and ugly dreams that seem to have been fulfilled. Never- theless, despite the fine suggestions induced by the American poet, the poem itself is very thin and feeble after Coleridge's noble imaginative work, and does not admit of being com- pared for a moment with Wordsworth's graceful cherub strain. I have heard great musicians (such as my old friend and teacher, John Barnett) say, that the peculiar charm of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony is its wonderful suggestivity also ; that it lulls the finely-attuned musical mind into a pas- toral reverie, as it were, carrying it away, and lapping it in the very bosom of nature itself — now in the fields, now in the woods, and now by the brook side — and yet lighting it up softly with that reverent tone which the contemplation of Nature in her quietude, or even in her grandeur, always in- duces. Mr. Dickens has often recourse to the suggestive form of wit, or making a part stand for — or rather convey a sense of — the whole, to produce some of his happiest effects. Sam Weller's well-known description of the inmates of the White Hart Inn in the Borough, by the boots he had to clean, af- fords us as graphic a picture of the persons staying in the tavern as an elaborate painting of the characters themselves.. 272 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKXIN. and give play to the faculties within us, tends to gladden and inspirit us as much as the movement ''There's a pair of Hessians in 13," said he, in answer to an inquiry as to what people they had in the house ; ' ' there's two pair of halves in the commercial ; there's these here painted tops in the snuggery inside the bar, and five more tops in the coffee-room, besides a shoe as belongs to the icoocl- en leg in No. 6 ; and a pair of Wellingtons, a good deal worn, together with a pair of lady's shoes, in No. 5." Again, the Shepherd with his "Wanities," and Sam's in- quiry as to which " partickler wanity he liked the flavor on best,'' is another happy illustration of the intellectual charm that lies in the suggestive process of wit or humor. " 'Wot's your usual tap?' asked Sam of the red-nosed gentleman. "'Oh, my dear young friend,' replied Mr. Stiggins, 'all taps is vanities.' " 'Well,' said Sam, 'I dessay they may be, sir ; but vich is your partickler wanity. Vich wanity do you like the flavor on best, sir?' " ' Oh, my dear young friend,' replied Mr. Stiggins, ' I de- spise them all. If,' said Mr. Stiggins, 'if there is any one of them less odious than another, it is the liquor called rum — warm, my dear young friend, with three lumps of sugar to the tumbler.' " — Pickivick Papers, p. 376. Fai'ther, the wooden leg alluded to by Mrs. Gamp is an- other fine graphic use of the same figure. "As to hus- bands," says the monthly nurse, "there's a wooden leg gone likewise home to its last account, which for constancy of walking into wine-vaults, and never coming out again 'till fetched by force, was quite as weak as flesh, if not weaker." There is good, strong, humorous painting in the above ex- amples, though perhaps the touches are those of the ten- pound brush of the scene-painter rather than the delicate Shakspearian strokes — the fine sharp lines of the tnie artist. Nevertheless, it is preposterous for a class of critics to pre- tend that the author of "Pickwick," "David Copperfield," and "Martin Chuzzlewit" has no claim to serious considera- tion as a writer of fiction. The man who has created Sam Weller, Old Weller, Mrs. Gamp, Squeers, Pecksniff, Skim- pole, and a host of other beings — that are as real to every reader throughout the country as their own friends and ac- quaintances, and, indeed, in many cases better, and more in- timately known, even, than one's own relatives — is surely worthy of all acknowledgment as the Shakspeare of carica- THE NEXT TURNING. 2T3 of our limbs themselves. To the delight of mere mental exercise, then, may also be referred the .charm that all find in mere change or variety. This love of change, indeed, is so marlajed a feat- ure in human nature, that it is perhaps the most active of all principles within us. It is this which in the long succession of ever-shifting scenery, characters, and circumstances, constitutes the great enjoyment of traveling; this which makes th^ revolutions of the seasons, the passage from night to day, the ever-varying aspect of nature throughout every minute indeed of the same day, give such lively beauty to the external world. What an exquisite charm, for instance, is there in the contemplation of the continued flitting of the clouds and the moving shadows upon the earth and water ; the bright bursts of sunshine, turists. Let the reader mentally contrast the Nurse in "Ro- meo and Juliet" with Mrs. Gamp — old Weller with FalstafF — his son Sam with the fool in "Lear" — or Pecksniff with Malvolio, and he will understand why the distinction is drawn. If Mr. Dickens had been but wise enough to eschew the fatally-facile trick of sentiment ; if he had never written the profound rubbish of "The Chimes," nor the fatuous drivel of the "Cricket on the Hearth," nor the Adelphi rhodomontade of the "Tale of Two Cities," et id genus, he would, beyond doubt, have been as great a literary genius, after his kind — as fine a painter of the broadly-marked char- acteristics of human life and out-of-the-way places — as En- gland has seen for centuries. He, however, has too strong a dash of the "real-domestic-drama" blood in his veins to al- low himself to do himself even common justice. What is true and good in his nature he must forever be marring by aflecting what is false and fustian in dramatic art. If he had only left the " Terry and Yates" preparatory school, and finished his education at the Shakspearian University, as- suredly he might have taken honors as a "double first." One always feels inclined to say to the indiscriminate ad- mirers of such a man what Rousseau told the friends who were lauding the ' ' collected edition" of his works to the skies, *' Ha ! they should see the books he hadn't written," S 274 TOUJSTG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. and the sudden overshadowing of the land ; the endless trooj^ing of the waves on and on toward the shore, and the everlasting curling and dash of the billows, one after another, upon the beach ; the capricious shifting of the swallow's flight, forked and swift as lightning ; the ceaseless whirl of the wind-mill sails, with their long shadows, coursing each other upon the sunny greensward below!" " Go on, uncle, go on ; I like this very mucR," interposed the youth, growing pleased himself with the rapid change of thought. " The continued pulsing of the water-wheel," resumed the old man, " with the white foam of the mill-sluice forever tearing along, like a drift- ing snow-wreath in the dark shade of the over- hanging trees ; the headlong little brook, with the water scrambling along its rugged bed, and curl- ing like liquid glass about the edges of the op- posing rocks and stones ; the waterfall, forever descending in long pellucid lines of iridescent light, and sheets of the thinnest and purest crys- tal, and j^ounding the pool beneath into a mass of snow ; the fountain, weaving the water-threads into forms of the most exquisite beauty, and curves of the softest grace, as it showers its million spark- ling jewels into the air and on to the ground ; the rich, ripe corn-field undulating in the breeze, as if it were a lake of red gold ; the farm-cart, with its high-piled load of new-mown hay, surging and toppling as the team goes jingling along, rattling the bells upon their collars; the mist at early morn gradually rising from the earth, like the lift- ing of an angel veil ; and the fitful crimson glare of the blacksmith's forge, flashing up, with every difierent heave of the bellows, in the dusk of a winter's evening — all these, and a thousand others, derive their natural charms from that principle THE NEXT TURNING. (u which makes change or variety — the change of life and action — so grateful to the minds of all. Indeed, the mere tedium, Ben, that invariably ac- comjoanies any thing bordering on monotony ; the overpowering and insufferable weariness of one unvarying state of mind when long protracted ; of one and the same object ever before the senses ; of one eternal note continually sounded in the ear, or of one everlasting idea or subject present- ed to the imagination, as well as the innate antip- athy we have from what is called prosiness, or what is 'boring' to us, or even appears 'slow' — all this is sufficient to assure us that variation is not only a delight, but a positive craving of our intellectual nature. It is the intuitive knowledge that artists have of the charm afforded by mere change, and the tedium induced by monotony, that makes painters love to 'break up' long straight lines and large masses of color in their pictures, and to find picturesqueness in the tumble-down and weather-stained old cottages of the peasantry, as well as the shaggy coat of the jackass, and the jagged lines of rocks and ruins. So, again, in the plays of Shakspeare, Ben, the more passionate and beautiful speeches and scenes are broken uj) into a hundred fragments of different feelings, and thus they have not only a wonderful truth to na- ture (for strong emotion is ever fitful and discur- sive), but display intense art in that fine dramatic play and sparkle of the passions which is derived from the principle of transition or rapid change.* * The illustrations to which Uncle Benjamin more particu- larly alludes are the soliloquy beginning, " Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt" (where one feeling is seldom sus- tained for more than five consecutive lines, the entire speech being full of disjointed utterances and abrupt digressions, as well as parenthetical bursts of some passing passion), and the first scene of the third act of " The Merchant of Venice," where Tubal brings Shylock news of his runaway daughter, 276 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. Ah ! when I was a boy, Ben, I would much rather have seen the mummers act 'Hamlet' or 'The Merchant of Venice' over at Northampton, than have had a plum-cake any day. Farther, my boy, in the tricks and transformations of conjurors, and even in the pantomimes of the mummers, it is the curious changes produced that render such ex- hibitions so delightful to youth, while in works of fiction we are charmed by the rapid succession of incident and adventure, and the variety of character and scenes presented to the mind. In conversation, too, it is the exchange of opinion and sentiment, the cross-fire of the diflferent ideas and difierent views expressed by the difierent characters assembled, the occasionally lively rep- artee in answer to some grave remarks, that serve to make social intercourse one of the special delights of human existence.* Such are a few and also of Antonio's loss at sea, and in which the Jew is tossed about in a tempest of conflicting emotions ; one mo- ment savagely gloating over the details of Antonio's misfor- tune, and the next bursting into a phrensy at the particulars of his daughter's flight — the transitions from the one feeling to the other admitting not only of the finest dramatic ren- dering, but glittering with all the richness and lustre of the highest art. * The great master of every form of literary beauty gives a choice instance of the charm we derive from the grouping together of a large variety of circumstances in the speech of Dame Quickly, when she reminds Sir John Falstaft' of his promise to marry her, and cites a number of minute con- comitant incidents in order to overwhelm him with the truth of her assertion, and prevent the possibility of any pretense of oblivion on his part. '•'■Falstaff. What is the gross sum I owe thee? '■'•Hostess. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself, and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing- man of Windsor — thou didst swear to me then, as I was THE NEXT TURNING. 277 of the pleasures of mental exercise, lad ; and you will see by-and-by tliat as the irritability of the washing thy wound, to many me, and make me * my lady, ' thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me Gossip Quickly ? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar ; telling us she had a good dish of prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some ; whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound ? And didst thou not, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with such poor people, saying that ere long they should call me madam ? And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings ? I put thee now to thy book-oath ; deny it if thou canst." — Second Part Henry IV., Act II., Scene 1. How beautifully fit, too, are many of these little picturesque "surroundings," and how delicately are they thrown in — e.g., " the parcel-gilt goblet, " ' ' the Dolphin chamber, " " the singing-man of Windsor," "the mess of vinegar," "the dish of prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some ;" then the reference to the "wound" is a fine touch, as is the desire that she should be no more so familiarity with such poor people. But the grandest stroke of all among t]ie long list of accusa- tions lies at the end — so exquisitely true is it to Falstaff's character. ' ' Didst thou not kiss me, " adds the dame, ' ' and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings?" This is a little morsel of artistic humor that has perhaps never been equaled, and certainly never transcended. How beautifully marked and various again is the group of concomitants in Dame Quickly's description of Falstaff's death ! " 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child ; 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at the turning of the tide ; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with the flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way ; for his nose was as shai-p as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields." Here the ' ' smiling upon the fingers' ends" is a wonderful bit of death-painting ; the fumbling with the sheets, too, is finely illustrative of the state of mental vacuity at such a time ; and when all these exquisitely-artistic associations are put together — the christom child — the turning of the tide — the sheet-fumbling — the flower-playing — the finger-tip scanning — the nose sharp as a pen — and the babbling of green fields^ what play is there in the transition from one association to the other — and yet what a choice and cunning picture* it is ! 2T8 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. young muscles naturally sobers down, and the in- tellect becomes more and more developed with what fine variety in the color — still how soft and sombre the coloring ! and, above all, how truthful, and more than truth- ful, how typical the tone of the whole ! In Rabelais, again, may often be found curious grotesque instances of the amusement that is connected with the asso- ciation of a number of diverse particulars with one subject, though here the charm is more verbal than ideal, e. g. : " Master Janotus .... transported himself to the lodging of Gargantua, driving before him three red-muzzled beadles, and dragged after him five or six artless masters all thor- oughly bedraggled Avith the mire of the streets — prattling gabblers," proceeds the author, "licorous gluttons, freckled bitters (beggars), mangy rascals, lubberly louts, cozening foxes, sycophant varlets, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, idle lusks, scoffing braggards, jobbernol goosecaps, woodcock slangams, noddipeak simpletons." But the delight afforded by mere literary variety or change in the current of thought is often dexterously brought about by Charles Lamb, who was perhaps better skilled in the use of the parenthesis than any English writer that ever lived. In a true artist's hands, of course, the parenthesis, or even that modern off-shoot — the dash — is the means of what land- scape painters call "breaking up" lines and masses; it is a kind of literary "shunting," as it were, or temporary shift- ing of the train of thought on to another line, and, finely used, gives the mind one of those slight jogs or jolts that serve to Avake up the faculties, and which constitute perhaps the chief sense we have of movement in mere passive exer- cise. The following example is from Elia's "Complaint as to the Deca}^ of Beggars in the Metropolis :" "A clerk in the Bank was surprised with the announce- ment of a five hundred pound legacy left him by a person whose name he was a stranger to. It seems that in his daily morning walks from Peckham (or some village thereabouts), where he lived, to his office, it had been his practice for the last twenty years to drop his halfpenny duly into the hat of some blind Bartimeus, that sat begging along by the way- side in the Borough. The good old beggar recognized his daily benefactor by the voice only; and when he died, left all the amassings of his alms (that had been half a century, perhaps, in the accumulating) to his old Bank friend. "Was this a stoiy to purse up people's hearts and pennies against giving an alms to the blind, or not rather a beautiful moral THE NEXT TUKNING. 270 advancing manhood, the athletic sj)ort^ and games of youth pass gradually into the mental diversion of well-directed charity on the one part, and noble gratitude upon the other ? "I sometimes wish I had been that Bank clerk. " I seem to remember a poor old grateful kind of creature blinking, and looking up with his no eyes in the sun. " Is it possible I could have steeled my purse against him? "Perhaps I had no small change. "Reader, do not be frightened at the hard words imposi- tion, imposture. Give, and ask no questions: 'Cast thy bread upon the waters. ' Some have unawares (like this Bank clerk) entertained angels." The parenthesis in the last line is set like a jewel with the nicest art, serving, as the little hard bit of crystal truth does, to assure the mind that the beggar and the angels are some- what kin, Mr. Dickens, too, often uses the interposed sentence be- tween dashes very adroitly. In the following choice little bit from the "Pickwick Papers," the interjected sentence is not only finely discursive, but so exquisitely suggestive of the affected humility of the red-nosed shepherd's character as to be an admirable stroke of art. " Sam felt very strongly disposed to give the reverend gen- tleman something to groan for, but he repressed his inclina- tion, and merely asked (with reference to old Mr, Weller), 'What's the old 'un been up to now?' " 'Up to, indeed!' said Mrs. Weller; 'oh, he has a hard heart. Night after night does this excellent man — don't frozen, Mr. Stiggins ; I will say you are an excellent man — come and sit here for hours together, and it has not the least effect upon him.' " — Pickivick Papers, p. 218. Again, the little domestic interpolation as to the price of red kidney potatoes, in the evidence of Mrs. Cluppins, in the celebrated trial-scene of the same unctuous book, is a very happy touch, admirably characteristic as it is of the house- wife, and yet deliciously comic fi'om the very inappropriate- ness of the piece of household information conveyed to "my lord and jury" by the lady, who found such difficulty in "composing herself" on her entry into the witness-box. " 'What were you doing in the back room, ma'am?' in- quired the little judge. " ' My lord and jury,' said Mrs. Cluppins, with interesting agitation, 'I will not deceive you.' " ' You had better not, ma'am,' said the little judge. 280 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. of books, Aeditation, and converse; nevertheless, it is still the same love of exercise that makes the occupation delightful in both cases, for it is this which gives its special charm not only to the physical pastime, but to the intellectual amuse- ment as well." THE PLEASTTEES OF MENTAL EXCITEMENT. "What are you going to do next, uncle?" asked little Ben. " Why, next we have to explain the pleasures of mental excitement," was the answer. " But, uncle, you did the pleasures of ease and satisfaction after the pleasures of exercise last time," suggested the lad, *' and why don't you go on as you began ?" " Because, Ben, here the one subject naturally passes into the other," returned Uncle Benjamin, " and in the other case it did not. You see, the love of change — the love of those gentle and gradual transitions of mind (which are all that is meant by the term mental exercise) is intimately connected with the pleasure that we derive from the more violent alterations in the natural course of our thoughts, and such violent alterations are mainly concerned in producing that state which is called ' inental excitement.' Indeed, excitement is but an exaggerated form of exercise in the mind, and, intellectually speaking, requires only an exaggerated form of the same conditions to produce it. Ordinary change merely exercises the mind, but extraordinary transition, you will find, inordinately excites it. To produce that " ' I was there, ' resumed Mrs. Cluppins, ' onbekno^^^l to Mrs. Bardell. I had been out with a little basket, gentle- men, to buy three pound of red kidney purtaties — ivhich teas ih^ee pound tuppence ha'penny — when I see Mrs. Bardell's Street-door on the jar.' " — Pickwick Papers, p. 283. THE NEXT TUENING. 281 change or play of thought which constitutes men- tal exercise, nothing but a succession of slightly different perceptions is necessary; but to throw the mind into a state of excitement intellectually, it is essential that some widely different impres- sion, or even one that is diametrically opposite from our previous expectations, should be made upon us. Indeed, the difference must be so mark- ed as to produce a startling effect upon us ; and it is the love of these startling effects, and the pleasure we derive from the extra-vividness of the impressions produced by them, which consti- tutes the great charm that many find in the prin- ciple of mental excitement. The delight, for ex- ample, that is felt in contemplating — at a distance — the extraordinary phenomena of nature — the grandeur of the wild rage of the storm ; the con- vulsive throes of the heaving earthquake; the mighty fountain of fire poured forth by the burn- ing volcano, and the crimson cascades of liquid lava streaming, like the earth's hot blood, down the mountain sides ; the jew^eled stalactite caverns of the world, their roofs glittering with their deep fringe of pendent crystals, as though they were huge petrified icicles ; the giant caves, with their monster columnar rocks, that are like the council- halls of devils ; the immense icebergs floating in the arctic seas, and lurking there, like tremendous white bears, ready to crush the bones of any stray vessel that may chance to fall within their ada- mantine grip ; the thick daylight-darkness of the eclipse, that affrights the cattle in the fields ; the ominous-looking fire-mist of the comet ; the flam- ing dart of the falling star, that seems to streak the heavens with a line of fire as it descends ; the never-ending flood of the cataract, with its flashes of silver lightning and roar of liquid thunder — these are the natural stimulants of the innate 282 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. wonder of our souls, and which, awful as they may seem in all the terror of their reality, yet become the grandest and loveliest objects when ideally regarded by us. It is the same mental propensity that leads the more sluggish intellect- ual natures among mankind to find delight in those gross monstrosities, and Avild freaks of na- ture, which are usually found in shows at fairs, and which act as drams upon the languid current of thought and imagination among the vulgar. Again, it is the natural delight of man in wonders and marvels that makes us all, more or less, have a trace of the grandmother and the child forever stamped upon our mind; finding, as we do, a strange winsomeness in those nursery tales of giants and ogres, fairies and pixies, hobgobhns and bogies, that we hear almost in our cradle, as well as in those mystic stories of ghosts and death-fetches, presentiments, omens, and witch- ery, which are only the hazy foreshadowings of that strange supernatural life and sense which we must carry with us to our grave." " How beautiful it is, uncle ! Do you know, I fancy I can just begin to see now a little bit into my own nature ?" exclaimed the boy, in a more serious tone than he had yet spoken. " There is but little light yet, Ben," returned the old man. " At best, we are but prisoners in a dark dungeon, and we must look, and look for a long time into our own souls, before we can dis- cern any thing in the obscurity. Still, with long- looking, the mental eye becomes at last acclimated as it were to the darkness, and begins to make out first one little object, and then another. But we want the light of heaven, lad — the light of heaven! — to illuminate the insect before even the highest microscopic vision can see it clearly. We mustn't wander, however, from our purpose. iN'ow not THE NEXT TFENING. 283 only does our love of extra-vivid impressions, Ben, make us find delight in the marvelous as well as in the wonders of the world, and also in the ex- traordinary, or even strange phenomena of nature, but it causes us likewise to derive a special pleas- ure from the astonishing and surprising events and objects in life, nature, and art too. When any thing occurs or is i^resented to us that is entirely different from what we have expected, we are as- tonished / and when it comes upon us utterly un- expected, we are siirp7'isecL If any one, for ex- ample, were to come behind you at this moment in the dark" — and, as the uncle said the words, the boy looked round half frightened, so as to as- sure himself that there was no possibility of such an event occurring to him — "and to seize you suddenly by the nape of the neck, you would ex- perience a sensation something like to an electric shock all through your frame, and which would convulse for the moment every limb in your body. And then, if you were to turn round and discover that it was only brother Nehemiah or Jabez, aft- er all, who had found out where you were, and crept softly up to you, so as to have a bit of fun with you, why then, lad, the alarm would cease in an instant, and you Avould fall to laughing at what is termed the ' agreeable suTX^rise^ you had expe- rienced." The little fellow, indeed, smiled at the mere im- aginatio]|j|of such an incident occurring to him. " Again, if you were to go over to England, say, and suddenly discover, in the person of the lord- mayor of London, let us suppose, your own long- lost brother Josiah, who ran away to sea in oppo- sition to his father's will, why then, of course, you would be mightily and agreeably astonished to find the outcast, who, you fancy, is now leading a half-savage life somewhere in the backwoods, had 284 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. become transmogrified* into the first civic func- tionary of the first city in the world." " So I should, of course," interjected the lad. " N'ow these feelings of surprise and astonish- ment, Ben," the uncle went on, " are feelings that serve to give intense vividness to the objects or circumstances which produce them ; that is to say, they throw the mind into a state of violent ex- citement for a time, which is very different from the gentle stimulus produced by the mere exer- cise of it, and this violent excitement, of course, tends to impress the causes of the emotion with increased force upon the brain. They are true mental stimulants suddenly giving increased vig- or to all the faculties and sensibilities of our na- ture — like Avine, or even opium — and if indulged in to excess, they tend at last, like the physical stimulants themselves, to enfeeble rather than strengthen the natural powers. Thus, then, we come at the reason why the highly-spiced works of fiction and the tricky dramas of the stage (though it's many a long year now since I saw any of them) are filled with extravagant incidents and startling surprises, as well as such extraordi- nary characters as are the mere caricatures of hu- man frivolities and singularities rather than types of human passion. These productions are not only contemptible as works of art, but baneful to healthy mental digestion — that digestion which is wanted to exert itself upon less fiery |^nd more solid food, and has often to put up with the dry and hard cud of philosophy, which requires to be * The young reader should be warned that the common colloquial expression here made use of by Uncle Benjamin is a vulgarism. A little reflection will show that there is no such root as '■'■mogrifY' existing in any language. The term is evidently an ignorant corruption of the word ^^transmod- ify^'"" to change the viode^ or form of a thing. THE NEXT TURNING. 285 chewed over and over again, lad, before it can be swallowed — such romantic trash, I say, is as det- rimental to sound taste and mental sanity as your hot peppers, sharp sauces, and your drops of raw spirits are destructive of the natural functions of the stomach. Nevertheless, lad, though the feel- ings of surprise and astonishment go to make up the glitter and finery of trashy and extravagant art, they are, after all, in a subdued form, the great enliveners of mental existence, and serve to add the finishing stroke, when touched with true artistic delicacy, to all works and objects of high beauty. They give, as it were, that gloss and lustre of varnish to the picture which brings out all the colors with finer force — the polish and sparkle of many facets to the jewels — the sunhght that at once brightens and warms up the land- scape. The feeling of admiration, indeed, which all true beauty inspires, has so much of wonder and astonishment in its nature, that one can not but feel that the loveliness, even of perfection it- self, would be only a kind of platonic loveliness if it did not at once astonish us with its transcend- ent grace, and set us wondering at the marvel- ousness of its consummate excellence. The beau- ty of nature and high art has always something extraordinary about it. Though we have looked upon the magnificent glory of the clouds, and gazed upon the very sumptuousness of gold and crimson with which the sun drapes the heavens and tints the air at morning and evening some hundreds of times in our lives, yet there is noth- ing old and familiar about the sight : the grand- eur of to-day is not the worn-out grandeur of yes- terday ; for the scene is still so entirely novel in the grouping of the forms of the clouds, the splen- dor and tone of the colors, and the very tint of the pinky light itself, that we can not but wonder 286 YOUNG BEXJAMIN FKAXKLIN. and woncler on, day after day, even till we gaze at it for the last time of all. So, too, with the works of high art. It is the peculiar quality of all force, lad, that there is no principle of decay in it (a ball once made to move would keep moving on to all eternity, Ben, if there were nothing to stop it), and it is the same with the force of im- mortal genius. It is at once self-sustaining and indestructible. A truly grand work is young, fresh, and vigorous to the end of all tune. Study it never so often — scan it till the mind seems to know every fragment of it as well as the mother knows every little lineament of her infant's face, and yet come to it again, and a new world of beauty and wonder will still burst out once more from the well-thumbed page or old familiar can- vas, even as that mother can see the well-scanned face of her infant light uj) with a new expression with each new smile. Young Ben was mute with the contemplation naturally begotten by the charm of his uncle's theme, and he sat thinking in silence of the great books he had read over and over again — of old John Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," and But- ler's " Hudibras," and Milton's mighty epic, and Shakspeare's wondrous plays (Uncle Ben had had a hard fight with Josiah to allow the boy to read the plays), and, last of all, of De Foe's simple " Robinson Crusoe" — and thinking, too, how strange it was that he should never tire of read- ing tfiem^ while there were others at which he could not look, after he had had his fill of the mere story contained in them, even though his mind had traveled never so pleasantly over the pages at the time. "In wit as well as beauty," added the old man, " it is ; he gay surprise, the happy astonishment begotten by the unexpectedness of the lively rep- THE NEXT TURNING. £87 artee or sally — of the quaint idea or odd simile — or of the choice grotesque expression that tickles, while it startles us with the novelty, and yet with the queerness and aptness of the thought.* In * That curious style of " funniment, " called Americanisms, also depends upon the pleasure the mind finds in extremes for the greater part of its amusement. For instance, when we are told that "there is a nigger woman in South Caro- lina who has a child so black that charcoal makes a white mark upon it," the fancy is carried almost to the very verge of common sense, and the effect produced is a vain endeavor to comprehend the incomprehensible, in connection with a mean instead of a grand idea — the same as if we were trying to realize a funny infinity. Again, the peculiar blunders called '■'■ hulls" are funny to us, because the mind contrasts the meaning with the sense expressed ; as, for example, when we are told that an Irish gentleman had a small room full of pictures, which he was about to show to a number of his friends at the same time, but on finding that they all made a rush to the door at once, he cried out, as he endeavored to restrain the more impatient, "Faith, gintlemin, if ye will go in together, it'll nivir hould the half of ye :" here we know well enough what the Irish gentleman meant, but this is so different from what he really said, and the contradiction of all his guests going into a room that wouldn't hold half of them — all this is so marked that it is impossible not to laugh at the inconsistency under such circumstances. Farther, there are the verbal blunders — those odd mistakes of words — which are styled "Malapropisms," after Sheridan's cele- brated character in "The Rivals." It is this form of wit which delights us so much with the letters of Winifred Jen- kins, by Smollett, or those of Mrs. Ramsbottom by Theodore Hook, and others by Thomas Hood ; for who can help smil- ing when they hear an old citizen extol the virtues of ' ' in- dustry, perseverance, and acidity," or a vulgar old dame declare that a bright, dry winter's day is " fine embracing weather?" Moreover, there are the inconsistencies of those intentional mistakes which belong to the class of " Anach- ronisms," and where the small modicum of fun lies, as in our modern burlesques, in putting Minerva into blue stock- ings and blue spectacles, and giving Mars a shell jacket and Piccadilly whiskers, or making Diana smoke cigars and talk slang ; or else it is expressed in that strange and ingenious nonsense which consists of a kind of anachronous farago, 288 TOUNa BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. the anecdote of the dull and prosy clergyman, who was reproving his flock for their habit of going to sleep during the sermon, and who sought to shame them by reminding them that even Jimmy, the wretched idiot in the free seats, could keep him- self awake ; whereujDon a wag returned that ' if Jimmy hadn't been a wretched idiot, he would have been asleep too' — in this anecdote, of course, it is the unexpectedness of the retort — the sharp backward cut of the foil, that startles us as much as any thing. So, too, in that pinchbeck kind of wit called punning, we are taken aback by the double meaning of the term on which the pun is where the several events of history have been, as it were, rattled together in some droll kaleidoscopic fancy, and made to tumble into the queerest possible forms. Akin to these intentional anachronisms, or "cross-times," as it were, are the "cross-readings," or those curious jumbles of sense that either startle us to laughter with the oddness of the ideas that are thus brought into juxtaposition, or else set us won- dering at the ingenuity of the arrangement. There are a few specimens of this form of fun preserved in the '■'■Neio Foundling Hospital for TF^7," the principal of which are ex- tracts from the old '■'■ Public Advertizer,^^ and the drollery of which consists in the odd associations that are frequently brought about by reading a newspaper across two adjoining columns rather than down each column singly in the usual manner, e. g. : Lastnightthe Princess Royal was baptized— Mary a7ta»MollHackett,a?iajBlackMoll. Yesterday the new L'd-mayor-svas sworn in — afterward tossed and gored several persons. Again, in the double letter attributed to Cardinal Riche- lieu (which, when read in single columns, expresses one sense, and when read across has a totally different significa- tion), there is enough art to make us mai-vel at the skill, and yet such a sense of labor with it all, that our admiration is alloyed with the idea that it was hardly worth while taking such pains, as the author must, to compass so trifling an end, to wit : Sir,— Mons. Compeigne, a Savoyard by birth, a Friar of the order of St. Benedict, is tl.e man who will present to you as his passport to your protection, this letter. He is one of the most discreet, the wisest, and the least meddling persons I have ever known, or have had the pleasure to converse with, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc, etc. THE NEXT TURNING. 289 made, and thus pleasantly startled again by the use of the word in a different sense from what we expected. When King Charles the Second, for instance, bade Rochester make a joke, and Roches- ter asked the monarch to name a subject, the ready reply of the wit, on the king's naming him- self, that his majesty could not possibly be a " 5w5- Jec^," startles us slightly, when we first hear it, from the widely different sense given to the word subject itself Moreover, it is to the vivid impres- sions produced by widely different and diametric- ally opposite ideas and objects, when made to succeed one another immediately in the mind, that such lively delight is found in the principle of con- trast, as I before explained to you, lad, though then I enforced upon you the charms that belong prin- cipally to contrasted physical objects. In art, however, the extremes of contrast are often ef- fective for a while, though your mere black and white style of painting generally belongs to that coarser kind of eftect which is requisite to enliven duller perceptions and tastes. The figure of an- tithesis, nevertheless, is always brilliant in literary composition ; for there is a natural sparkle in the collocation of any two directly opposite ideas, as, for instance, in the two terms of life — the cradle and the grave ; the two extremes of human emo- tions — smiles and tears; the two opposite types of wealth and want — Dives and Lazarus; of worldly power and helplessness — the monarch and the slave.* Again, as the high lights of a picture are always in the foreground, and the greatest depth of shade to be found there too, so even Shakspeare himself often resorts to the principle of contrast to throw up the brilliances of some of his fore- * The delight that some find in paradoxes, and even in what the vulgar ivill call ^^ contrayriness,^' maybe referred to the same principle. T 290 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. most characters. Thus, in ' Romeo and Jnliet,' the old nurse is an exquisite foil to bring out all the lustre and richness of the young, ripe love of Juliet ; and even in the contemplativeness of the old friar, sworn to cehbacy and the life of an as- cetic, and yet who is sufficiently human to delight in matrimony and the beautiful world about him, what a charming set-off have we to the hot-blood- ed young Romeo, now moody in woods, and now burning with the flame of his first real passion ; and what a lively relief, again, is the merry and voluble light-heartedness of the fairy-spirited Mer- cutio even to Romeo himself! Moreover, in ' Lear,' what exquisite contrasted force is there in those extremes of demention — the two opposite and widely distant verges of mental eccentricity — shown in the wild madness of the king and the cunning foolery of the fool ! And so in ' Hamlet' Ave have the touching and tender madness of the young, broken-hearted girl, as depicted in Ophe- lia, contrasted with the ' insanity of purpose' — the mental wandering and vacillation of a weak and noble nature — exemplified in Hamlet himself. The grave-scene, too, in the same play, is resplen- dent with the same brilliance of contrasted idio- syncrasies ; for here we have the quaint logical merriment of the old grave-digger played off against the fine philosophic utterances of the young Danish prince — all these are sufficient to show you, lad, that the principle of contrast, when nicely and skillfully handled, can lend some of its highest and most lustrous beauties to the picture. And with that ends the list of the chief pleasures that arise from mental excitement, my son."* * The best example of the literary glitter produced by the figure of contrast is, so far as we know, the collocation of the wonders revealed by the telescope and microscope, penned by Dr. Chalmers, and which is certainly a brilliant instance THE NEXT TUENING. 291 THE PLEASURES OF MENTAL SATISFACTION. " And now you're going to do the pleasures of mental satisfaction, ain't you, uncle?" asked the boy. of its kind. There is perhaps a leetle too much art apparent in the balance of the sentences, and continued vibration of the mind from the infinitely great to the infinitely small, and perhaps it is just a taste too saccharine to fully satisfy the highly educated palate. Nevertheless, as an illustra- tion of the charms of this rhetorical form, it is at once signal and salient. "The one led me to see a system in every star; the other leads me to see a world in every atom. The one taught me that this mighty globe, with the whole burden of its people and of its countries, is but a grain of sand on the high field of immensity ; the other teaches me that every grain of sand may harbor within it the tribes and the families of a busy population. The one told me of the insignificance of the world I tread upon ; the other redeems it from all its insig- nificance, for it tells me that in the leaves of every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and num- berless as are the glories of the firmament. The one has suggested to me that beyond and above all that is visible to man there may be fields of creation which sweep immeasur- ably along, and carry the impress of the Almighty's hand to the remotest scenes of the universe ; the other suggests to me that within and beneath all that minuteness which the aided eye of man has been able to explore, there may be a region of invisibles ; and that, could we draw aside the mys- terious curtain which shrouds it from our senses, we might there see a theatre of as many wonders as astronomy has un- folded — a universe within the compass of a point so small as to elude all the powers of the microscope, but where the wonder-working God finds room for the exercise of all his attributes — where He can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate them with all the evidences of his glory." The only fault here, we repeat, is the obviousness of the art {'■'■ars est celare artevi''), so that the reader is led to see the trick, as it were, by which the eflPect is produced. The fairy piece which enchants us from the front of the theatre is but poor tawdry clumsy work viewed from behind the scenes, and hence the verses of Pope and Tommy Moore, 292 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. " Yes, lad," was the answer ; " for the consid- eration of the love of change, inherent in our exquisitely artistic as they are, become mere elaborations of wit rather than flashes of true poetic fire — choice specimens of mental handicraft from the very excess of art that has been wasted upon them, rather than those fine facile crea- tions which precede rule instead of following it ; so that to pass from the dead level of the perfect polish of such work to the rich, rough, and forcible fervor of true poetic genius, as shown in Shakspeare, is the same as shifting the mind from the contemplation of mere filigree-work to the stu- pendous acliievements of modern engineering — from look- ing at a Berlin bracelet in spun cast-iron to the massive grandeur of the tubular bridge or the dizzy triumph of the "um 7rta/a." But if the quotation from Dr. Chalmers is hardly a perfect specimen of this form of literary beauty, because the artistry of it is just a shade too marked, what can be said of the following extract, where we have not a scintilla of beauty, but merely clap-trap artifice and extravagance instead? Here the form which, with a person of true taste, can be made to yield such exquisite delight, becomes positively ugly as an oilman's shop front from the patchwork of glaring colors in which it is tricked out. The efiect is consequently merely "loud," not "tasty;" and that black and white, which in a Rembrandt's etching is a world of beauty, be- comes as vulgar and inartistic as the sign of the " Checkers" on a public house door. ' ' It was the best 0/ times ; it was the worst of times ; it was tire ac/e of ivisdom ; it was the age of foolishness ; it was the epoch of belief; it was the epoch of incredulity ; it was the season of light ; it Avas the season of darkness ; it was the spring of hope ; it was the icinter of despair ; we had every thing before us ; we had nothing before us ; we were all going direct to heaven ; we \fere all going direct the other ivay ; in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." — Tale of Two Cities. Such fatal blemishes as the above are really like rash at- tempts at literary suicide in a man who has no necessity to stoop to trick to produce an impression. But who can for- get the wretched "artful dodges" of "the kettle began it;" no, "the cricket began it," in the " Cricket on the Hearth," and the raving melodramatic rubbish of "up, up, up," and THE NEXT TURNING. 293 mental nature, cleared the way for the explana- tion of our delight in those vivid impressions ''down, down, down," and "round, round, round," in the "Chimes?" Such overdoing as this surely "can not but make the judicious grieve." Now compare the crudity of the above piece of verbal trickery with the high polish and sparkle of the following bit of elegant artifice from Sheridan's wonderful elaboration of wit, "jTAe School for Scandal.'^ It will be seen that it is still the contrasted figure of speech that gives the fine relish to the subjoined dainty morsel of literary luxury ; and though it has all the studied artificiality of wit, and wants the honest geniality of delicate humor to give it the true ring of spontaneous rather than affected merriment, never- theless, it must be confessed that the play and oscillation of the antithesis is kept up in a masterly manner, and that the whim vibrates as airily and elegantly as a shuttlecock be- tween the battledores in skillful hands. " Sir Peter Teazle. — When an old bachelor marries a yoimg wife, what is he to expect? 'Tis now six months since Lady Teazle made me the hajipiest of men, and I have been the most miserable dog ever since ! We lift a little going to church, and fairly quarreled before the bells had done 7'inging. I was more than once nearly choked with gall during the honeymoon, and had lost all comfort in life before my friends had done Avishing me joy. Yet I chose with caution — a girl bred ivholly in the country, who never knew luxury beyond one silk gown, nor dissipation above the an- nual gala of a race-ball, though she now plays her part in all the extravagant fopperies of fashion and the toivn with as ready a grace as if she never had seen a bush or grass-plot out of Gro^-enor Square T^ — School for Scandal, Act I., Scene 2. The "luxury" of the "one silk gown," and the "dissipa- tion" of the "annual gala of the race-ball," as well as the "bush or grass-plot out of Grosvenor Square," are nice del-r icate touches of wit, though out of the contrasted form. As another illustration of the contrary form of wit, we may cite those paradoxical maxims which startle us with their opposition to common opinion, and yet with their truthfulness to a certain kind of debased nature, as, for in- stance, when Rouchefoucauld defines gi-atitude to be "a live- ly expectation of favors to come,^^ and Talleyrand explains speech to be the faculty given to man as the means of con- cealing his real thoughts and* feelings. 2W YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. which are connected with states of mental excite- ment, and the understanding of the latter subject has, in its turn, fitted us, in a measure, for the due comprehension of the charms which spring from our instinctive longing for a state of mental ease. Before we can desire or feel the delights of ease, however, we must exist in some state of uneasi- ness. Rest and repose are pleasurable to us only after violent exertion and consequent fatigue, even as exercise itself is especially charming after long rest and consequent tedium. So, again, before we can feel satisfied, we must have hungered ; there must have been a precedent craving in order to enjoy that thorough contentment of soul which is a necessary consequence of the perfect appease- ment of the previous longing. We must there- fore, Ben, set about discovering what this state of mental uneasiness is, that corresponds with the bodily uneasiness of appetite, as well as with the wearisomeness of physical fatigue ; we must do this before we can get thoroughly down to the source of the delight which comes from the allay- ing of the uneasy feeling. Now, though we are gladdened by change, or slight difierences, and agreeably astonished by the perception oi extreme differences among things, we are, on the other hand, disgusted by any mere heterogeneous chaos or confused tangle of ideas and objects. The transitions from one state of mind to the other, which make us so delighted with change and va- riety, must, in order to delight us, be essentially rhythmical^ as it were ; that is to say, there must be a mellifluence, or nice gradation about it, or else it would not correspond with that series of gentle and congenial muscular actions w^hich is termed physical exercise. Again, the inordinate vividness of the impressions, which causes us to find so much mental pleasure in the more aston- THE NEXT TURNING. 295 ishing phenomena of nature, is pleasurable prin- cipally because this same inordinate vividness serves, as it were, to let in a sudden burst of hght upon the brain, and so to render the astonishing objects themselves more distinct than they would otherwise be to our hazy perceptions. But, though those things, which are extremely differ- ent, thus become extremely distinct when pre- sented to the mind with all the force of colloca- tion and consequent astonishment, nevertheless such things as are utterly heterogeneous in nature — that is to say, totally separate and disjointed — are merely rendered indistinct and confused when juxtaposited ; and thus, instead of gaining extra light from the juxtaposition, they really appear even more confounded than they naturally are, and so become more obscure, while the increase of the natural obscurity serves to make such per- ceptions as hateful to us as darkness itself. There must be some principle of coherence, lad — some slight thread on which to string the beads of our thoughts and perceptions — some fine connecting bond of common sense to unite the series, other- wise the irrelevant sequence has all the incompre- hensibility of nonsense, and the wild chaos of ideas all the incoherence of madness; than which, perhaps, there is nothing so maddening to attend to. True mental uneasiness, then, springs from that state of perplexity and bewilderment, that sense of confoundedness and distractedness of mind, which we experience whenever the thoughts appear to run wild, as it were, and to crowd upon the brain with all the inconsequence of delirium, and all the disorder and unconnectedness oiover- excitement or phrensy. Thus, lad, you perceive by what fine shades and gradations the rainbow hues of the emotions pass into one another. A slight difference or change produces the pleasur- 296 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. able feeling of mental exercise. A wide and marked difference or contrast occasions the live- lier pleasure of mental excitement, whereas total dissimilarity and disconnection give rise to o^;er- excitement and that consequent uneasy state which is termed mental perplexity or bewilder- ment." /' Yes, I can see it as you explain it now," ejac- ulated the youth. " Well, it is often the case, Ben, when any thing very extraordinary is presented to the mind, that the astonishment occasioned by the percep- tion of it is succeeded by a state of iconder^ and this is literally the dwelling or fond and lovely lingering of the soul over the object which has excited its admiration.* But this tendency to linger over the admirable and extraordinary nat- urally sets the intellect speculating as to the cause or special excellence of the rare event or object before us ; and then, if the wonder can not be sat- isfied, if the marvel can not be explained, if the rarity be utterly unlike any thing ever seen be- fore, and there be no apparent means of learning whence it came, or how it happened, or to what type it belongs, then, I say, such a veil of mystery seems to us to envelop it, and such a jostling crowd of idle speculations concerning it keep rushing into the brain — such a chaos of incoher- ent conjectures at once encumber and confound the reason, that as the mind attends to one vague * The primitive meaning of the Latin root viiror in advii- ratio is to be found in the Armoric word Mirez, to hold, stop^ dwell ; and whence comes the Fr. Demeurer^ and our Demu7\ and Moor (as a ship). So the Anglo-Saxon Wondrian, to wonder, is connected with our old English word to ivone, to dwell (Sax. Wennan); and Wont, custom. The primary sense of astonishment, on the other hand, is that stunning of the mind which is produced by any loud noise or diiiy such as thunder and other astounding phenomena. THE NEXT TURNING. 29T surmise after another, and still finds no clew to the tangle, no resting-place in the wilderness, and sees not a solitary star-speck of light glimmering through the darkness of the clouds — why then the wonder-stricken are lost in a worrying maze of bewilderment, as it is called, and grow restless under the uneasiness of the perplexity that fetters their understanding, while they are devoured by a positive craving of curiosity that keeps gnaw- ing and gnawing at the soul, like the eagle at the heart of poor struggling Prometheus chained to the rock. The mental action which accompanies a state of perplexity, then, you will perceive, lad, is essentially different from the movement of the mind in a state of exercise : in the latter state the thoughts flow naturally and steadily onward, but in perplexity there is no advance, but merely that mental oscillation or vacillation — that continued shifting backward and forward, to and from the perplexing object, which is always connected with doubt and distraction. It is this protracted flut- ter of the mind, this unpleasant palpitation of the soul, as it were, this spasmodic throb of thought in the state of doubt that makes the feeling so distressing to us all, and which gives it its princi- pal uneasiness, while the uneasiness itself excites in us the same yearning and gnawing as a bodily craving to appease it. It is, indeed, a mental ap- petite, that hunger of the intellect for some object that will satisfy it ; that yearning for knowledge and enlightenment, which is termed curiosity when stirred by the more trivial riddles and puz- zles of life, and philosophy when moved by the great mysteries of nature itself. Hence you can easily understand, lad, that whatever serves to al- lay the great intellectual want of our minds be- comes as palatable to our brain as even food or drink to the hungering or thirsting body — ay, 29S YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. and it leaves behind it the same sense of satisfac- tion and contentment as we feel when the bodily appetite is thoroughly appeased. Any thing, therefore, which tends to clear up our doubts ; to unravel, be it never so little, the tangled skein of circumstances encompassing our lives — to give us the least enlightenment in the pitchy darkness of the world's mysteries, is as delightful and com- forting to the bewildered and troubled intellect as the allaying of bodily anguish and bodily fa- tigue, for it brings sweet relief to the aching brain, blessed mental rest to the mentally weary." " Strange, isn't it, uncle, that there should be the same appetites in our mind as there are in our body," remarked the little fellow, " and that we should feel the same want for knowledge as we do for food!" The old man scarcely heard the boy's remark, however, for he was too much absorbed in his subject to be diverted from the continuity of his own thoughts ; so on he went : " Now it is the delight and soothing repose of the soul that we feel in states of mental satisfaction that is the main cause of the transcendent charms we find in the contemplation of perfection itself: a perfect circle even, for instance ; a perfect crystal with- out flaw or speck ; a perfect face, with all the features in due proportion, finely chiseled, and radiant at once with health, cheerfulness, intelli- gence, and kindness ; a perfect human form, ex- quisitely modeled, perfect in its symmetry and the fine flowing outline of the limbs, and perfect in the grace of its gestures, and the lithesome ease of its actions ; or, indeed, a perfect any thing, even up to the one transcendent Perfection — the perfection of all perfection — God himself In- deed, not only does the feeling of perfect mental satisfaction give rise to the pleasure we find in THE NEXT TUENING. 200 perfection of all kinds, and hence lie at the very root of our love of beauty, but it is evident that we never feel mentally satisfied with any thing so long as we can discover any imperfection, any de- fect or blemish in it; and the dissatisfaction we feel at the perception of any defect or blemish is a state of mental uneasiness that greatly annoys and iiTitates the mind. Even a button off a coat is particularly vexing to the eye ; a thing out of straight, out of square, or out of truth, as car- penters say ; a book with a page of the text torn out ; a set of some great author's works wanting one volume, and so on — these are things that it is impossible to be pleased with, and that simply because the mind can not exist in a state of satis- faction and contentment so long as the sense of the want is impressed upon it. There must be absolute integrity of all the parts, otherwise the detection of the smallest deficiency will be sure to change the beauty into an ugliness, the para- gon into a deformity ; for deformity itself is only an excessive variation from that type which is considered to be the perfect form of things. So, again, we delight in any thing which seems to give us that perfect understanding, or grasp of all the parts, or thorough sense of a subject which is called the comprehension of it ; even as, on the contrary, we hate what conveys no sense at all to us, or, in other words, is utter nonsense to our minds. It is, indeed, from the mental satisfaction that we feel upon the solving of any mystery, and the removing of the natural uneasiness ofperj^lex- ity, that such high delight is found in the study of natural philosophy by those minds which are struck by the mighty mystery of the world about them ; and even though the light afiforded by the study be but as feeble as that cottager's lamp yonder, shooting the golden spider-threads of its 300 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. rays far into the darkness of the distance, yet there is the same charm in the study to the thoughtful man as that earth-star has to the wan- derer in the night ; for to the intellectual miner, working deep under the surface, the faintest ray is sufficient for continuing the toil. Besides, there is a fine, rich, and sombre beauty, lad, in the ' clear obscure' — in that mere glimmer of light which simply serves, as Milton grandly says, to make the darkness visible ; and if philosoj^hy does but make out to us the black background of in- finite space and infinite distance, frowning be- tween the tiny star-points of its small discoveries — like the vast endless cavern of the incomj^re- hensible — there is still a solemn and deep beauty in contemplating the fine, massive, and unfathom- able darkness, that walls in the world of man's knowledge, and looking into it, as one loves to try and fathom with the eye the unfathomable depths of the great ocean itself, even while we wonder, wonder, and w^onder, as we strain the sight till the tears come, what is at the bottom of it all. " Again," he proceeded, " the pleasure that is found in clever theories and lucid explanations, in happy illustrations and apt examples, proceeds from the same source — the love of light in dark- ness, the love of rest after weariness. Now I pointed out to you before, Ben, that a sense of in- coherence and disconnectedness among a number of consecutive things distracts and, indeed, half maddens us, even as a sense of heterogeneousness and confusion among a multiplicity of coexistent things tends, in its turn, to throw the mind into almost the same confusion as the objects them- selves. So, on the contrary, a sense of coherence and natural order in the succession of events and ideas, or a sense of systematic arrangement and THE NEXT TURNING. 301 fitness among coexistent objects, inordinately de- lights us, and it does so simply by removing the distress of mind which is necessarily consequent upon the opposite impression. What tidiness is among housewives, classification is among philos- ophers — the mere orderly arrangement of things. A large part of natural science consists merely in grouping objects together into genera and spe- cies, orders and varieties ; and these are merely so many separate pigeon-holes, as it were, for the convenient sorting of the ' notes' of the brain, so that one may be able to lay hold of any missing memorandum in a minute. By these means the mental and natural chaos of the world to ignorant eyes is brought into something like the order that the Almighty has impressed upon creation, and the mind enabled to look down, almost from the very altitude of heaven itself, and take something like an angel's broad view of the universe and its infinite variety of phenomena. And it is the vast comprehension and clear-sightedness that the mind thus obtains from philosophic teachings which serve to give the highest mental satisfac- tion to the student. By this means the very rocks and stones have been, as it were, numbered and labeled ; every beast in the field and forest, every bird, and, indeed, every tiny insect in the air and among the grass ; every fish, ay, and almost every animalcule in the water, has been studied and al- lotted its due place in creation ; every flower in the hedgerow, too, in the garden, in the desert, and on the mountain top ; every tree, shrub, and herb on the earth, down even to every little piece of moss and weed on the rocks and ruins ; every shell upon the shore ; every little star in the sky ; every lump of matter in the world ; every crystal form found in the caves ; every bit of metal in the mines ; every gas in the atmosphere; every 308 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. color, every hue, and every form ; every bend and motion of the light ; every force and power at work in the universe ; every country, every sea, and almost every river, mountain, and town, over the whole globe ; every bone, muscle, blood-ves- sel, nerve, gland, and organ throughout the body, ay, and almost every feeling and faculty that there is in the mind, have all been noted, scanned, de- scribed, and duly mapped out, and that so lucidly that the intellect can see with an eagle glance, as it soars high into the air, the whole of the world, the whole of life, ay, and almost the whole of the universe at once. Xor is this all : the very order of events themselves, the secret machinery and almost mainsj^ring of the movements of the plan- ets, and our own earth and moon, have all been laid bare, and the endless chaj^ter of accidents of w^hich life and nature appear to the vulgar to be composed have been shown to be part of one mighty system, where all is harmony and propor- tion, law and order, and where the music of the spheres is but the resonance of the universal con- cord of things — the very breath of heaven, breath- ing a fine suggestive sweetness into the thrilling chords of ISTatm-e's grand JEolian harp." THE PLEASURES OF MENTAL HABITS. "And now, uncle," said the boy, as his god- father paused once more on coming to the end of the subject, "you've got only the pleasure of mental habit to explain, haven't you ?" The old man answered, " Yes, lad, that follows next, certainly ; but after that there will still be the pleasures that proceed from our jDcrception of artistic power, both in man and the great Creator of all things. Now, my little fellov/, do you remember what I told you was the special function of habit ? Let me hear." THE NEXT TUKNING. 303 "Oh yes, uncle," spoke out the boy, as he turned round and looked his godfather full in the face, smiling the while with the simple pride of his heart at the knowledge he felt within him ; " you said habit rendered that which was at first irksome to do, pleasurable after a time to per- form, and you said, too — " "That will do, good fellow," interrupted the tutor, with a pressure on the boy's plump palm that wdiispered a volume of fine pleasant things into his heart ; " that is sufiicient for us to bear in mind at present — except, indeed, you should recollect also what I told you at the time was the wondrous character of the change wrought by habit. You should remember that the mere con- tinued repetition of an act can render it, however difiicult and distasteful at first, easy and con- genial to us at last ; that it can transform pain into pleasure, labor into comparative pastime, and give to the most arduous voluntary actions all the simplicity and insensibility of mere clock-work." " I remember it well, unky, dear," added young Ben. "Well, then, lad," proceeded the old man, " what we have now to consider is the mental pleasure that we derive from the mere principle of repetition, of which habit, or the lyropensity to repeat, is the special consequence. The first dis- tinctive mark of the repetitive principle, then, is its sedative influence on the system; that is to say, its power to allay, or, rather, to deaden the pain or uneasiness connected with any violent or unusual exertion. Even the most agreeable im- pression, continually iterated and reiterated for a certain length of time, eventually palls upon us; for the pleasure connected with it becomes gradually weaker and Aveaker with the continued repetition, and ultimately passes, by fine and al- 304 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. most insensible degrees, into disgust and tedium, while it occasionally finishes by being absolutely overpowering in its ofiensiveness to the surfeited nature. This is the case not only with the sweets that to a child's palate are morsels of solid melt- ing delight, yet gross sickly stuff" to the more ma- ture and refined taste of manhood, but it is the same also (as I before pointed out to you) with what is called 'monotony;' for, no matter how intrinsically beautiful the thing iterated may ap- pear at first to the mind, the continued reiteration of it is sure, sooner or later, to produce tedium and weariness, and that even until the mind feels the same fatigue almost as the body does after long exercise, and the same disposition to lapse into that slighter form of mental coma — that soft swoon of the tired senses, from which the patient can be roused with comparatively little difficulty, and which is commonly denominated ' sleep.' Hence the sedative effect of certain continuously- recurrent sounds in nature : the murmur of the brooks, for instance, the throb of the water-wheel, and the lullaby of the mother; and hence the means of producing sleep artificially are all made to depend upon the lulling power of the contin- ued repetition of the same idea, such as fancying one sees a flock of sheep going through a gate one after another, or imagining one's self to be counting some hundreds of nails successively.* Now the sense of pleasure and ease which the mind obtains from this same principle of mere * The sleep induced by what is called "Mesmerism," or "Animal Magnetism," or " Electro-Biology, " may also be cited as an instance of the comatose tendency of the long persistence of one and the same object before the mind. The hypnotic "fluid," which is supposed to pass from the agent to the patient, under such circumstances may be extracted from a prosy book, a dull sermon, a boring lecture, et id genus omne. THE NEXT TUKNING. 306 repetition appears to lie at the base of a consid- erable number of our purest mental delights. There must surely be an innate gratification iii the simple recognition of an object, else why the special charm of an old familiar face, or even an old famihar tree, or of that group of old familiar objects which makes up the happy integrity of . some old famihar haunt? Granted every such object is mantled with green associations as thick- ly as the old church with its clustering ivy, and that the sight of them revives some bright and lovely memory, one after another, till the brain buzzes with the golden bits of life like to a hive of bees ; and granted, too, that this mere move- ment of the associations in the mind is, as I said before, sufficient to account for a large portion of the mental delight felt under such cii'cum- stances ; still, that the simple recognition of the old things and places has a chann of its own, apart from any pleasure associated with the ob- jects themselves, is proved by the attraction that the mere repetitive processes of art have for even the commonest minds. This is shown in the de- light the vulgar feel in mere imitation — in the shadow of the rabbit on the wall, in which the baby itself finds pleasure ; in mimicry of manners and tones— in pictorial representations of ' still life'— in 'striking likenesses' — in perfect copies of any kind, or models— and even in the contin- ually-recurring chorus to a song, as well as the impressive burden of some i3laintive ballad, or the perpetually reiterated ' gag- words' of the mum- mers on the stage. Again, we all know how in- tense^ a pleasure there is in the repetition of a favorite air, and how the people of some countries are stirred to the very depths of their souls on hearing some pet piece of their national music when far away from their home and fatherland. U 306 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. Indeed, the mere euforced repetition of a word in literary or poetical composition can often lend in- tense beauty to a passage.* * But not only is the repetition of the same word when finely worked, so as to enforce some one idea upon the miud, a source of great intellectual delight, but even the repetition of the same initial letter, when it is used as a means of link- ing together, or giving the fancy some faint notion of resem- blance between ideas that are diametrically opposed, has a small charm appertaining to it. Pope, who perhaps was the greatest poetic artist the world ever saw, and that without even a twinkle of high poetic genius in his composition, oft- en made fine use of this alliterative trick ; e. g., he says, - " But thousands die without this or that, Die and endow a college or a cat." Farther, in his " Imitations of Horace," the same author says: " Fill hut his purse, our poet's work is done, Alike to him, by pathos or by pun." In another place ("Moral Essays") he treats us to the fol- lowing couplet : " Or her whose life the church and scandal share, Forever in a passion or a prayer." However, in the "Rape of the Lock," he describes the ap- paratus of Belinda's toilet in one neat alliterative line, as " Puffs, powders, patches— Bibles, billet-doux." So, again, in the Nursery Rhymes, the alliterative process is used as a means of tickling the brain even of children themselves, as in " Peter Piper picked a peck of pepper," and " Roderick Random rode a raw-boned racer, " etc. Parther, entire poems — poems of hundreds of lines in length — have been written in which the feat has been to make each word begin with the same initial letter. The old '■'■ JPapa paiiens'^ and '■'■ Pugna Porcorwii'^ are curious instances of this: '' Plaudite Procelli, Porcorum pigra propago Progreditur, plures Porci pinguedine pleni Pugnantes pergunt, pecudum pars prodigiosa Perturbat pede petrosas plerumque plateas, Pars portentosa populorum prata prophanat Pars pungit populando potens, pars plurima plagis Pr£etendit punire pares, prosternere parvos," etc. etc. etc. *^ Pur/na Porcorum, Per P. Portium Poetam, 1690." Again, Anagrams and Aci'ostics are other curious examples of the simple mental delights that can be associated even THE NEXT TUENING. m " *If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly, ' says Macbeth, with a fine ring ii^^on the doing of the deed that apj^alls and absorbs his whole soul. h arther, what exquisite pathos and tragic power IS produced by the same high artistic use of the same snnple means after the murder in this play has been committed ! " '^"other'''^ ^"""^ ^^''' '''' ^'''^'' ^^cbeth) and Amen the As they had seen me with these hangman's hands -Listenmg their fear, I could not say A7nen When they did say God bless us.' And the great master then goes on to give us a wonderfully torching and grand sense of the in- cessant haunting of the guilty conscience. Kow with mere /e^ers themselves in literary art. In anagrams however, where the letters of the original word are so tiinsl posed as to express some idea that is intimately connected with the subject, the mind is occasionally thrown into a form of wonder at the extraordinary character of the appositio^ and set speculating upon what the old philosophers called the "universal fitness of things," and this adds greatly to the itera pleasure itself. As for example, when\-e /nd tha? the letters in the name of Horatio Nelson admit of being transposed into the words ^^ Honor est a Nilo,- the secondary Idea IS so strangely apt that it strikes the mind that it must have been foreseen, even from the very invention of the alpha- bet Itself. _ Again, there are many literal enigmas that have a fine artistic charm with them. The one on the letter h which IS generally attributed to Lord Byron, is perhaps the genius of this kind of mental turnery- this intellectual inge- nuity, which seems so akin to nice handiwork that one is led to fancy it depends upon the very fingers of the brain— some delicate cerebral touch, as it were, rather than the vigorous grasp of true intellectual force. ^uruus "7^"^^^ whisper'd in ^eaven, 'twas miitter'd in ^11, And ec/;o caught faintly the sound as it fell, ' On the confines of earth 'twas permitted to rest. And the depths pf the ocean its presence confess'd. ^tY^L^^ ^'''?^.^ V *^e.«P^'ere when 'tis riven asunder: 'Tis seen m the hg/itning, and heard in the tAunder!" etc. etc. etc. 808 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. mark, Ben, in the passage I am going to quote to you, with what fine force, owing to its continued recurrence, the term she}) seems to strike \\\)on the ear, and to keep ringing in the mind as sol- emnly as a tolling bell. " * Me thought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more ! Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep ; Sleep, that knits up the ravel' d sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast. * Lady Macbeth. What do you mean ? * Macbeth. Still it cried. Sleep no more ! to all the house: Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more !' " There is not perhaps a grander instance of poetic and tragic power to be found in the litera- ture of any age or any country than this, lad," added Uncle Benjamin. "The sleeplessness of the murderer is here enforced in so masterly and vigorous a manner, and there is such a fine super- natural and ghostly tone given to the words with which the murderer's brain is ringing, together with a dash of such exquisite beauty to relieve it in the lovely images of the continually-recurring sleep, sleep, that it becomes at once as touching and terrible a passage as Avas ever penned by hu- man hand." The uncle had been so rapt in the beauty of his favorite author that he was obliged to reflect for a minute as to " whereabouts he was" before he could take up the thread of his argument. ^ " Oh yes, I remember," he exclaimed, half to himself, " I was pointing out to you, lad, the delight we experience from the mere repetition of the same impressions upon our minds. AVell, Ben," he went on, as cheerily as ever, " it is the mere pleas- ure of recognizing the same quality or thing under different circumstances that makes us find such a THE NEXT TURNING. 309 special charm in the perception of resemblances either in poetic figures or scientific analogies, or even the fiibles and allegories of literature and the parables of Scripture. In the vivid state of astonishment, you know, we are struck by the same thing aj^pearing to us under widely difierent circumstances, or in association w^ith something that is diametrically opposite from what we ex- pected, so that the perception of the marked dif- ference seizes and impresses itself upon the mind with all the vividness of an emotion. In the per- ception of resemblances, on the contrary, it is not the unexpected difference of the association with one and the same object, but the perception of an unexpected resemblance between two different objects ; the detection of one and the same quality inhering in two things that were utterly distinct in our minds ; the discovery of a point of unity where there is aj^parently such utter variety, that fastens itself upon us with such force and start- ling beauty. Take, for instance," said Uncle Ben- jamin, after a moment's consideration, " Shak- speare's lovely figure of early morning peeping over the hills, as given in the line " 'Jocund day stands tiptoe on the misty mountain top.' What a fine bit of painting is this, and what ex- quisite delight bursts upon the brain with the perception of the analogy ! Still, I must quote to you, lad, the sweetest simile that is to be found throughout the entire range of poetry, and which gives us the most graceful conception of unity in diversity that was ever achieved by art. Mark, too, how beautifully the idea of oneness in two distinct beings is enforced by the continued echo of the word. "'Oh, and is all forgot?' 810 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. (says Helena, in the Midsummer Night's Drean*) : 'We, Hermia Have with our ncelds created both one flower, Both on one sampler, sittmp on one cushion, Both warbling of one song, both in one key, As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds Had been incorporate. So we grew together, Like to a double cherry^ seeming parted, Biit yet a imion in partition, Two lovely berries moulded on one stem ; So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart. ' " Moreover, it is tliis percej^tion of agreement between two difierent notes — the felt union of the vibrations, at frequent and regular intervals, between two musical sounds beating difierent times — which makes up the delightful perception of musical harmony, even as proportion among numbers is but the same perception of agreement between the difierent ratios ; the expression 2 : 4 :: 6 : 12, for instance, signifies merely that four is double two, and twelve double six ; or, rather, that the same multiple (2) is common to each of the two ratios. Again, order among a number of coexistent objects is merely the perception of a certain agreement about their arrangement, or, in other words, a sense of uniformity as to difier- ent positions they occupy ; and this may be either the order of regular intervals, regular lines, reg- ular figures, or of what is called congruity, that is to say, of that fit and proper collocation which be- longs to natural or convenient association. And so, in the succession of events, it is but the same perception of agreement in the sequence of dif- ferent phenomena that constitutes what is called the order of nature ; for even the perception of cause and effect itself, so far as the natural beauty of the idea is concerned, is but the mental convic- tion we feel that the sequence of the two distinct events will be the same to the end of all time. THE NEXT TURNING. 311 Farther, it is the like faculty of perceiving the analogies of things that gives us our sense of law in nature, and which confers upon us that power of generalization in science which is the high- minded equivalent of idealization in art ; that power of typification rather than individualiza- tion, or realization, as it is termed (for the latter belongs to the imitative and reproducing form of talent rather than the creative faculty) ; that in- ward referring of all things to the spiritual ' form' that exists in the imagination ; that mental re- garding of the particular thing or event, not as a disjointed or disconnected and isolated individual body, but as part of a vast and grand whole — a single thread unraveled from a mighty net- work ; a little fragment, let us add, out of the great ka- leidoscope, which, if we will but twist and turn it over and over with the rest, is sure to tumble into the most perfect form — the choicest symmetry. Indeed," the old man proceeded, " it is this per- ception, lad, of uniformity in variety — this sim- plification of complexity — this sense of universal oneness pervading even universal infinity itself, which enables the mind almost to comprehend the incomprehensible. It is, as it were, the one indivisible and unalterable soul, giving the sense of identity and perpetual unity, amid all the changes of years, to the entire body of the uni- verse. The faculty of comprehension enables us to grasp, even in the narrow compass of our nut- shell skulls, the endless expanse of the universe itself, and to stow away, within the tiny honey- comb cells of our brains, all the infinite variety of worlds beyond our own, and all the same infinite variety of difierent objects, elements, forces, and forms of life and beauty that make up the vast complex globe on which we live. Then, as if the very conference of this wondrous power on our 312 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. souls was not sufficient bounty, the Almighty has superadded the mighty sense to enjoy it, and to feel the exquisite mental dehght that has been made to spring from the use of the faculty itself — to find delight in that wondrous and delicious state of ease and rest, of satisfaction, contentment, ay, and thankfulness, which laps the spirit in a j^erfect waking trance of admiration. " But, though the faculty of comj^rehension can do this for us, the faculty of analogy, or the per- ception of uniformity in variety, in no way lags behind. It is this which is the mental sunshine of the world — for it is not alone the light, but the very beauty of the brain ; this which puts to- gether the disjointed fragments of the great puz- zle, and makes a lovely picture of it after all ; this which tunes the jarring strings of the instrument into the grandest harmony; this which blends the little broken bits of color scattered over the earth into a rainbow ring, where the greatest di- versity melts by insensible degrees in the sweet- est unity ; this which sets the house in order, and decorates it with its choicest ornaments; this which is the golden thread of light stretching from heaven to earth, and uniting the world of wonder in a water-drop even with the world of wonder in the stars ; this which wreathes the straggling wild flowers of seeming accidents into a cunning garland of exquisite design ; this which gives the fine touch of nature that makes the whole world kin, and links all men, nations, and races into one band of brotherhood, hand joined to hand, till the globe itself is circled with the hu- man chain ; this, in fine, which makes the charm of all reason, the delight of all poetry, the grace of all philanthropy, the glory of all chivalry, the dignity of all art, and, indeed, the very beauty of all the beauty that encompasses the world." THE lOJXT TUENING. 313 THE PLEASURES OF ART. " The pleasure produced by works of art comes now, I think you said," observed the youth, as he found his uncle pause for a minute or two. "It does, Ben; and, to understand this, we must revert for a short while to the special qual- ities of the sense of effort," replied the old man. " You remember, my boy, that I told you effort was mostly irksome and occasionally painful; while, if long sustained, it was fatiguing, and ul- timately overpowering ; for effort means that vio- lent or laborious exertion of our powers which is necessary to master some heavy task, or overcome some great difficulty. The moderate exercise of the power within us is, however, by no means dis- agreeable to us, as, indeed, we have seen in the simple i3leasure derived from gentle physical exer- cise itself. There is assuredly an innate delight in making our muscles answer, as they do, imme- diately to the dictates of our will — the same kind of delight as you find. Master Ben, in making a boat answer readily to its helm, or a steed to the bridle ; and this inherent gratification can often be noted in the smiles of a baby, as it begins to learn the use of its tiny hands, and in the little peals of hearty laughter that burst out when it begins to find it can toddle a few paces alone. It is this delight in one's power, too, which makes up the large human pleasure of success, though success itself is so often connected with the attainment of some worldly good that the simple charm of suc- ceeding is generally inflamed into an exulting emotion of joy at our own worldly prosperity. Nevertheless, our sporting friend could have told you, lad, the pleasure there is to be found in mere- ly hitting the mark one aims at; in sending an arrow pat into the bull's-eye ; in throwing a pen- 314 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. ny piece into the air, and striking it with a bullet as it falls ; in snuffing a candle with a dueling-pis- tol; in walking along particular cracks in the pavement, or balancing a straw upon the nose, or even in mastering the slightest possible difficulty. It is the simple stimulus of gaining such poor tri- umphs as these that stirs people to take to prac- ticing the arduous physical feats indulged in by your tight-rope dancers, posturers, equilibrists, circus-riders, sleight-of-hand men, and so on, and this also which makes the vulgar find such in- tense delight in the exhibition of such feats of bodily agility. Indeed, every one is charmed with any work of ' skill' or subtlety, either of fin- gers, limbs, or brain ; for we are pleased not only with the exercise of our own power, but even with the display of power in others. Neverthe- less, to be impressed with the full force of this kind of enjoyment, two things are essential: one is, that we should have a perfect sense of the dif- ficulty of the task, and the other, of comparative ease in accomplishing it. If there be no sense of difficulty, of course there will be no sense of pow- er in the mastering of it, for it is merely the op- posing force without that makes us conscious of the action of the force within. Indeed, it is this feeling of opposition from without which gives us our sense of efibrt itself. But this sense of eftbrt — this sense which is made up of the double con- sciousness of hard external resistance to our will, and of strenuous internal exertion and determina- tion to crush the obstacle to our wishes — is by no means an agreeable feeling, or one that con- sorts with our nature ; nay, it is obvious that it must be antagonistic to it. Hence the enjoy- ment we derive from the exercise of power lies, not in the act of overcoming the difficulties, but in the/ac^ of their being overcome; and therefore, THE NEXT TURNING. 815 the easier the work is done, that is to say, the greater the work which has been done, and the less sense of labor we have in the doing of it, the greater the enjoyment we experience regarding it. This is the reason why a sketch is often more beautiful to us than a highly-finished miniature or elaborate Dutch painting ; for, in the one, the ef- fect is often gained by one bold stroke, as it were, while in the other we can see the million finikin touches that have been niggled into it. It is this sense of ease, combined with power, that makes freedom of execution always so pleasant, even as it is the opposite idea of fatigue that renders elab- oration so disagreeable to us, as well as the per- formances of posture-masters and tight-rope dan- cers so unpleasant to refined natures, owing to the sense of painfulness or danger that they force upon us. Do you understand, my little man ?" "I think I can, a bit," was the diffident reply. " But, uncle, what has this to do with the pleas- ure we get from looking at works of art? There isn't any power wanted for art, is there ? for I'm sure the artist we saw was a weak little man enough." " The meaning of the word art, my dear boy, is simply power, even as an in-ert man means a man without power or energy," answered the tutor. "But I thought art meant cunning," urged young Ben. The uncle replied, "And so it does; like crcfft, which, however, signifies literally creation or sa- gacity.* But cunning, my lad, is simply keiining * The Saxon word Crceft signified power, force, intelli- gence. The Germans, Swedes, and Danes have the same word, written Kraft, and meaning power, strength, or en- ergy. The British equivalent for this is Crev, strong, and this is connected with the Welsh verb Creu, to create (Lat. Creo), and with Crafu, to hold, comprehend, perceive ; whence Crafus, sagacious, of quick perception. 316 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. or knowing; and knowledge is power — intel- lectual power — the power within us ; the innate power of our souls and will, made to act through the muscles of our mind rather than through those of our body. The muscles are merely the instruments with which w^e work — the visible and palpable tools we employ to overcome some phys- ical difficulty, while the intellect, the imagination, the wit, the reason, are the invisible and impalpa- ble weapons with which we conquer mental ob- stacles." " Oh, I see now," murmured Ben. " Well, then, lad, to appreciate — to thoroughly and fully enjoy any work of high art," the god- father went on, " we must be conscious of the inordinate power of the artist ; that is to say, we must feel at once the inordinate difficulty of doing such work, and the inordinate ease with which the work has been done." " But how can I feel all this, uncle, if I don't know what the difficulty was that the artist had to get over, and whether he did the work readily or not ?" argued the pupil. " Of course you can't feel it if you have no knowledge of the matter, Ben ; and if you are in- sensible to the high art of the artist, of course you can't expect to have any high enjoyment from his works ;" such w^as the simple reply. " It is the same Avith the vulgar, my little man — and there are vulgar rich, remember, as well as vulgar poor — they are utterly dead and numb to one of the purest, sweetest, and cheapest delights of human life, and that simply because they have no sense of art or artist in the great artistic works of the world. To them a gallery of fine paintings is merely a collection of pretty eye-toys, and it de- lights them about as much as a child is delighted with the pictures of a magic-lantern ; a fine work THE NEXT TUENING. 31T of fiction is to them nothing more than a pleasant dream ; a fine poem simply a mellifluent succes- sion of pretty images and flowery figures ; and a fine piece of music a mere agreeable tickling of the tympanum. Such folk have no more elevated gratification from the contemplation of works of art than they have from the taste of a dainty dish set before them. They see the canvas only, Ben, and not the artist at the back of it ; they look upon the bright bits of nature without any sense of the God that created them; and hence the tendency of all art, with low artists who work to please the vulgar, is to sink into mere pretty sub- jects.^ With the higher craftsmen, however, pret- * This subject-painting rather than art-painting is the great pictorial vice of the day, and a signal evidence of mediocrity in the painters who resort to it. Of course, if a man have not innate power enough to impress others with that admira- tion of his genius which makes up the true art-reverence, he must adopt some extrinsic method of producing an effect, see- ing that he has no intrinsic merit of his own whereby to com- pass it. A tricky subject is chosen merely as the means of hiding impotent art. When a painter finds he can not paint to please the choice critical few who demand the display of something like power in a picture, why then he begins to paint to please the vulgar, purblind many, who have no sense of artistic power even when it is set before them, and to whom a picture is only a picture. " A primrose by the river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more." It is the same with the powerful subjects of the French school. Details that are naturally disgusting, of course, stir the soul more or less on being contemplated, and the emotion thus produced by the mere natural action of the disgusting details themselves the indiscriminate mind fancies to have pro- ceeded from the power of the artist himself, whereas such sub- jects as are naturally "powerful" and "stirring" are a sure sign of weakness in the man who selects them. Depend upon it, the individual who has, and feels he has, the true artist power within himself, always strives to bring the power of his picture out of himself and hates to produce a "powerful" ef- CS' 318 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. tiness of subject obtains little or no consideration. The artistry of a thing — that is to say, its fitness feet by resorting to subjects that are " powerful" per ipsa. The trickster, however, who has no capital to trade upon, must get credit by hook or by crook ; and if he can not have what he wants, by honest means, out of the experienced and know- ing, why he must, perforce, fly to the "yokels," and obtain his fame under false pretenses. As examples of tliis tawdry, trumpery, loathsome, canting, sniveling, driveling, "stirring," "charming," "elevating," "reclining," teachy-preachy, in- ert kind of art, we may remind the reader of the band of abbey singing-boys in night-gowns, represented as bawling "We praise thee, O Lord." Then there is the sublime bit of devotion in false colors called ' ' Reading the Scrip- tures," where ive have a Quaker and his wife seated at a loo-table, on which is an outspread Bible and a glaring sinum- bral lamp! "The Eleventh Hour" is another specimen of the modern Cantesque style of painting. Then there is also the Sentimentesque school of art, done to please the young ladies and their dear mammas ; such as we find in the sea- pieces of "My Child! My Child!" and its " lovely com- panion," entitled, ''They're saved! they're saved!" and also " The Wanderer's Return." The last, however, is really too rich, as an illustration of the sniveling, driveling school of painting, to pass by with merely a cursory notice. This picture consists of a weeping young lady on her knees in a church-yard beside a mound of earth, at the head of which is a grave-stone inscribed as follows: "Sacred to THE Memory of SARAH, the beloved wife of the REV. HABBAKUK BELL, many years rector of this par- ish," etc., etc. ; so that by this clever and delicate stroke of suggestive art we are made to understand that the pretty young lady on her knees, with her bonnet half off, and a tear-drop on her cheek as big as the pendant to a French fish-woman's ear-rings (in order to give us a doiible idea of the intense mental anguish of the poor dear), is Miss Rosa Matilda Bell herself. Then we are farther let into the pictorial secret by means of a bouncing babby — which IMiss R. M. Bell has, in the fury of her grief apparently, thrown headlong (poor thing!) upon the ground beside her — that this same young lady is not only Miss Bell of the bouncing tear-drop, but Miss Bell of the bouncing babby too ; and that she is no less a person than the " Wanderer" to whom the picture refers. Now the artist, in true parsonic style, having divided his pictorial text into three words, and illustrated two of them, proceeds in due form to THE NEXT TURNING. 319 for displaying the peculiar power of the artist — is sufficient for them, and hence even ugliness it- — "thirdly, and lastly" — illustrate the final word of the " title," viz., to make out the return. This is achieved also in the highest style of true Sentimentesque painting. In the background of the picture is shown the open church-yard gate, with the path leading to the darling old ivied rectory in the distance ; and down this pathway we see an elderly cler- ical-looking gentleman, with long silver hair, and apparently a touch of gout in his left leg, coming along, with his head bent and his eyes shut, as if he were about to say " grace be- fore dinner ;" and whom we no sooner set eyes upon than we feel satisfied, though we never saw the rev. gentleman before in all our lives (and never wish to do so again, we may add aside), that it is no less a person than the Kev. Habbakuk Bell himself; for the black hat-band so dexterously thrown round his broad brim tells us, or rather let us say hints to us, in the most subtle and poetic manner, that the rev. gentleman is free to indulge in a second marriage Bell if he please ; and that " Sarah, the beloved," whose virtues are recorded on the tomb-stone that sticks up, like a sign-post, right in the front of the picture, was his beloved Sarah. Nor is this all : ac- companying the disconsolate and gouty Rev. H. Bell (" many years rector of this parish") is a young lady whom the same pictorial instinct assures us, directly we see her, is another of ^^ them blessed Bells," as the servants say, and that she has discovered her naughty sister Rosy in the church-yard, and induced the silver-hair Bell to hobble down there and forgive her, now that she has " returned" — after an absence of eleven months at least. Now this is the worst possible style of art — this, we repeat, sniveling, driveling, loathsome, canting, stirring, charming, elevating, "refining," preachy-teachy stylo as it is, and com- pared with which the fine honest old tea-board school is a manly achievement. Belonging to this class, again, are the "pretty-story" pairs of prints, such as "The Departure" and "The Return," as well as " Going with the Stream" and " Going against the Stream," Under the same trashy category, too, must be named "The Heart's Misgivings," and the "Last Appeal," and "Cross Purposes," et id genus onine. Such pictures, again, as "Waiting for the Verdict," and your "Ramsgate Sands," and "Derby Days," and "Found Drowned," are no more painting than reporting all the minute incidents of her majesty's trip to Scotland is either a poem, a drama, or a romance. Again, 320 YOUNG' BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. self is often selected as the material to be adorned by them ; for, in the fairy work of true art, the the '■'■ profound"^ touches of other artists belong to the same kind of trick-art, such as Holman Hunt's cut apple lying in the foreground, which is sho^\^^ to be rotten at the core (how subtle!), and Herbert's ''Christ in the Caepenter's Shop," with the fallen planks arranged in the form of a cross at his feet (how suggestive !) — all which we are told is so "wonderfully deep." Such clap-trap stuff as this has no more right to rank with the achievements of high art, than has one of Tom Hood's rude sketches, where the pencil was always made to convey an idea of some sort, ay, and oftener a much more cunning idea than such mere surface tricks as those above described. How different was it with the really grand men of former times! In Rubens' "Descent from THE Cross," for instance, that we see at Antwerp Cathe- dral, there is no petty artifice to give us a show of profound thinking, but only a display of profound picturesque percep- tion, and profound power and grace in rendering it. The man straining over the top of the cross, with the end of the winding-sheet between his teeth, as he helps to lower the dead body from above; the huddled form of the calm and dignified corpse itself; and the soldier on the ladder assist- ing to support the heavy, powerless limbs — these are all given with such intrinsic force, and such utter absence of extrinsic trick, while the ' ' powerful" details, that in the hands of a poor painter would have been exaggerated to loathsomeness, are here so finely subdued and veiled, that we feel, the instant we look upon it, we are standing in the presence of a mighty artistic mind. So, again, what wonderful -v-igor of drawing and portrayal of the human form — in a position that it was impossible to have had a model to sit for, mark — is exhibited in the "Crucifixion of St. Peter" with his head down- ward, by the same master ! and yet the end is compassed without a touch of revolting or "stirring" minutiae in the means. Farther, what subject can be less pretty or even nice than Gerard Dow's "Water Doctor?" and yet, was it the prurience of such a subject, think you, that tickled the great Dutch artist, or the fine play of light in the beam through the window — the lustre of the upheld bottle as the sun falls on it — and the wonderful scrutiny in the upturned face of the old doctor himself? Such subjects are purely picturesque ones, and those who see only the opposite in them have no sense of the picturesque in nature, nor any soul for art, either in the works of man or God. The same thing may be said THE NEXT TURNING. 321 Beauty can be wed to the Beast, and yet none feel offended at the marriage. Take the works of of Eembrandt's grand picture of "The Dissection." No subject could be more innately repulsive, and yet to an artistic eye none could be more picturesque, and no painting at the same time more forcible and less offensive ; for the details that a French artist would have reveled in, and done to gan- grene, as we have said, are finely kept in the background; the dead recumbent body being thrown aslant across the pic- ture, and half concealed by the figures of the doctors group- ed in front of it, and the raw muscles of the ann only ex- posed to bring out the fine rich contrast of the crimson flesh with the black gowns. What is your pre-Raphaelite picto- rial-reporting beside such mighty visions as these ? If the painting of every particular blade of grass, and making out of the several stamina of each little flower in the foreground, and giving the peculiar geological texture to all the foremost bits of rock — if to be "botanically and geologically true" is the great art-object, why, then, the wonderful literality and texture-work of the photograph must be infinitely finer than any landscape ever painted by Turner, Gainsborough, Hob- bemer, Poussin, or Salvator Rosa himself. But the fact is, this " truth" of detail is no truth at all, but downright picto- rial falsity. Why, it may be asked, should artists make out the separate blades of grass — each flower-stamen, and the pe- culiar rock-granulation in the foreground only ? Why not in the distance also ? (Do not laugh at the absurdity of such a question, but proceed.) The answer, of course, will be, The eye could not possibly see distant objects distinctly. No more, we add, can it see objects distinctly in the foreground either, ivhcn it is fixed or focused (for they are optically the same things, and metaphysically something more) upon the principal object of attention. If a true picture of some one scene in nature is to be painted rather than a thousand and one portraits of the thousand and one minute and insignifi- cant details that go to make up such a scene in the broad view of the landscape, then every collateral object must be toned down to the one on which the eye is meant to rest, and where, and where alone (from the very focusing of the eye upon it), the great intensity of light and shade, and conse- quently the distinct making out of particulars, will be visible. Every artist is aware that the great difficulty is to prevent making out the forms and colors of known objects in the dis- tance ; or, in other words, the difficulty is to paint them as they are seen in the general view, rather than as they are X 322 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. Shakspeare himself: why, the mere subjects of his finest 2:)lays — 'Macbeth,' 'Othello,' 'Lear,' 'Ham- known to be when studied by themselves. And so we say artists have yet to paint the objects in the foreground as they really are seen when viewed in harmony with the principal object in the picture, and not as they are seen and known to be when studied specially and separately. But as it is, the foreground of your pre-Rai^haelite pictures is as imtrue to nature, ay, and as barbarous too, as Chinese backgrounds. This portrait-painting of each simple thing in a complex mass ; this reduction of all the details of a composite living landscape — that has always a special feeling underlying and spiritualizing, as well as substantializing the Avhole — down to the senseless literality of so many distinct items of still life ; this giving us a hundred different isolate pictures of a hund- red different isolate objects where only one picture of one compound object is needed ; this painting of heaven knows how many disjointed groups of people in " Eamsgate Sands," for instance, and giving to every one of the manifold faces making up all the manifold little cliques there each the same marked distinctness of feature and expression as the other, and making them out to be all doing and meaning something apart from the rest (even down to the model Italian boy with the model white mice themselves), and then calling it a pic- ture of the place, when it is no more one pictui'e than is the succession of conjoint "flats" which make up a theatrical di- orama, and believing that it is any thing like a composition when there is not even the vaguest attempt at fusing and in- terblending the rude and undigested mass or perfect chaos of divers and diverse particulars into the broad and harmo- nious entirety of perfect creation ; in fine, this giving to ac- cessories and subordinates the same luminous and chromatic importance, the same black and white distinctness of detail, and the same delicacy of manipulation and finish as the prm- cipal object itself; this senile copying of model legs of mut- ton (as Wilkie used) for pictorial legs of mutton that were merely wanted to break up the formality of the rack under the ceiling, and which the eye could not possibly have seen while looking at the main characters on the ground below — all this, we urge, is another of the crying pictorial vices, and, indeed, general artistic vices of the time. And it is one which the false doctrine of modern art-preachers is tending to drive even farther still into the mere literalities of reality, rather than to lead young artists into the ideal beauty of general nature as opposed to particular truth. Such false doctrine THE NEXT TURNING. 323 let,' the 'Merchant of Venice' — are morally re- volting, and such as, if enacted in the world about us now, would stir even the dullard to the high- est pitch of indignation. And yet, graced by the touches of this mighty, masterly hand, the moral monstrosity becomes transformed into a high in- tellectual beauty ; the natural loathsomeness into the finest artificial feast; even as the manure it- self is changed by the subtlety of mysterious na- ture into food and flowers, or as blood is used in certain industrial processes to produce the high- est possible refinement. So, again, I have heard the Dutchmen in our town, Ben, say that Rem- brandt's great picture of the Dissection is a per- fect visual banquet of color ; and even though it is the most repulsive of all subjects, they assure me that the eye forgets the mangled corpse upon the canvas, and sees only, in the wondrous con- trast of the crimson hues of the raw muscles of the arm, and the yellow, cadaverous complexion of the body, contrasted with the black gowns of is a mistake, which proceeds from the fundamental mistak- ing of the very nature of truth itself, confounding, as it does, that which is mere fact, or mere particular, bare, bald letter- truth Avith law and harmony or order and fitness, which is the universal and enlightened spirit-truth of things. It is this modern artistic fallacy and consequent falsity that makes our pictures of the present day (with hardly one really grand exception) such gaudy, fluttering, butterfly bits of color for the eye to look upon, instead of being the fine, steadfast, and satisfying points of visual rest like the grand paintings of old. Compare, for instance, the sublime repose and har- mony of Rembrandt's picture of the "Woman taken in Adul- tery," that one sees at Rotterdam, and the rich clear-obscure of its foreground, with the pictorial riot, chaos, and hard chalkiness of M'Clise's " Robin Hood," and then surely none but the purblind and the tasteless will doubt for an instant that our own great artists have for many a long year " erred and strayed from their ways like lost sheep," and, moreoA^er, that the Shepherd of Modern Painters is not exactly the man to bring the flock back to the fold. 334 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKXIN. the doctors grouped about it, the soul of the paint- er, reveling in the fine chromatic harmony. The lolUpop school of art, my boy, is the most sickly and childish of all, and tickles the taste of those only who admire a picture as they would a paper- hanging, for being a sightly covering to a blank wall." " But, uncle," asked young Ben, who was still at a loss to comprehend why so few should be able to have a knowledge of art, " how do people ever get to be impressed with a sense of this pow- er and ease, as you call it, in an artist. They haven't seen him doing the work, and they surely can't tell whether he found it hard or easy to do it then ?" " Indeed, Master Ben ! Well, let us see," said the uncle, in reply. " The strong men you have seen, boy, in the shows at Boston fair, whirhng hundredweights about their heads with the same ease as you would so many bladders, and bending bars of iron as if they were twigs, you knew^ to be men of great muscular poAver, because you were conscious that you yourself would have broken your little back before you could have lifted the heavy masses of metal they did, and, moreover, because you were eye-witness to the comparative ease with which they lifted them; that is to say, so far as your eye could detect, there was no straining to compass the effect, nor any ostensible sign of heavy labor in the work. Every one is a natural critic of such feats as these, my boy, because they know, from their own ev- ery-day experience, how iniinitely the task sur- passes their own physical powers. And then, if they think physical power in man an admirable thing, they will admire the mighty strong fellow ; they w^ill look up to him with a kind of half-rev- erence and half-love, not only because the might THE NEXT TURNING. 325 that is in him is so much greater than their own might, but because of the ease, and, therefore, the comparative grace with which he accomplishes the mightiest tasks." " I begin to see what you mean now," mutter- ed the youth, as he chewed the cud of the prob- lem. "Well, lad," the other proceeded, " of physical feats most people are born critics, because the physical power in such matters is often self-evi- dent. We all feel and know, almost instinctively and intuitively, that we couldn't swallow sabres, or jump through hoops off a galloping horse's back, or dance the Highland fling upon a wire some hundred feet high in the air amid a shower of fire-works." The boy couldn't help smiling at the obvious truths of the argument. "Again, Benjamin, there are other feats of skill, rather than art, that almost every person can ap- preciate naturally ;" and as the old man said the words, the boy turned toward him, eager for the illustration. " Almost every one, for instance," said Uncle Ben, " can appreciate the art or skill of simple imitation. I do not mean merely enjoy the resemblance produced (since that depends, as I have shown you, on an entirely difierent sus- ceptibility of our nature), but I do mean that they can have a feeling at the same time of greater or less admiration for the person producing the en- joyment ; for it is this feeling of admiration — this turning of the mind toward the human cause of our delight, and having a sense of greater or less wonder at his superior power, that makes up the feeling of artistry — that is to say, of respect, and even reverence for the artist-power. The child, when it perceives the shadowy likeness of the rab- bit on the wall, Ben, and finds out that the long 326 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. black moving ears, and bright white eye that keeps winking at it, arc produced by its father's fingers, depend upon it, looks into its parent's face with a mixture of love and wonder, ay, and of awe and Avorship, as it feels its first spasm of admiration for what it doubtlessly believes then to be a work of prodigious craft and skill. The misfortune is that half — nay, lad, more than three fourths of the world never advance in artistic knowledge and sense beyond the faculty of that little child, fixscinated with the wondrous piece of imitation, and thinking that work a high artistic effort which is but a mere trick of the fingers aft- er all." " And how do others acquire a greater knowl- edge. Uncle Ben ?" inquired his nephew. " Why, boy," the answer ran, " when they have had their fill of the various imitative processes in art, and wondered till they have no longer any wonder, left, for the once-wonderful artists who deli-ght in bits of ' still life' (in the painted slice of cheese, for instance, with the mouse about to gnaw it, and the jug of foaming ale with the crusty loaf behind) — for the musicians who excel in the reproduction of the cries of the entire farm- yard on the fiddle (the braying of the donkey — clucking of the hen — cackling of the geese — gob- bling of the turkeys, and crowing of the cocks) — for the ventriloquists who glory in conversations with invisible old cellarmen far under ground, and imaginary bricklayers up chimneys, knocking out imaginary bricks, who delight in frying imagin- ary pancakes, and in sawing through imaginary logs, and uncorking and decanting imaginary bot- tles of wine — when, lad, we have been surfeited with these mere tricks and antics of human cun- ning, and found out that the powers and processes which we once believed so transcendent, because THE NEXT TUKNING. 327 we knew and felt they were far beyond what loe ourselves could compass at the time, are no such very extraordinary powers after all, but that, on the contrary, in the wide range of human nature, the faculty for imitation, or the simple outside rep- resentation of a tiling, is one that mere ordinary power of mind and manipulation is sufficient to compass — when we have made this discovery, I say, we go on continually widening the circle of our experience, and comparing one signal evidence of human power Avith another in each of the dif- ferent arts, until at last we come to distinguish the giants from the j^igmies on stilts — the creators from the mere reproducing creatures; and end by regarding those only as high artists who dis- play the most inordinate power of conception and execution in their works — power that can triumph over difficulties that would be overpowering to ordinary human minds, and yet triumph over them with the greatest apparent ease and grace. As you knew the power of the strong man in the show, Ben, instinctively and intuitively, by com- paring the exhibition of his power with your own power, and also with that of the most powerful men with whom you were acquainted, and then feeling that he infinitely transcended them all, so with the mental athlete ; directly we are conscious of his power — directly we know and feel that he can snap the iron chain of events in nature as easily as a silk-worm's thread — that he can crush the adamantine wall of circumstance hemming in our lives as readily as a wren's nest in his grasp — that he can make the most rigid and inflexible difficulties in his path as supple as the stems of harebells — and, indeed, that, like Atlas himself, he can stir the entire world with the force of his mere will as though it were a soap-bubble in the air driven by his breath — directly we know and 328 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. feel all this, we also know and feel that we are the little motes, and he the bright and sunny beam from heaven, at once stirring and enlightening us." "I see! I see!" exclaimed the boy, thought- fully, as he inwardly pondered ujDon the high theme. " The pleasure we experience, my little man," the uncle went on, " in contemjilating works of high art, arises not only from the intrinsic beauty of such works themselves, but from that fine en- joyment which springs from the conception of the highest power exerted with the greatest ease, and therefore with the greatest grace ; for high art may be defined to be the voluntary exercise of high power with little or no eflbrt, even as the highest art is that sublime exercise of the Al- mighty's power which makes creation the imme- diate consequence of the mere expression of the Almighty will. ' And God said, Xet there be light, and there icas light.' "This is the very majesty of all art, Ben. It is impossible for the mind to conceive any thing requiring greater power to achieve, and yet any thing achieved more readily or more sublime in its achievements. The stupendousness and love- liness of the work — the flooding of all creation in an instant with that pellucid fire-mist, which forms the broad sheet of luminous matter difiiised throughout the world — the stirring of the entire universe with the undulations of the luminous ether-waves from one end of space to the other, circling and circling round the central point of rest like the rings in a pool, and flashing fight every where immediately in response to the great Will — immediately, remember ! — without any in- tervening event ! — without any intermediate work or labor to compass the end ! — without any ma- chinery ! — without any delay ! — the grand out- THE NEXT TURNING. 329 ward result following as momentarily upon the inward determination as the passing thought il- luminates the countenance of man — this gives us, lad, not only a sense of the highest art, but the highest sense of art which the human intellect can ever hope to comprehend." The couple sat silent for a while, looking at the broad sheet of silver moonlight spread before them — looking at the million star-specks above — looking at the lights on the shore, and rapt in the great artistic wonder of light itself " The pleasure we derive from the love of art, therefore, my boy," resumed Uncle Ben, after a time, "is the highest intellectual enjoyment of which the mind of man is susceptible. It at once humiliates and elevates the soul: humiliates it with a true sense of its own inferior powers and shortcomings, and elevates it also with a sense of the perfection and excellence of the artist who has overwhelmed it with admiration. It fills the mind with all the glory of the highest conquest — the noblest triumph ; not the conquest of man over man, but of man over nature — the trium23h of heroic genius over difficulties. !N"or is there in the true love of art any envy of rivals or dread of victors, for those who are made the slaves of the conquerors are the most willing of all slaves — the most reverent of all children — the most loving of all friends. The wonder that it begets in the soul is not the wonder of mere ig- norance, child, but wonder informed by all the en- lightenment and beauty contained in the won- drous work itself, and made fervent, almost to worship, by the sense of perfection and power "In that which overpowers it. There is no power on the earth so mighty, and yet so spiritual — so kindly and so noble as the creative power of genius. The world's riches and nobility are weak 330 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. as bubbles beside it; heroism and martyrdom are alone kin to it in force of soul. What if the rich man is able to appropriate a manor or a park? — can lie appropriate the sunlight and the shade — the color, the form, and expression of nature ? He may take a goodly slice of the earth to him- self, certainly, but he can not possibly buy up the beauty of the landscape ; he can not, willi all his riches, arrange so that he alone shall enjoy that^ for that is God's dowry to all who have an eye and a soul for art, and it is only the artistic sense that can thoroughly appreciate it. What if the noble can have a legion of toad-eaters to fawii and flatter, fetch and carry for him ! can not the great artist, in every art, have all the intellectual spirits in the world for his admiring vassals, and make them at once his very slaves and worship- ers ? And does the glory of a nation, think you, lie in its Buckinghams and St. Albans — the pet creatures of a foolish monarch's fovor, or in its Shakspeares, IS'ewtons, Bacons, Miltons, Lelys, Purcells, and tliose grand patrician souls that got their patents of nobility from the Great Creator himself? No, lad ; there is no equivalent power in the world to the power of genius, unless it be the moral power of the hero and the holy power of the martyr ; for these three, indeed, are but kindred forms of one insuperable and transcend- ent force — force of mind — force of spirit — and force of soul. There is the same self-sacrificing spirit in art as in heroism ; the same sacrifice of worldly riches and worldly enjoyment to the one absorbing love — the love of the beautiful and the gi%nd ; the same bravery of nature shown in the artist's sturdy fight for success ; the same prow- ess in carving his way through the host arrayed against him, and the same chivalry displayed in his ardor to do battle for honor and beauty. Nor THE NEXT TURNING. 331 is true genius deficient, on the other hand, in the fine martyr power to suffer for what it devoutly beheves and reveres ; to suffer itself to be gibbet- ed by the rest of the world as a madman or a prodigal ; to suffer itself to be crucified with the scorn of purse-pride and the tyranny of worldly authority; and yet, amid all, to lift its eyes to heaven, and see only the bright spirit of perfec- tion that it delights to suffer for." THE PURPORT OF INTELLECTUAL PLEASURE. The theme was no sooner ended than young Ben threw his arms about his godfather's neck, and hugged him enthusiastically as he cried, " Oh, thank you, uncle ! thank you for the fine feelings you have given me ;" but, though the poor little fellow tried to speak on, his heart was too full for utterance, and hysteric sobs burst out instead of words, while Uncle Ben felt a tear-drop fall warm upon his hand. Then, as the lad hid his face upon his uncle's shoulder, the old man soothed him with fondling while he said, "There, don't be shamefaced, Ben ; give it vent, lad, give it vent, and it will soon pass away." " I feel as if I had got a ball in my throat," cried the little man, in a minute or two, starting up and pressing his fingers on his windpipe. Presently he began walking rapidly up and down in front of the rock on which they had been seat- ed, and, after a few turns, stopped suddenly in front of his godfather, as he exclaimed, with a thump of the air to enforce the speech, " I shall be an artist, uncle — I shall." " Lad ! lad ! lad ! how you talk !" returned the other. " Have I been speaking only to create a phrensy in you, when all I wanted was to beget a love. Say you'll be a king, boy : it's easier far, since no special genius is required for that. Say 333 YOUXG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. you'll be a giant, even though you are born a pigmy; you might as well. Ah! Ben, like a hundred otliers in the world, you mistake a taste for a faculty, a mere developed liking for an in- herent power — the power to conceive finely and execute gracefully ; and this is a widely different thing from the function of merely perceiving and enjoying. All the world, if duly educated, may have the enjoyment awakened and developed in them, but the poioer can never be given to them, any more than one could give them the power of soaring like eagles when they lack the special organization of the eagle si^irit and the eagle wings." The boy hardly relished his uncle's demolition of his conceit, so he merely murmured by way of reply, " Now I suppose we have done for to-night, eh ? Besides, I want to get home, and think of all you've said." " Well, my good lad, I won't keej) you long now," returned the godfather ; " but we mustn't go without giving a thought respecting what we came for, Ben. You forget ; what you wanted was to be set on the right road, little man, but as yet we have only surveyed the quiet shady lane which you called the path of intellectual pleasure, so we have still to decide whether that will be the cleanest, or the most agreeable, or even the shortest way to worldly happiness." " Xo more we have !" ejaculated young Ben, as the omission flashed upon him ; and then he sud- denly added, "But my mind's quite made uj^, though ! I mean to go that way through life, I can tell you, unky." " Gently — gently ! gently over the stones, boy, as the coachmen say," cried the uncle, in a tone of warning. This made his little godson turn sharply round THE NEXT TURNING. 333 and inquire, " What d'ye mean by that, Uncle Ben?" " Why, I mean, lad," he went on, " that you'd find, before you got half through your journey, that it was sore hard traveling. It's but a by- way at best, Ben, and if you want to make it the high road, you'll find, sooner or later, you'll stick deep in the mire, like many others who have made the same mistake." " I don't understand you, uncle — after all the grand things you've been saying about it, too," interposed the little fellow, growing half peevish at the crossing of his purpose. " Why, look here ! what did I tell you were the three main objects of human life?" the old man asked. " Let me see ! what did you say they were ?" young Ben inquired of himself; " though I'm sure you've told me so many things I can't exactly re- member them just now." " Business" — began the other. But, before he had time to finish the sentence, the boy had added " amusements and duties." " Well, then, lad," the uncle proceeded, " as sensual pleasures (or rather the relief of the wants and uneasinesses begotten by the senses) make up the main business of life, so the intellectual pleas- ures should form the basis of man's mature amuse- ment ; and, kept within their due sphere, they are the lovely, grand, and pure enjoyments of our soul. If, however, we vdll make a stern business of what should be merely a fine amusement — if we will be at play, lad, when we should be at hard work, no matter how graceful and refining the play may naturally be — if we vnll try to live on flowers (and, remember, the flowers are the most useless, though the most beautiful of all natural objects, Ben), and wo7iH seek bread, why, of 334 YOUXG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. course we can't expect worldly welfare. Depend npon it, my boy, we have only to burst through the regular round of nature at any time for a whole legion of ugly imps and evil spirits to rush in upon us directly the magic circle is broken." " Oh then, I suppose, you mean to say, uncle," interposed Master Ben, " that was the reason why the poet had taken the wrong road ?" " Of course it was," said the old man. " He was one of the many poor fellows who try to live on flowers, and who starve rather than live at the business ; for, let a man be as busy as a bee, Ben — ay, and as thrifty as a bee too — he can not hive much of what the poet called the world's honey out of the buttercups and daisies strewn in our path. If the exigencies of human nature render- ed poetry as crying a necessity as food and rai- ment ; if the love of the beautiful and the good had been made an appetite, and had bred in us all the pangs of an appetite when not satisfied (in- stead of^being merely one of the many bountiful «/Vcr-enjoyments that we have been fitted to feel, on the assuagement of the appetites themselves) why, then, to have made poetry a business would have been high and noble worldly wisdom. But since the butcher will not take a lovely sonnet in exchange for a lovely leg of mutton, nor a tailor accept the finest possible ode for a superfine suit of clothes, why, the larder must be empty, Ben, and the back be poorly clad, if we v:ill continue toying with the beautiful, and at the same time warring with the wise." " But, uncle," put in the little fellow, " Shak- speare was a poet ; and yet, I think, I read up in your room that at the end of his life he wasn't at all badly off; either." "He was simply the finest and wisest poet, perhaps, the world ever saw, my good lad," the THE NEXT TURNING. 335 answer ran, " and just one of the few profound geniuses that can ever make a fortune out of an art. You see, Ben, the great drawback of the artistic passion is, that it leads so many to do what you were about to do just now — mistake the mere love of art begotten in them by the grand works of others, for an inherent power existing in themselves. The intense admiration that is excited by all works of high art begets an enthu- siastic love for the art-creators, and this passion again begets, in its turn, a fervent desire in the breasts of those who feel it that others should have the same enthusiastic love for them. So, as each art-worshiper longs in his soul to be trans- lated from the humility of the devotee into all the glory of the idol, or, in plain English, to be re- garded as a genius by the world, why, it is not a very difficult matter for him to cheat himself, at last, into the belief that he is what he wishes to be. Hence hundreds of mere clever folk are led to make a business of that which should be mere- ly an elegant amusement to them ; but, alas ! (as in all arts it is only genius, or inordinate natural power that we admire and value) mere cleverness, which is simply ordinary educated power, be- comes utterly valueless to all who have any sense of high art itself. Consequently, your mere clever folk find it very difficult to get a market for their wares, and thus those who should have remained amateurs — that is to say, simple art-lovers — rather than aspired to be artists or art-creators (and who would have thriven as carpenters, builders, or smiths, or as house-painters, sign-j^ainters, or, in- deed, at any calling where more skilled or edu- cated handicraft has a value in the world), have to pay a long and heavy penalty for their folly in the shape of want, disappointment, and envy." " Oh, I understand you now, and see what a 33A YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKUN. narrow escape 7" have had, uncle," niurnuired the youth. ''And that was why the artist we went to was ahuost as poor as the poet, eh ?'' The answer was, '' Ay, Beu, he Avas truly an art-lover, and should never have been an art-cre- ator. The poor fellow could reproduce fairly enough, lad, but reproduction in art is, unlbrtu- nately for such as he, the counterfeit coin that every true judge of the sterling metal rejects with disdain as a sham and a cheat." •"' Well, but science, you said, uncle, was wis- dom," urged young Ben ; " so I suppose the gen- tleman who passed all his time in collecting in- sects, and in looking at them — under the telescope, I think it was — " " Nay, nay, the microscope, lad," prompted the uncle. "Well, the microscope, then," continued the boy, " and who spent ever such a lot of money upon the little tiddy lenses to it, I suppose /le Avas wise, Avasu't he ? Besides, you know, he Avas a rich gentleman, and could aiibrd to indulge in such an amusement." " So could the epicure, lad ; and the one only differed from the other in the fact that the pur- suit was less animal and less gross," Avas the re- joinder. *' With the epicure, eating Avas a lust ; with the entomologist, the study of aninialcular liie Avas a hobby." The bov inquired, "And what's a hobbv, un- cle?" Uncle Benjamin gaA'e the following answer : " A hobby, my son, is any dry stick that big babies like to get astride, and go prancing and curveting through the great higliAvay as proudly as if they had a genuine bit of blood to carry them along. The fools in the old May-games Avere al- Avays shoAvn riding some childish Avoodeu liobby- THE NJiXT TUliNING. 887 hor.sc, and tho fools of modem time — who boo life only HH a May-gurno — must have tlioii" }ioM>y to ride too. Originally the hobby-horse was a hack- liorse, that used to carry the same everlasting pack upon his back, and to be perpetually traveling the same everlasting road. "Jljcn the fool got astride wooden hobbies, and rode them with all the airs of a knight-errant, eager to win his spurs in the world ; and after that babies took up the amusing foolery, and went a-cock-horse on their granny's crutch, anticking along as though the wretched hobbling thing fulfilled all the functions of life. I fence, my boy, a hobby came at last to stand for any kind of senseless dead horse that will bear any amount of overriding ; indeed, it is a sort of dilet- tante clothes-horse — a thing for philosophic fops to })ang their mental frippery upon. Ilenco, too, hobby-riding is mere childish gamboling rather than the true manly exercise of the intellect — the monkey-trick of wisdom trying to crack the }jard nuts of the world ; as if the ape himself had learn- ed to play the philosopher, and deliglited to put on the sage's spectacles, and try and look wise by- staring hard at the puddles and the stars through the thinker's glasses." The lad was tickled with the figure, but too in- tent on solving all the difficulties of the problem his uncle had set before him to do more than smile at the image it conjured up ; so he said, " Still, unky, dear, I can't understand why, if there's no necessity for a man to follow any busi- ness, he mayn't continually pursue some intellect- ual amusement without being looked upon only as what you call a big baby or a world's fool." " There's only one excuse, Ben," the tutor made answer, "for a man laboring day after day at the same occupation, to the exclusion of almost every other object in life, and that is,}jecause it is abusi- Y 338 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. ness with him ; that is to say, because the exi- gences of human nature at once demand and en- force it. But the man upon whom nature has re- laxed her grip ; w^ho has drawn a prize in the strange social lottery ; wiio, in the great conscrip- tion forever going on to recruit the standing army of life, has escaped entering the ranks by being allowed to find a substitute to do the hard work of the battle for him — for such a man to make an amusement a busmess — for such a man to toil and labor day after day at unnecessary work, as if he were toiling and laboring for dear life it- self, and that also to the exclusion of every other object in the world — this is to reverse the wise ordinations of nature, and give play to all the aus- terity of hard work, as well as to transform what was intended to be a sweet and graceful relief into an ugly sore and a source of endless irrita- tion." " But if he UJces to make play hard work, un- cle," again urged the pertinacious little fellow, " why shouldn't he do so ?" " Because, Ben, life should never be entirely sacrificed to play, or, indeed, to any one pursuit except that of work," the tutor responded. '' And there is no earthly reason why w^e should persist in working at this one pursuit day after day, but that we want food day after day, ay, and shall want it daily when we are too old and feeble to continue daily work. Besides, my boy, if Provi- dence, by some special and inscrutable act of grace toward us, has exempted us from the hard labor of life, and struck the iron collar of want's bitter serfdom ofi' our necks. He has not exempted us, at the same time, from the duties of life, but rather ordained that from those to whom much is given much is expected. Consequently, he who rides a hobby rides roughshod over all the soft ties of THE NEXT TURNING. 839 nature, tramples under foot — like the reckless hunter dashing through a corn-field in the wild chase that he calls sport — all that was meant to comfort and sustain the suffering, and wastes, in the phrensy of his amusement, the golden means of relief to those who want. To ride a hobby, lad (even though it carry us like Pegasus up to the very grandeur of the starry universe itself), is, after all — if we are forever in the clouds — merely to sweep the cobwebs from the skies, and to soar, like an old witch upon a broomstick, far away from all that is required of us on earth it- self." " But, Uncle Ben," inquired his pupil, " if such pursuits are not hobbies — if they are really the business by which j^eople live, then there is noth- ing wrong in them, I suppose ?" " So far from there being any thing wrong in them when not made the one overweening and all-absorbing amusement of a life, lad," he answer- ed, " they are studies that make every one who has the faculty to comprehend the wonders re- vealed by them feel an everlasting poem in his brain, far beyond the power of even Milton him- self to shape into words ; and those with whom they are a business rather than a passion, depend upon it, find such studies — even grand as they are when occasionally contemplated in the lull of the work-day world — often harden into toil that makes the brain ache again after long laboring at them ; and as the mill-horse, who was kept grind- ing forever in one eternal circle throughout the week, found ease and delight only in xmwinding himself, as it were, on the Sabbath by turning in precisely the contrary direction, so the study,-/?! the revolutions of the heavenly bodies lends, .ihfls turn, an inordinate delight and grace to the round of intellectual pleasure on the earth. 340 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. " And now, lad, we have but to note how these same intellectual pleasures are distinguished from the pleasures of the senses to have exhausted this part of our subject. What did I tell you, Ben, were the peculiar characteristics of sensual en- joyments ?" and, as the old man asked the ques- tion, he rose from his seat, and, taking the boy by the hand, commenced walking homeward along the shore. " Why, uncle, you said," cried the little fellow — "for I remember it struck me strongly at the time — that as a sensation was always caused by the operation of something outside of us — " " Yes, those were my words, Ben," interposed the godfather. " Go on." "I know what you meant, but it's so hard to say it as you did, uncle," the boy added, after a pause ; and then, with a Uttle stammering, jerked out, " Why, you said we must go hunt for the objects of sensual pleasure in the world about us ; yes, and you said we must often have to pay dear- ly for them too." " That's perfectly right, Ben ;" and the kindly old teacher shook his little godson by the hand as he said the words. " And, on the contrary, the intellectual pleasures are comparatively inexpens- ive ones, lying mostly within ourselves. The very perception of beauty (which is perhaps the largest intellectual sense of all, being connected with al- most every source of mental enjoyment) is a fac- ulty that admits of continual gratification with- out cost. The whole world, if we will but open our eyes to it, is one vast temple of beauty, filled with works of the choicest art, and this the very beggar or pauper is as free as the prince to enjoy; lOr*i^ is a luxury that is priceless in a double sense, costing nothing, and yet being beyond all cost. Look here, lad — " and he stopped and turned to- THE NEXT TURNING. 3*1 ward the moon that was flooding the bay with all the soft splendor of the silver sunlight of its beams. "Look here! What pomp of kings was ever equal to this ? What palace was ever so gorgeous with its million lights as this vast starry hall? and yet it is lighted up even for the vagrant and the outcast, as well as for you or me. Who can appropriate this magnificent scene, boy ? Who can buy this up so that he alone may enjoy it? And yet, lovely as all this now is, what a mighty transformation — what a new beauty will be brought about in a few hours ! Think how the now colorless earth will then leap into a million hues with the first flash of the daylight; how these dark fields will suddenly glitter in the sun with all the golden-green lustre of the peacock's plumage ; how the stars above will fade one by one from the skies, and the bright-colored little stars of the earth begin to peep out from the hedgerows and the meadows ! How this broad ocean, which is more like one immense floor of silver, will then be red as wine with the ruby light ; and think, too, boy, that this is a feast spread for us all, day after day, and a feast which never cloys — never surfeits." The boy kissed his uncle's hand in gratitude for the pleasant knowledge and high perceptions he had given him. He was like a young bird whom the old one was teaching to fly, and he found no little difficulty in keeping on the wing after hira, so he rested in silent admiration till the other continued. " But not only is there the usual beauty of na- ture, Ben, ever open to us, but there is the beauty of the peculiar trains of thoughts and feelings be- gotten by the peculiar nooks and corners of the earth : the beauty of the solemn mood inspired by the woods — the calm, contemplative spirit en- 342 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. gendered by the quiet lanes — the gentle cheerful- ness begotten by the brook-side — the sweet seren- ity of soul impressed by the sea-shore. Again, in the very associations with which the mind is forever strewing our path through life — like flow- ers scattered as we go — there is a large fund of de- light always stored within ourselves. Our home is home only from the cluster of sweet associa- tions that hang about the old house, thick and pleasant as a cloud of jasmine at the porch; not a tree in the fields w^here we sported in our youth but is entwined all round with the tendrils of many a sweet-scented memory ; not an old friend's face that is not lighted up in our eyes with the recollection of all the haj^piness and all the many little kindnesses rendered to us. So, too, with the imagination : we have here also in our power a mighty principle of delight. Even with the very young, their plays — their little pretendings — their sham feasts — their mock battles — their love of fairy stories — all owe their pleasure to the charm of the fancy within us ; while even to the more mature, the frost on the window-pane, which the mind loves to shape into so many grotesque pic- tures, and the glowing sea-coal fire that w^e love to sit and look at, and trace faces, and mountains, and what not, amid the red-hot coals, can give the fancy many an hour's pleasant play: even as to the poor prisoner, barred and bolted in his living tomb, the imagination is the great liberator ; for this at any time can set him free in mind, and carry him, in fancy, home to his friends again. Indeed, lad, the world within — if we will but wan- der in it — is as richly stocked w^ith beauty and tT?asures as the world w^ithout, and with beauty and treasures that are all our own too. It is in our brain the fairies dwell, and the flowers they nestle in bloom there too; there the gorgeous THE NEXT TURNING. 343 land of romance and enchantment is to be found ; there, and there only, can we find Utopia, the isl- and of perfect happiness ; there the wood nymphs and the water nymphs are ever lurking in the mythic streams and groves, and waiting but for one wave of the fancy's wand to summon all to life; there lies the realm of all ideal excellence and beauty, and there is no perfection to be found on the earth but there." Again the teacher paused, wdiile he mentally scanned the details of his subject. The boy hadn't a syllable to say. His little stock of words, he knew, was too scanty to trust himself to speak on such a matter; but his young heart was full to overflowing with that fine reverent fervor, that iris-like emotion (made up of all the brightest and warmest hues of the soul — love, wonder, grati- tude, and veneration) with which the mind al- ways turns to any one that has awakened grand thoughts and perceptions in it, and which IJncle Benjamin had called, in contradistinction to the moral sense and the common sense, the art-sense — the admiring, worshipful sense of human nature. Presently the uncle resumed as they walked on by the shore : " But even, lad," said he, " when we have to hunt for the objects of intellectual l^leasure outside of ourselves, and to buy them of others in the world about us, they are to be had for nothing in comparison with the costly luxuries of the senses. A dainty dinner would have cost me more than I gave for my copy of Plutarch's Lives — the book you're so fond of, Ben, you know ; yet see what a number of grand feasts you and I have had out of it, and still it has left not a twinge of gout in the brain behind it either. For w^hat I gave for my Shakspeare I couldn't have got a diamond bigger than a speck of hoar- frost, lad, and yet, if I could have had one as big 344 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. as the knob of a beadle's staff to stick in ray shirt-frill, or as brilliant as a fire-fly to flash about upon my finger, do you think the pretty petrified dew-drop would have done other than have made a big baby of me ? But, on the other hand, see what a man I've become by j^referring to bedizen and bejewel my mind with the bright thoughts and fancies of those volumes. For what gem in the world is there that can compare with that lovely crystal book ? Was ever a bit of earth so exquisitely transparent as even human nature it- self is there made to appear ? Was there ever such play of color as there you see twinkling in all the hundred hues of human character ? Was there ever such fire as there, where every page is aflame with human passion, and every line scin- tillates with human genius? Was there ever such dazzle, such sparkle in a mere stone, however precious ? Why, twist and turn the bright ada- mant bit of art as you will, in every different light you look at it you shall see fresh flashes, fresh delicate tints and touches, fresh glitter and rich- ness, and fresh beauty too. A good book, lad, is at all times a wonderful thing. It is said that savages, wiien they first discover that a person has the power of communicating his thoughts to another at a distance by means of a few marks made upon a blank surface, fall down and wor- ship the writer as a divine being. My boy, a book is naturally but a few pages of paper scratch- ed over with a few fine black lines, and yet those magic lines are the means of enabling us to hold communion with the very dead themselves — to think as they thought, feel as they felt, hundreds of years ago. To read Shakspeare, my dear Ben, is to think Shakspeare, to be Shakspeare for the time; it is to have the same bright fancies flit through our brain, the same passions stirring our THE NEXT TURNING. 346 soul, as he had while penning the book itself. To lift the cover of such a work is, as it were, to roll the stone from before the sepulchre, and have the immortal spirit rise from the tomb, quick again with the very breath of life and genius. But, though this is the natural marvel of a great book, its natural and spiritual beauty lies not more in the fine mental enjoyment it gives us than in the fine moral comfort it afibrds the soul. There are times, lad, when we are worldly-tired, when the spirit is footsore, as it were, with the fatigues of worldly care and Avorldly struggle, and it is finely ordained that it should be so. But then, ay tJien^ what balm is the mental rest and the mental ease of a fine book to us ! It comes as refreshing as dew in drought ; as sweet and grateful as manna in the wilderness. It is like the very rest of heav- en itself to get far away from the world at such times, and then the wizardry of a really grand and thoughtful work is felt to be the very power of enchantment. When we are sick of the world's fools, lad, and the world's cheats, and the world's heartlessness, and the world's trumpery, what in- tense delight then to slip away to our study, or to some pretty bubbling brook-side, and turn to the fond companionship of a good book, so as to get a smack of the world's wisdom, the world's greatness, the world's truth, and goodness too ! Could we have known the great sj^irits that have delighted and ennobled mankind with their works, we should have thought it a high privilege to have had communion with them, a signal grace to have gained their counsel. Still they were hu- man like ourselves, Ben, and had more or less of the weakness and pettiness of humanity amid all their strength and greatness ; but in the noblest books, lad, we see only the noblest part of human- ity ; its inordinate power rather than its ordinary 3i6 YOCXG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. frailty ; its im-svonted grandeur rather than its every-clay meanness ; and thus, by means of the best books, we get to know tlie best natures that ever Hved, and to know them in their best and happiest moods too." There was still another point to enforce before the lesson Avas completed ; so, after a brief rest, Uncle Ben continued : " I have now only to im- press you, my child, with a sense of the general imselfish character of true intellectual enjoyment, and then my worldly sermon is finished : I want you to mark well the distinction between the pleasures of the senses and those of the mind in this respect. With sensual pleasure there is al- most always a desire to appropriate the thing that pleases us — that is to say, to take it and keep it to ourselves, so that we alone may enjoy it; and some mean natures find a small delight even in exciting the envy of others by the disj^lay of the worldly valuables they have been lucky enough to obtain, so that the love of pomp and show, dress and finery, is often found to be closely connected with the poor glory of worldly riches. But with the objects of intellectual pleasure there is seldom any such drawback. As I said before, a man can not appropriate the beauty of the landscape ; in- deed, so far from any such greed, any such craving to mo)voxJolhze what pleases us coming upon the soul in a state of intellectual enjoyment, the very contrary feehng is awakened, and the same pro- pensity for proselytism sets in, as even in religious fervor itself, and we grow eager to make others see, think, and feel as we do. Who that was ever fired with the beauty of a noble or graceful thought, a grand discovery, or a lovely scene, has not felt a positive yearning of the spirit to commu- nicate the delight awakened in him to some con- genial bosom ! If it were not for this exquisitely THE NEXT TURNING. 347 generous character of our mental nature. Chris- tianity itself would never, probably, have traveled beyond the walls of Jerusalem ; for if there were the same greed to monopolize a high mental en- joyment as there is to keep a sensual one all to ourselves, what desire could ever have stirred the early Christians to seek to turn the hearts of those far distant from all the horrors of paganism to the sweet benevolence of the ' new commandment ?' Again, Ben, if it were not for this innate love of sharing our mental delights with others, there could have been no philosophy, no teaching in the world. When you come, boy, to look into those wonderful elaborations of mental mosaic-work which make up the several natural sciences, you will learn how they have been built up, like the huge coral reefs in the ocean, by an infinity of dis- tinct and minute workers, all laboring away far beneath the surface, and each intent on adding his little mite of extra work to the mass, so as to give it ultimately the fine j^roportions of a great and mighty whole. You will then see, Ben, how little each has added, even after the labor of a long life, and how many had to contribute their quota of industry before the whole assumed any thing like the grandeur and solidity of a rock! And yet, lad, if each of these profound and minute laborers hadn't shared with the rest what he had beeq able to accomplish — if each had kept to himself the lit- tle bit of vantage-ground he had gained instead of letting it go to swell the common heap, why, what progress could any have made, or how could any have raised themselves above the mire ? " And now, lad," concluded the man, as they ap- proached the harbor of the town, " we have reach- ed the port we made for, and after our long voy- age of discovery you'll feel at least the delight of treading with a firmer-footing, and learn the pleas- ure of standing upon terra flrma at last," 348 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. CHAPTER xym. TEASING. The lesson of life was nearly ended. There was only one more chapter to be got by heart ; but it was a difficult one to study, and required close and peculiar observation of the world to learn. Uncle Ben had to think for a time how he should dramatize the story he had to tell — how he should put life and action into it, and give it all the vividness that scenery and incident inva- riably lend to a subject. However, at last he saw his way ; so, early the next morning, the boy and his godfather were out in the streets of Boston, going the rounds of the city once more. " Where in goodness are you going to take me to 710X0^ uncle ?" asked little Ben, as he trotted along at the old man's side, all agog again with the excitement of curiosity. But old Benjamin Franklin was too cunning a teacher to blunt the edge of what he wanted to cut deeply into the memory by satisfying the lad's desire at once, so he rather strove to fan the flame than damp the ardor of the boy's wonder and consequent inquisitiveness. Accordingly, he ask- ed in his turn, "Where do you think, Ben? You've been taken out fishing — you've gone out boating — you've been to the hunting plains in the Far West — you've been round the town to see the great human menagerie, and the strange rational animals collected in it — you've been on the rocks TEASING. 349 by moonlight, and all to have a peep at the world, and iind out how to grope your way through it, and now — " " Yes, uncle, what now ?" cried the lad, on the very tenter-hooks of suspense ; and then added petulantly, as the old man stopped short, " There, you won't go on. How you do like to tease a fel- low, to be sure ! I call it very unkind of you, that I do." But j)resently he said, coaxingly, *' Where are we going to, unky, eh ? You might as well tell a chap ; besides, what difference can it make, for I shall know it all in a short time." " Well, then, why can't you wait that short time, Ben ?" and the old man smiled as he played like a cat with the little mouse in his power, now let- ting him run on a few paces, and now pouncing down upon him only to tighten the grip and in- crease the poor thing's torture. "That's the way you kept tantalizing me all the way to the prairies," muttered the boy, as he walked doggedly on beside the other. "I declare, all you did then was to keep knag-knagging away at me, for all the world as one see^ mother twitch and jerk away at the knots in a tangled skein of thread ; asking me now, ' Where I thought I was going to ?' and then, ' What I expected I was to be shown next ?' and after that, ' Why I fancied you took me all the trips you did?' and only say- ing, when I begged of you to tell me all about it, ' There ! there ! patience, my little philosopher, patience ; you will know all in good time,' just as you do now." The old man couldn't help laughing outright as the boy mimicked his voice and manner while re- peating the reply, for he himself could tell how pat the little fellow had taken him off. Then he said, " Well, Ben, I had an object for withholding the reason at that time, and so I have now. It is 350 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. merely a trick I have, lad ; just a trick, that's all. But come, Master Ben, where do you think we are really going to this time?" he began, again pricking tlie little fellow's curiosity with a small packet of mental pins and needles. "It's such a queer place to take a boy like you to, you can't tell." The lad was on thorns again. He had turned away half in dudgeon at the idea of his uncle laughing, as he thought, at his eagerness ; but the smallest glimmer of coming information was suf- ficient to bring him back close to the old man's side. " A queer place, is it, uncle, eh ? Where- abouts is it ? What do you call it ? What shall we see there ?" he inquired, all in one breath. But, poor fellow, the only answer he got was, "All in good time, my lad, all in good time; we sha'n't be very long before we get to it." The little chap could readily have cried with the irritation of the continued teasing ; but he bit his lip, so that his godfather shouldn't have the satisfaction of seeing how vexed he was. He knew there was some sight in store for him, and he was almost frantic with the rage of the appe- tite that the old man had roused in him. Uncle Benjamin, however, knew well how far to go. He knew that overstrained curiosity, like the overtension of any other faculty, will often end in the snapping of the very chord that had once so tight a hold of the mind, and that disgust or indifference are apt to supervene if the desire be too long foiled of its object. So he began to relax a bit, and allow the poor struggling lish he had hooked a little play of line, just to prevent his breaking the mere hair which held him. " Come, Ben," he said, in a tone that sounded as if he was relenting, "I won't tease my little man any more," and he drew the lad toward him as he spoke ; " so TEASING. 351 where do you think, now, I am really going to take you to ?" Poor Ben wanted to turn away again, for he expected the same question would bring only the same evasive reply ; but the old man held him fast. " There, you're beginning your teasing again, uncle, I declare," cried the boy, half angry, even though he couldn't help laughing in the midst of it. " No, I'm not, lad, indeed I'm not," answered the playful old boy, who couldn't keep from laugh- ing too. " I'm going to tell you, for I know you'll never guess. It's such a queer place you can't think — the queerest place in the world to take a boy like you to, as I said before." " Yes, I know you said it before, and what's the use of repeating it over and over again ?" he ex- claimed, with a quick toss of the head, that ex- pressed whole volumes more than my Lord Bur- leigh's celebrated shake. " How can you say so, Ben, when I'm going to tell you, I say again," the uncle pretended to ex- postulate. "Then why dot-Ct you do it, and have done with it ?" shouted the boy, savagely. The godfather saw that he had gone the full length of his tether. It was plain the lad could bear no more trifling with ; so Uncle Ben said, as he stood still in the street, and looked the little felloAV in the face, " I'm going to take you, Ben — " The boy couldn't wait for the information that he now knew was on the tip of his uncle's tongue ; so, as the old man paused for a minute to give the words extra force at the end of the sentence, he cried " Where ?" " Why, to jail, lad — to jail !" was the reply. " Ah ! now you are only making a fool of me ;" and the indignant boy turned upon his heel, as 352 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKXIN. his uncle fell to laughing outright at the little fel- low's exhibition of incredulity. "Hoi! what are you up to, boy? where are you going to?" Uncle Ben cried through his chuckles, as he saw the youth marching back home again ; but, finding the youth paid no heed to his cries, the old man set off running after him, his sides still shaking with the fun the while, so that he went along wabbling like a jelly when it's moved. " Come back, you rogue," he gasped out, as at last he got close up with the boy, and seized him by the collar ; " I tell you I'm going to take you to jail ;" and then, as he stared in the face of the astonished lad, he burst out giggling again so heartily that Ben himself — for honest good-humor is always infectious — was obliged to take the frown out of his little brow and pucker his cheeks into dimples instead. And there the pair stood for a while laughing at each other in the middle of the street. " You're only having a game with me, ain't you now, uncle?" inquired the pacified youngster, when the whim was over, and they turned round to resume their way. " I tell you. Master Ben, you are a little unbe- lieving Jew, you are. It's as true as gosj^el, lad ; and you know I wouldn't say that in jest," the old man replied. " I'm going to take you to the jail." "The jail!" echoed young Ben, in his wonder. " Ay, boy, the jail !" repeated the other. " I'm going to show you the end of the road to ruin in this life. I'm going to let you see what wisdom there is in the poor-house as well as the prison." "No! are you really^ uncle? Well, do you know, I've long wanted to see what such places are like," added the boy, who was now himself TEASING. 353 again, and fully satisfied tliat his godfather's fit of fun-poking was over. " But still, as I don't mean to go to ruin, Uncle Ben, I can't see what good there can be in your pointing out to me the road to it." " I have no such object in view, my boy," went on the old man. " My scheme is not the paltry nursery trick of frightening you into rectitude by showing you the death's head and bare bones of worldly vice and folly. I don't want to make squalor and infamy mere moral bugaboos; but, rather, I do want to let you learn what kindly and touching things they can whisper in your heart's ear, if your heart will but turn to them. I want to use the ugliness of life as a means of giving you a sense of the highest beauty in the world, lad." " Oh, I thought you were going to let me see these j^laces, so that I might learn where I should get to at last, if I was foolish enough to take the wrong road," said the youth, still harj^ing on the old figure. Uncle Benjamin shook his head and smiled as he said, " The artifice has been tried a thousand times, and failed just a thousand times too. Peo- ple see thus much of life made out in the trashy raelo-dramas of the play-house night after night, Ben, and yet persons of my way of thinking — even though I do read and delight in Shakspeare" — he put in parenthetically — "believe that the morality of the play-house is poor powerless stufi*, after all. Even in the silliest works of fiction, vir- tue is always rewarded and vice punished, and yet the silly people who read them will be vicious, and wonH be virtuous, despite of the teaching. There is always a moral, too — some wretched, driveling, copy-book platitude — tacked on the tail of every fable ; and yet, lad, what bov was ever ' Z 354 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. cured of saying ' don't care,' because that wicked Harry, in the spelling-book, was eaten up alive by a roaring lion for it — even though the punishment is so tremendous, and the fault so trivial ?" Young Ben smiled as he remembered the ap- palling illustration of wretched " don't care" Har- ry in the act of being devoured by the hungry beast in the primer he had used at Mr. Brown- well's school. "The best moral lesson we can ever hope to give a person, Ben, is a truthful insight into hu- man nature," the uncle went on. " The idle scho- lastic method of connecting a prize or a thrashing with good conduct, or the reverse, exhibits the crudest knowledge of the motives of mankind, for it makes the object to be gained or avoided some- thing extHnsic to the thing itself; and thus, while it leaves the propensity to err the same as ever, it leads the mind to indulge in all kinds of cheat- ery to win the one or escape from the other. There is but one certain and sound way to bring men to good, and turn them from the evil that is in their hearts, and that is by attacking the errat- ic propensity itself, and bringing them to love the goodness for mere goodness' sake, and loathe the evil simjDly because it is morally loathsome. Once awaken this sense of moral beauty and moral ug- liness in a human being, and you are sure of your man ; for it is this same beauty, either of the senses, the mind, the heart, or the soul, that all are perpetually pursuing. But appeal to the mere brute greed of man's nature ; teach him that he can get something by being good, or avoid some- thing that he dislikes by respectable conduct, and depend upon it he is certain to remain innately bad at heart ; and instead of our reaping a goodly harvest of golden grain in the end, we shall find that we have raised ;nerely a vile croj^ of weeds THE LOWEST and tares, in the shape of worldly cunning, lying, and hypocrisy." CHAPTER XIX. THE LOWEST " RUNGs" ON THE LADDER. Old Benjamin Franklin had barely finished ex- plaining to his little nephew what was his object in taking him to see the sights he was about to show him when they came in Adew of a large, ugly, overgrown building, that stood just at the out- skirts of the town. " That is ' the house,' Ben," said the uncle, as they halted in front of it ; " ' the house,' as the poor always call it, for they seem to think there is no other house worthy of note in the whole town, and always speak of it as the particular thing of its kind, as we do, indeed, of the sun, the air, the sea, or even as we say the House of Commons, and the Bank." The building itself was of the bare, long, dead- wall, many-windowed style of architecture pecul- iar to factories, barracks, prisons, hospitals, and mad-houses. A huge light-house-like chimney, with a long black plume of smoke rising above the roof, would have made one fancy it was an immense workshop ; a few soldiers in their shirt- sleeves at the windows, and sundry pairs of regi- mental trowsers hanging to dry outside of the casement, with a sentry pacing in front of the gate, would have rendered it the perfect type of a military depot / or, had the long lines of win- dows been trellised with thick iron bars, it might, on the other hand, have stood for the county jail or the lunatic asylum ; while it only wanted the long board announcing that it was " supported 356 YOUNG BEXJAMIN FKAXKLIX. BY VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS," and the little money-box let into the wall beside the door, to have converted it into an institution for the cure of certain diseases. Uncle Benjamin knocked at the gate, and im- mediately the little square wicket was opened, and the round, fat, ruddy face of the old soldier Avho acted as porter to the establishment appeared behind the gridiron-like bars. The man recognized the features of the elder Benjamin, and, knowing him to be a friend of the " Master," the gate was duly opened, and the couple entered the yard. Close beside the gate stood the square box of the porter's lodge, which gave one the idea of its being an enormous dog-kennel, placed there to guard the entrance, while the yard itself consisted of an acre or two of mere bare gravel, and this was kept so tidy, and had been swept so even and rolled so flat that it seemed like one large sheet of sand-j^aper spread over the ground, while in the middle of it strutted some dozen or two of pigeons, as pompous and gorgeous as beadles. To cross the threshold of the poor-house ap- peared to the boy like stepping into another coun- try. He had never seen such a collection of old people before, nor indeed people so very old ; for the inmates were far older and weaker than any met with in the street, while the younger folk were, many of them, either blind, crij^pled, or idi- otic. Little Ben had heard the deacons of his father's chapel complain, as they sat chatting with Josiah in the little back parlor in the evening, of the heaviness of the parish rates, and speak of the paupers as " a pack of lazy vagabonds," and his prejudice had been rather increased than lessened l3y his uncle's exordium upon work and thrift as the only means of avoiding penur}^ THE LOWEST " EUNGS" ON THE LADDER. 357 But once within those walls, the httle fellow was staggered with the amount of worldly help- lessness focused, as it were, in that " dark cham- ber" of the town. There was every variety of senility, imbecility, and infirmity gathered togeth- er there, as if it had been a natural museum for the display of all the peculiar " specimens" of bodi- ly and mental inefficiency. Some of the old went toddling about in their suits of granite-gray, along the white border of flag-stones in front of the building itself, with all the ricketiness of baby- hood ; others scambled and shuffled on, as if pal- sied with weakness ; and other poor crooked-back things staggered onward, pace by pace at a time, with a stick in either hand to prop them as they went. Some, again, sat shaking on the yard bench- es in places where the sun fell, basking in the warm beams, in the vain hope of being warmed by them; and not a few had their white night- caps shining under their Greenwich-pensioner-like hats, as if they were ever ready for sleep, and waiting for the last, the long profound slumber of all. Then the big, owl-like spectacles of some of the aged creatures — the mumbling, toothless tones, and gasping, wheezy voices of others — the con- tinued asthmatic coughings of almost all — and the occasional shouting of some hale official into the ear of some one of the crew, as the gaffer stood with his face turned from the speaker, and his veiny, shriveled hand at the side of his head and close against the mouth of the other, straining to catch something like the meaning of what was said, all impressed the mind with such a sense of bodily and mental decay that ruin seemed stamp- ed upon every thing — not merely worldly ruin, but the ruin of every human faculty too. The boy couldn't help wondering whether TJn- n53 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. cle Ben or himself could ever come to be like one of those. Many of the young things in gray, on the other hand, were almost as powerless in body and mind as the old. Some had that peculiar dropping of the lower jaw — that dangling of the hands from the joints of the wrists, and that ^trange drag- ging, scuffling gait, as they went about, that are the outward visible signs of an utter want of an inward and spiritual every thing. Some, again, were blind, and sat in the sun with their faces up- turned, smiling vacantly as they rolled their white opaque jDupils restlessly and uselessly about, now turning them up half into their heads, and now wiping away the tears that kept streaming from them ; not a few went hopping along on crutch- es, or crouching down nearly to the ground, while others Avere bent almost double with some horrid spinal deformity. Then there was so curious and marked a shame- lessness, or apparent callousness in the faces of all, that this characteristic perhaps struck the mind Avith greater force than any thing else, after the first impression of the utter helplessness of so large a number had faded a little from the mind. Young Ben naturally expected to find that all who had a thought or feeling left would exhibit some sense of worldly disgrace or sorrow at being in- mates of such a place, and he even fancied that wretchedness and misery would be seen in every countenance, so that the decent-minded lad was half shocked when he saw the " able-bodied young women" stare and grin in his face as they went by in their duster-checked aprons and large white caps. And though he looked all around, he could not discover one dejected head, one abashed coun- tenance, or one tearful eye throughout the whole of that wretched pauper town. THE LOWEST "RUNGS" ON THE LADDER. 859 The boy twitched his uncle by the skirt, and said in a whisper to him, " Don't they feel, then, uncle — don't they really care about being here? They don't seem to think it any disgrace, that I can see." " No, lad, they soon get settled down to their lot ; and such as do chafe under it, suffer more from a sense of persecution and wrong in the world than from any idea of worldly degrada- tion," answered the old man, in an under tone, as he drew the lad to one side. " If you were to go into a debtor's prison, Ben, you'd be struck to find that not one was confined there, according to his own story, for any just debt of his. So it is here, lad; for the mind never likes to see, and therefore never sees, its own errors. All these poor people are here, they believe, from misfor- tune, and many assuredly are so too, boy ; not a few are impressed with a full sense of their right to the place, and are ready to assert it lustily, I can tell you ; but none fancy they are here, depend upon it, from any imprudence or vice of their own ; though, if you were to listen to my friend the master, he'd want to make out to you that that was the sole cause of every one of them be- ing inside the gates." " I wish I hadn't come, uncle," exclaimed the honest lad ; " I shall never think well of the poor again." " Don't be hasty, boy !" was the mild reproof. " "We are every one of us apt to sentimentalize about such matters. We always come to such a place as this with some preconceived view — some extreme notion, either that the poor are pitiable, persecuted angels, or else lazy, drunken, and un- grateful scoundrels ; and if the real poor don't happen to square with our imaginary poor, why, we'll have nothing to do with them. Do as I do, 360 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. boy — strike the mean ! strike the mean ! Don't put thorough faith in the injured air and misfor- tune of the paupers themselves, nor yet in the aus- tere and uncharitable views of the master, but strike the mean ! Every employer believes that he overpays his workmen, and every workman believes that he is underpaid by his employer — strike the mean ! Every mistress is under the impression that her servant doesn't do half what she ought for her, and every servant is satisfied that her mistress ' don't do nothink at all for her.' Strike the mean, I tell you, lad ! always strike the mean ! And there is but one Avay, Ben, of teach- ing either party its errors. Let them change places for a while ; let one of the paupers here become the master, and the master be made a pauper, and, rely on it, the master himself would take up the very same ill-used and right-demand- .ing air of the pauper, and the pauper, on the other hand, adopt the same harsh and uncharita- ble views as the master. It is but human nature, after all, Ben. Under the same circumstances the generality of peoj^le become the same as others." At this moment the master of the poor-house himself made his appearance, and walked with them over to the other side of the yard. "My little nephew," said the uncle, turning to young Benjamin, after the greeting w^as over, "is rather astonished to find that the poor crea- tures here exhibit no signs of shame, and has just been askmg whether they really feel for their sit- uation." "Feel, indeed!" cried the master, with a toss of the head that made the heavy bunch of keys he carried jangle again in his hand. " They hav'n't got the feelings of ordinary flesh and blood, sir. I've been master of this here house, and my good woman the matron of it three-and-twenty year THE LOWEST " KUNGS ON THE LADDER. 3G1 come next Michaelmas, and think I ought to have learned a little about the inmates of it in that time —eh, Friend Franklin ?" "Perhaps you have been here a little too long," mildly suggested old Benjamin. "A surgeon, after long practice at a hospital, hardly J^elieves that there is any feeling in people under the knife — and perhaps it's better it should be so." " Bless you now ! just look here. Master Frank- lin. You see that young gal there — the one with the pail, slouching along as if she hadn't a bit of life in her — don't let her see you a-p'inting to her, my boy," interjected the master, turning in the opposite direction, as young Ben was about to raise his finger toward the quarter indicated. " Well, she's one of a long generation of paupers. We've got her mother here now, and only buried her grandmother the t'other day. ^N'ow, if that there family has cost the parish a penny, they must have put it to several thousand pounds — yes, sev- eral — thousands — of pounds expense!" he repeat- ed, emphasizing each word ; " and do you think there's the least bit of gratitude in 'em for it ? no, not so much as a '- thank you, sir :' why, they've even impudence enough to look you in the face, and tell you it's their rights ! — their rights, sir ! And she's not one alone. Friend Franklin, but one of a very large class, I give you my word — a very large class, sir." IJncle Benjamin merely nodded, and the other went on. " I have to look about me pretty sharp, I can tell you. Friend Franklin ; and, though I've been here three-and-twenty year come next Michael- mas, as I said before, I assure you these people here are as well up in the law of settlement and passes, and all that there sort of thing, as I am myself — ay, and they know the dietary scale by 362 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANEXIN. heart, from beginning to end, I give you my word. But what annoys me more than all. Master Frank- lin, is the way in which these people can impose upon our chaplain, who is a nice, kind, easy sort of gentleman enough. I don't know whether you are acquainted with him ; but he's no man of the world, you see, sir — no man of the world ;" and the master put his forefinger right down one side of his nose, and bent the organ slightly " out of straight," as he looked shrewdly out of the cor- ners of his eyes in the direction of the elder Ben- jamin. " Oh, he is shamefully tricked by them, and often places me in a very awkward position indeed ; for sometimes, when I've been obliged to report some gal as riotous and disorderly, for — for pelting me with the suet dumplings, say, as was the case only last board-day with Mary Col- lins, because she said the flour w^as musty and the suet stinking ! Well, the overseers, as I was a-going to say, will turn to the chaplain's monthly statement to see what he says about the gal's general behavior, and there they find agin Mary Collins' name either that she is ' a-going on very satisfactorily indeed,' or else that he'd ' every rea- son to be gratified with her conduct,' I forget which." Uncle Benjamin loved a joke well enough to be able to laugh at the discomfiture even of his friend the master, and merely chuckled out that such conflicting statements must be awkward, certainly. " Yes ; the deceit of these people really sur- passes belief, sir, I give you my word ; and our poor chaplain isn't a match for them by a long way. Now, to give you another instance, there's Elizabeth Davis — I saw her in the yard just now," he broke ofi", looking all about to find the woman — "well, I suppose she's gone into the THE LOWEST laundry again, but never mind — as I was a-say- ing about Elizabeth Davis, you'd fancy butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, sir, and she has a tongue that would wheedle a charitable donation out of a pawnbroker. Well, sir, she's engaged in our laundry ; for, of course, I needn't tell you we do all our washing here ourselves ; and we allow the women engaged at the wash-tubs, and a few other perquisite women, who do the hard work of the house, just half a pint of porter after they've done their work. Now our porter, Mister Franklin, is sitch porter as it's impossible to buy in the town. It comes to us, you see, direct from the brewery, and is the real genuine article, I can assure you. It wasn't certainly the correct thing when the Phoenix brewery had the contract ; but since we accepted the tender of the ' Star,' there hasn't been a fault to find with it, I give you my honor. Oh, it really is a superb glass of beer ; indeed, ouv beadle declares it's the best glass of beer he ever tasted in all his life. Well, sir, let me see, where was I ? — oh, I was saying that that there Elizabeth Davis — Ha ! there the woman is now," he broke oiF; "just come out of the ' old women's ward,' with her sleeves tucked up, and her hands all white and shriveled with the washing. D'ye see ? there, she's dropping us a courtesy, for she takes you for one of our select vestry, I dare say. Well, sir, that there woman had her half pint sarved out after her work the other day, and shortly after that, in she bounces into my room, with the pannikin in her hand, and says, as she slaps it down on the table afore me, 'This here beer's not fit to give a pig !' ' What's the matter with it, Davis?' says I, quite gently. 'Matter with it !' says she ; ' why it's warjus.' Yes, that's what the woman called it; she did indeed, sir. 'Verjuice, Davis!' says I, quite gently, but still 364 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. impressively ; ' you ought to be ashamed of your- self to apply such wicked terms to the good things that the Almighty and the parish overseers provide for you, to comfort you in your poverty and time of tribulation.' ' The iDarish overseers be shot !' she exclaims. Did you ever hear such terrible language, Friend Franklin? 'It's them as pays rates,' she goes on, ' like my poor husband did for more than ten long year, as finds us in what we're allowed; and ray dues is what I'll liave, too, I can tell you, old un' — yes, sir, she called me ' old un ;' she did, upon my honor ! ' Well,' says I, still quite gently, but firmly, you know, 'there's no other beer for you than this here, Davis; and as for its being in the least pricked, it's all idle fancy.' ' Pricked !' roars she ; ' what's that ?' ' Why, som-,' says I, never losing myself a bit. ' I tell you it is sour,' she bellows out. 'I tell you it is not sour,' I answers, still mildly, but more firmly than ever. ' Taste it your- self, then,' says she ; w^hereupon, like a fool, I did raise the pannikin to my lips ; but I no sooner got it there than the artful, spiteful hussy gives the tin a knock at the bottom, and sends the whole of the beer right into my face, all down my neck and over my clean shirt-front, till, I give you my word, my frill was like a jDiece of soaked brown paper." Uncle Benjamin tried to look serious, but it was more than either he or Ben could do ; so they had resort to their handkerchiefs, and smothered their laughter in the linen. " Well, friend, of course that there was a breach of discipline," continued the poor-house master, " that I couldn't possibly pass by unnoticed ; so I not only stopped the woman's snuif and her weekly ounce of sugar, but I reported her to the overseers at the very next meeting; and when THE LOAVEST " KUNGS ON THE LADDER. 365 they had heerd my case, and agreed that it was something more than disorderly and refractory, and amounted almost to open rebellion — yes, re- bellion, Friend Franklin, they referred as usual to the chaplain's book to see what kind of a general karackter the woman had before making their award ; and there, agin her name, were these here very words — let me see, how did it run ? for I've no wish to sp'ile it, I can tell you : " ' Elizcibetli Davis — conduct exemplary — oheys cheerfully — works hard and loillingly — is regular at her devotions — and altogether her moral and religions deportment of a very pleasiyig and con- soling character^ " Ben hardly knew which he disliked the more — Elizabeth Davis, or the master of the poor-house himself; and he was not at all sorry when Uncle Ben proposed, in order to stop the long list of grievances that the wretched, ill-used master was about to treat them to, that "the youngster there" should be allowed to inspect the " boy's side" of the establishment. As the master led the way, the elder Benjamin nudged 'the younger one with his elbow, and whispered under his little three-cornered hat, " Strike the mean, Ben ! strike the mean !" Once in the passages, the smell of pauperism was marked and strong. The whole place reeked with the true poor-house perfume, which was a compound of the peculiar odor of bread, gruel, treacle, corduroys, pea-soup, soft soap, boiled rice, and washing ; and as Ben and his uncle followed the master, who went along with his keys jangling like a wagon-team, the yellow sand kept scrunch- ing as though it were so much sugar under the feet ; for not a board nor a flagstone in the place but was as scrupulously clean and carefully sand- ed as the entrance to a livery-stable. 366 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. They had not proceeded far, however, ere one of the pauper officials — an " in-doors' man," who had been promoted to the post of wardsman — came hurrying after the master, saying, " Oh, if you please, sir, there's three ounces of port wine wanted for the infirmary ; and quick, please, sir." So the two Benjamins had to be thrust into the bare and empty board-room, there to wait while the master retired to the store-room to see the quantum of wine duly measured out. The boy was no sooner in the large, desolate- looking apartment than he began staring up at the walls, and wheeling round and round, like a countryman in a strange city — now reading the large painted table of " rules and regulations con- cerning disorderly and refractory paupers," and now studying the printed and varnished broad- sheet, headed "Dietary table," and which, with a surveyor's plan of the parish and its boundaries, and an enormous map of the city, that was mount- ed after the fashion of a window-blind, were sev- erally made to do duty for pictures against the walls. Then the boy ran oif to look at the only painting in the room, which hung above the man- tle-piece, and which proved to be the portrait of "Margaret Fleming," who, as the inscription said, "died in this house, aged 103." Next he Avas counting the number of mahogany chairs that were drawn up in single file along the skirting- board all round the room, and so finding out how many " select vestrymen" were in the habit of sitting, on full board days, at that big horseshoe table, that was as green and bare as a billiard- board, and which, with the high-backed chair standing alone, throne-like, at the upper end, seemed almost to fill the entire apartment. But in another minute the master was with them again, and telling them, as he went jangling THE LOWEST "KUNGS" ON THE LADDEE. 367 along the corridors, that he was afraid "the port wine would be utterly wasted, for the poor old thing it was wanted for was turned seventy, and had been sinking for many days ; but their sur- geon was such a fool, and really seemed to fancy they got their port from the pump." Then, as they passed through the women's ward, a hundred old crones, in blue check gowns and big white caps suddenly rose from the forms, and kept courtesying one after another as the visitors walked along between the deal tables, and bobbing away like so many floats experien- cing a rapid succession of nibbles. Here, too, Ben saw the sleek and fat poor-house cat curled up asleep in one of the old women's aprons, while the arms of another were laden with "little Roger Connell," one of the children out of the poor-house nursery that the hirsute old female pauper had begged the loan of to mind for a while, and whom she was fondling as if it had been her own, even though the poor pretty-fea- tured little thing was a mass of sore with the scurvy. " Yes, Master Franklin, you can get these here old things to do any thing if you'll only let 'em have one of the little children out of our nursery to pet for an hour or two," said the master, as he passed out of the ward, and came to the door at the bottom of the yard that led to the 'boy's side' of the building. " Bless you, ugly or pretty is all the same to them, so long as they're young; that's the only beauty in their eyes," he went on, while he found the proper key for the lock, and then paused for a minute before turning it. " I do verily believe now, that, selfish as they are to one another, they'd even give a goodish part of their week's bounce of sugar away to the young ones, and that the allowance might just as well be cut 368 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. off altogether, leastwise for the matter of good it is to the old people theirselves." The yard door was then opened, and instantly there burst upon the ear a shrill babel of voices. Here the air above was spotted over with a per- fect covey of half-develoi^ed tadpole-like kites, while the branches of the trees outside the walls of the large quadrangle were festooned with the tattered remains of the tails and wings of others that had got entangled among the boughs. *' There they are, my lad," cried the master, as he threw open the door, and hardly moved beyond it ; " this is their hour's play : there they are, sir, of all ages and sizes, ay, and shapes too, though we keep the most helpless of the young, sitch as the blind and the hidiotic, on the other side of the house, as you saw. Some, you perceive, can hard- ly walk steadily, and others are big enough to be out and knocking about in the world for their- selves, instead of heating the bread of hidleness, which is the very 'best seconds' as they get here. There they are, my lad, and a greater pack of young wagabones there isn't to be found any where else in the world, I can safely say." "Where are their fathers and mothers?" asked little Ben, timidly, for he was almost afraid to j^ut a question to the man. " Fathers and mothers ! Lor' bless your hinno- cence, child ! why, the greater part — ay, two out of every three on 'em never knew sitch luxuries," answered the master, with a chuckle. " They're orphans — horphans in the fullest sense of the word" (for extra emphasis always involved an ex- tra aspiration with the master) ; " and even the parents of them as has got either a father or a mother ain't nothing to brag about, I can tell you, for they're either in the poor-house theirselves, or else they're able-bodied, and getting their shilling THE LOWEST a week and their gallon loaf outdoor relief the most on 'em." Uncle Benjamin couldn't help shrugging his shoulders and crying " God help 'em !" as the ut- ter helplessness of the young, born under such circumstances, fell upon his mind with even more terrible force than the helplessness of the old. "Ay, you may well say 'God 'elp 'em!' Master Franklin, for a greater set of young himps never wanted their hearts softened more than they do ; and, d'ye know, I verily believe, sir, that comfort- able places like this here hactually breed the very misery they're meant to give relief to — outdoor or indoor, as the case may be. Why, nearly half of these lads is fondlings, as they call theirselves ; for they're a great deal quicker at that there kind of knowledge, about fondlings, and foster-mothers, and sitch like, than they are at their hymn-books, I can tell you. A great many on 'em has been picked up by the city watchmen on door-steps or under gateways, and a goodish number been tied in fish-baskets to the knockers of houses ; and them as has been brought here in that there way, why, they have been born in the house itself, and are what the world falsely calls love children ; though a nice lot of love there must be about sitch mothers, I say, as can turn their backs upon their own flesh and blood as soon as the little things comes into the world, and never care to set eyes on 'em afterward, but, on the contrayry, throws the whole burden upon the parish and the re- spectable rate-payers — ay, and what's more, are as himperent to our beadle over it as if they'd a perfect right to make us a present of a whole col- ony." " Well, they don't seem to be very miserable, I must say," exclaimed young Ben, still harping on the most striking feature of all in such scenes. A A 370 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANIvLIN. " Miserable !" echoed the poor-house master ; " why, you seem to be one of those persons, my boy, who come here with the notion that there will be nothing but tears and broken hearts to be seen from one end of the building to the other. Miserable !" he repeated, and then burst out laughing, as if there was something extremely comic in the idea. " Hem ! miserable, indeed ! No, no, my lad, all the misery in the world you'll find outside our gates. People don't come here to be miserable, I can tell you, but to be a great deal too well fed and taken care of, in my ojiinion. Just read our dietary table now, and you'll soon discover that there isn't much misery w^here j^eo- ple can have their three ounces of cooked meat without bone, and a pound of potatoes for dinner three times a week, besides a basin of excellent pea- soup — oh yes, you have tasted it. Friend Frank- lin — and potatoes and suet dumpling on the other days. Misery, indeed ! Yes, but it's good full- bellied, warm -backed, and well -housed misery though ; and there isn't a merrier set of young devil-may-cares than them same fatherless young himps here, I can tell you." " Come, come, now, friend," cried Uncle Ben, who could plainly see that his godson was being led astray by the harsh views of the hardened master, " steady, my boy, stead-ee, as they call to the helmsman. Do you mean to tell me" — and the old man kept shaking his forefinger as he said the words slowly and solemnly — "that when some parent or friend comes to visit some of the more lucky of these poor human waifs and strays, and there's a cry of 'Johnson wanted,' or 'Robertson wanted' (as I've heard go round the yard over and over again), do you mean to tell me that those boys, who know they haven't a friend in the world to come and see them, poor chicks — boys THE LOWEST " EUNGS" ON THE LADDER. 371 who have never so much as set eyes perhaps on a parent's face, or known what a mother's smile is like — do you mean to say, man alive" — and Uncle Ben shook his finger violently close under the master's nose — "that such lads (quickened with the same heart and blood as you yourself), when they see the lucky Johnson, or Robertson, or son of somebody or other go skipping off to the re- ception-ward, and come back playing with his halfpenny, or laden with his half pint of nuts or his farthing popgun — do you mean to tell me, I say, that you haven't noted, as I have, the httle wretched, lonely, helpless, friendless things crowd moodily together, and look at one another with the same kind of powerless and bewildered air as one sees in a flock of sheep gathered outside a butcher's door ? Come, come, friend, you're straining the bow a little too hard — a little too hard." " Well, perhaps you're right, friend," rejoined the master, in a conciliatory tone. " You, as a stranger, I dare say, idill observe things that are lost upon old hands like us ; and one forgets, no doubt, that it's as remarkable a thing here for /i boy to have any friends at all, as it is for an out- of-doors boy to be without them ; so I shouldn't wonder, now I come to think of it, but the rarity of a father or mother may in such cases as you say make some of the young hurchins here feel the misery of having no one whom they can be- come chargeable to. Yes, that there must be hunpleasant to think of, certainly — not legally chargeable to any one. Besides, we all know," urged the master, as he endeavored to fall in with the tone of Uncle Benjamin, " how the boys at other schools always feel for the one who never goes home to see his friends in the holidays ; and so here, I dare say, the great wonder of the time 372 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. is the boy who has got any friends to wish to see him, especially in a place, too, where there can't be any holidays, you know, from the simple fact that there are no homes to go to." " HoAV shocking !" shuddered Ben, with the sense of school and holidays fresh upon him ; "but I should like the poor boys better," he added, " if they seemed to feel their situation more, for real- ly they don't appear to me to care about it; so then I say to myself, If they don't care about it, why should J.?" "That's good, sound, sterhng sense, if yoii like, my boy !" added the master, approvingly ; and then, drawing the little fellow close up to him, he said, as he bent down and placed his head close beside young Ben's, "Now, you see all those lads there in the red worsted comforters, my child ?" " Yes," said young Ben ; and he was about to point toward them with his forefinger, but the master seized his hand as the boy was in the act of raising it. " Well, lad," went on the other, " the parish al- lowance in the shape of neck-tie to fasten the shirt collar is merely a j^iece of black cotton shoe-rib- bon, and that there red worsted comforter, to keep the throat and chest warm, has been bought by the friends of those boys who are lucky enough to have such a thing as a friend in the world ; so now you can jDick them out for yourself. Xo friends, no comforters — d'ye see ?" It was terrible for the little soft-hearted fellow to be able to realize the orphanage of such a mul- titude in so visible and massive a manner ; and as his eye wandered over the quadrangle, he kept saying to himself, " Comforters, fathers and moth- ers ! no fathers and mothers, no comforters !" " But I tell you, Friend Franklin, what is to my mind really the most dreadful thing by far in con- THE LOWEST " KUNGS ON THE LADDER. 373 nection with this kind of life," the master proceed- ed, " and that is what we were talking about only the other day : that boys and girls brought up here have no idea of working in order to live. You know they see day after day — and, indeed, have seen ever since they first opened their eyes — some hundred or so of people regularly supplied with their rations, and that without having any thing to pay or any thing to do for the food. Do you know, I do verily believe, Friend Franklin, that 'mciny even of our hig boys here, and I'm sure almost all of our little ones, fancy that Nature sends breakfasts and suppers in the same way as she sends light and darkness ; and I'm nearly cer- tain, if some of our indoors boys were hard push- ed on the matter as to where bread or gruel came from, you'd find there was some vague idea in their minds that half-gallon loaves were dug up out of the ground, something in the same manner as they've seen the men, in their walks through the town, doing Avith the paving- stones in the streets ; and that gruel is as easily to be collected in tubfuls as the rain-water is caught for our washing." " What would they fancy a half guinea was, think you, if they were to be shown one ?" asked Uncle Ben, as he drew the bit of gold ouUu^f the wash-leather bag he carried in his pocket. " Well, 'pon my word I can't say. Friend Frank- lin. Farthings are great prizes here," returned the master, " and groats immense fortunes. But here ! come here ! you ' Monday.' ' Monday, I say,' " the master shouted, as he beckoned to one of the foundlings, who had been named after the day of the week on which he had been taken out of a hamper at the mail-coach ofhce. And when poor "Monday" had made his ap- pearance, and had been shown the bright yellow 374 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. little disk of metal, and asked what he thought it was, he said, as he rubbed among the bristles of his scrubbing-brush crop of hair, and stood grin- ning as if he had been looking at a stale-tart tray for the first time in his life, " It ain't a farden, 'cos I seed a farden once in Dobbs's hand, after his mother had been to see him, and she's got two and six a week, and half a gallon loaf outdoor, you know, sir, 'cos she takes in washing, and has the rheumatiz. No, no," and he shook his hand till you could almost fancy you heard it rattle, it seemed so empty, "it ain't thick enough, nor brown enough neither for a farden. Oh, I know noAV !" added the half-witted boy, looking up at the master, and grinning knowingly in his face. " Well, ' Monday,' Avhat is it, eh ?" asked the master, as sharp and quickly as a mail-coach guard calls " a'right." The lad grinned again for a minute or two be- fore answering, and then said, " AYhy, it's one of the brass buttons ofl' some charity-boy's leather breeches." Poor "Monday," whose life, ever since he had been taken out of his natal hamper, had been hem- med in by the four high brick walls of the poor- house, and who, had he heard by chance of the upper^middle, and lower classes of society, would have fancied it pointed out the distinction be- tween overseers, outdoors people, and indoors j^eo- ple — the poor lad was told " that would do," and "he might go ;" and directly his back was turned the master began rolling about in a very convul- sion of pent-up laughter, declaring he had never heard any thing half so funny in all his life. But Uncle Ben and even his little nephew saw in the worldly ignorance of poor " Monday" something- far too grave to be merry over ; so the godfather and the godson looked sorrowfully at each other, 'It ain't a faulen, 'cos T seed d fdiclen once." THE LOWEST "EUNGS ON THE LADDEE. 377 and each knew by the tenderness of the glance the thoughts that were stu'ring in the other's heart. " Oh, I'm wanted, I see, np in the infirmary. Ah ! I thought that port wine would be thrown away ! so you'll excuse me. Friend Franklin, will you ?" said the master, as he shook the other by the hand. "Drop in whenever you're passing, Avill you, for I shall always be glad to talk over these matters with you. Good-by, my fine little fellow ; good-by, friend ;" and, as Uncle Ben said something to him aside, he said, "Oh yes, of course I shall be happy to give you a letter to the governor. Good-by; I wouldn't leave you, but I have to see about the shell and things, you know." " Come along, Ben," cried the uncle, pulling his waistcoat down as the master hurried from them ; but, though the old man began to move, the lit- tle fellow seemed in no way disposed to follow. " Come, Ben, I say, there's the jail to see yet," he added, as he turned round and found the boy still in the same spot. The little fellow jerked his head as the uncle looked back at him. The old man understood tlie signal, and returned to the boy's side. " Whisper," said young Ben. The elder Benjamin stooped down and put his ear close to the lad's lips, and as he caught what the other said, the old man smiled to hear the words. " Oh, certainly," said Uncle Ben. The next minute the little fellow was scamper- ing after poor " Monday," and the minute after scampering back again to his imcle, who stood watching him at the gate. " Give me your hand, my little man," said the godfather to young Ben ; and, as the boy did so, 378 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKUN. the old man shook it as if his heart was in his palm^ and then on the couple toddled — To the jail. CHAPTER XX. "lower and lower still." From the poor-house to the jail some think it is not a very great remove — at least some social topographers would have us believe so. But such people throw all the refuse of society together into one confused heap, which they call " the dangerous classes," and it is only your pick- ers-up of unconsidered trifles that pause to sepa- rate the rags from the bones. The agricultural poacher is not more distinct from the civic pickpocket than is the stock-pauper from the* stock-thief, or the dull-witted and half- fatuous beggar, for instance, from the cunning and adventurous sharper; and such is the caste and cliquery in even the '■^has "tnonde^^ that a " cracksman" would no more think of fraterniz- ing with a " shallow cove" than a barrister would dream of hobnobbing with an attorney, or even a " wholesale" venture to return the call of a " re- tail" in the petty circle of suburban exclusiveness. The jail that Uncle Ben took his godson to see was the jail proper. It had the fashionable gi- gantic stone gate, with festoons and tassels of fet- ters by way of ornamental work arranged over the doorway; and enormous unwieldy doors, knobbed over with square-headed nails as thickly as the sole of a navigator's boot, and punctuated with a couple of huge lions'-head knockers, that reminded one of the masks in a pantomime. The walls were as high as those of a racket-ground ; "LOWEK and lower still." S79 and all along the top of them extended a long bristly-hog' s-mane, as it were, of chevavx defrise^ that looked like a hedge of bayonets. Uncle Ben and the boy were admitted through an opening in the larger gate, and went in, duck- ing their heads under the aperture somewhat aft- er the manner of fowls entering a hen-roost. " Lett'r for th' gov'nor," shouted the military- looking gate-keeper, in a sharp military tone, as he handed the note Uncle Ben had brought Avith him to a stray warder, or turnkey as they were called in those days. The official disappeared with the document, and the old man and the boy were asked to step into the gate-room Avhile they awaited the answer. " Just look, uncle," said the lad, in a whisper, as he entered the place almost Avith fear and trembling, "just look at the blunderbusses and cutlasses all chained together up there" — there were several rows of the clumsy brass-barreled pieces and knobby-handled swords arranged over the fireplace — " and look at the lot of handcuffs and irons too ; just look how tastily they're ar- ranged — all over the walls, I declare ;" and he wheeled round and round, taken with the set pat- terns and bright glitter of the well-polished man- acles, that had been embroidered, as it were, into all kinds of lineal devices on every side of the cell-like lodge. There were swivel handcuffs, that looked like big horses' bits, and close-linked chains, like horses' curbs ; the one strung after the fash- ion of keys on enormous rings, and the other hang- ing in great hanks like so much iron yarn. The upper part of the walls, again, were garlanded round with leg-irons and ankle-cuffs; and there were iron neck-pieces that were like heavy muffin- tins, and iron waistbands that were almost as thick as the ring to an Indiaman's anchor. Some 380 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. of the human harness seemed to have been made — so massive was the style of ironmongery — for the renowned race of Cornish giants ; for a few of the manacles were literally as large as the han- dle to a navigator's spade, while others, again, were such mere miniature things that they look- ed positively as if they were meant for babies, be- ing no bigger in compass than a little girl's brace- let, though twenty times heavier ; and the sight of these set one thinking either that the juvenile offenders must be very strong and desperate, or the jailers very pusillanimous and weak. " Oh my !" cried Ben, as he made the tour of the room, and halted in front of an enormous long- pole, with an immense crutch covered with leath- er at the end of it, and which had somewhat the appearance of a Brobdignagian pitchfork ; " what ever can that be for, uncle ?" The gate-keeper, standing at the door, over- heard the question, and turned round for a minute to explain the use of the article. " That, my lad," said the man, as he kept his eyes still fixed on the door while he spoke, and broke off every now and then to answer the gate, " is to prevent any of the prisoners injuring the officers in their cells. 'Casionally, you see, the fellors gets furious when they're locked up alone in the 'fractory ward, and swears they'll stick us with their knives, or beat our skulls in with their hammock-rings if we only chance to go in to them ; and we can see by their looks as they means it, too. Well, in such cases, one of us puts on that great big shield you see there," and the officer pointed to a leathern disk larger in diameter than the largest target. "It's as big round as a man's high, and made of basket- work, and well padded, and covered with buffalo hide. So, when the officer sees his opportunity, he dashes into the cell with that there thrust out "LOWER AND LOWER STILL." 381 in front of him, and covering his whole body. This takes the chap aback a bit, and before he can recover hisself another officer darts in, holding out that long pole there, with the padded crutch at the end of it, and with that he makes a drive at the fellor, and j)ins him round the body close again the wall; and then another officer, armed with that there smaller crutch, rushes on directly after the other, and pinions the chap's legs in the same manner. So, when they've got the fellor fast and tight, then all the other officers in the prison pours in, and overpowers him altogether. TJiat is what that pretty-looking little happyra- tus is for, my young gentleman." Young Benjamin, who had been staring with the same sapient, round-eyed kind of expression as an owl in a bird-cage all the time the man had been speaking, merely said " Oh !" when the sto- ry was ended, and wondered whether, if poor half- witted " Monday" ever got in there, he'd be man- acled, and fettered, and pitch-forked like the rest. By this time a warder returned, and putting his hand to his cap, saluted the elder Benjamin in military fashion as he said, partly to the gate- keeper and partly to the gentleman himself, "Pass two — 'spect prison — gov'nor's orders." Then beckoning the gate-keeper to one side, the officer seemed to take the ramrod out of his back while he said in a whisper, " You'll find a half gallon of rum, Bennet" (and he winked as rapidly as a bird at the man), "at the bottom of the bread when it comes in this evening ; just pass it for me, will you, and you shall have your regulars. I'll square it with you by-and-by." Then sudden- ly turning round and assuming the military air again, he cried, " Now, sir, pliz foller me — 'spect prison." The man, who wore many heavy keys chained 382 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. round his waist, was about to apply one of them to a huge lock (as big as a family Bible), and to open a gate in a thick trellis-work of iron railings that was as ponderous as a portcullis, when Uncle Ben suggested that he wished more particularly to see the boys' part of the prison, saying that the master of the poor-house had told him that their new Quaker governor was beginning to try and keep the juvenile from the old offenders. " Yezzir — all stuff, though — never carry it out — ^new-fangled nonsense ; been here twenty year, I have — been together all my time, they have — no harm came of it, as I can see. Nothing like dis'pline — stric' dis'pline; yezzir — that's all we want here, sir — dis'pline — stric' dis'pline." Then putting his two hands to the heavy gate he had been standing at while he jerked out the above speech, he made it moan again as he turned it slowly on its hinges. Ben was now in a kind of bird-cage of iron bars ; and another gate, with another huge family- biblical lock, had to be undone before he entered the paved yard of the prison itself Once within the precincts, the place was like a fortress, with its heavy blocks of buildings and embrasure-like windows^ all radiating from the "argus," or governor's house in the centre, like the threads of a gigantic spider's web done in brick-work. The doors to the different prison wings were as massive as those of an iron safe, while each of the different "airing-yards" was railed off like the entrance to some gloomy and desolate inn of court. The warder and the visitors passed on to the oakum-room, which had been built across the end of the large triangular space between the last two prison wings, or rather the last two bricken spokes of the architectural wheel. This room consisted "lower and lower still. 383 of a long barn-like shed, fitted with seats, which ranged from one end of the lengthy out-house to the other, and which stood on a slightly-inclined plane, so that altogether it had somewhat the ap- pearance of a rude stand run up for the nonce at a race-course. The air here was charged with the true prison perfume, and reeked as strongly of the tarry and hempen odor of rope-yarn mixed with a whiff of stale cocoa, gruel, and pea-soup, as a circus smells of oranges and saw-dust. Hei-* were some hundred of mere children, ranged along the forms, each Avith a hook tied just above the knee, and "fiddling away," as the prison phrase ran, at a small thread of the un- raveled junk ; that is to say, sawing it backward and forward across the hook, and then rolling the loosened strand to and fro along their thigh, where the trowsers seemed to be coated with glue, from the tar with which they had become covered. The whole atmosphere within the room was hazy as that of the interior of a mill with the dust of the abraded tow flying in the air. A death-like, catacomb-like silence reigned throughout the place, and round the shed sat a small detachment of prison officials, perched at intervals on high, lawyer's-clerk-like stools, watching the lads at work, while here and there upon the walls hung black-boards covered with Scripture texts, such as, "I will arise and go to my Father, and SAT unto him. Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee." And " Set a watch, O Lord, before mt mouth, and keep the door of my lips," etc., etc. As the trio entered the shed, the whole of the boys rose in a body to salute them, and each put his hand across his forehead like a person shading his eyes as he looks up on a bright sunrty day. 394 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANItLIN. They then sat down immediately afterward, the one simultaneous movement sounding like the breaking of a huge wave upon the sea- shore. " Hard labor pris'nus, sir, most of 'em !" said the chief warder, still jerking out the information in the same snappy tone as if he were giving the word of command. " B'ys all in gray, Sum'ry b'ys,"* went on the communicant, with his chin in the air as before. " B'ys in gray, with yeller collus to weskets, Seshuns b'ys ;f and b'ys^ln blue here on lower fo'm, Mis'meenuns."J Little Ben hardly heard the words, and the un- cle cared not to inquire into the precise niceties of the legal distinctions. The boy was rapt — entranced — stunned, as it were, with the utter novelty of the place and scene before him. He had heard talk of robbers, and had certainly read of Robin Hood and his band of freebooters in Sherwood forest, but he had never seen more than the back of a thief in all his life before, and that was when an alarm had been raised in their street one night, and he had caught sight, on throwing open his window, of a troop of watchmen hurrying along in chase of a nimble pair of legs in the distance. Still, to the lad, there had always been a world of vague ter- ror in the mere idea of such characters. He had formed an imaginative picture of wild, lawless ruffianism, and cut-throat, ogrish propensities and appearance in connection with the predatory class * Summary boys, i. e., those -who had been summarily committed by magistrates without being sent to the sessions for trial. t Anglice, Sessions boys, or those who had been tried and convicted of larceny or felony at the sessions. X Properly called "Misdemeanants," or boys that were imprisoned for some misdemeanor; that is to say, that had not committed any theft or serious offense. "lower and lower still." 385 in general, and this had often, when the window- sashes of his bed-chamber rattled in their frames, caused him to lie and tremble in his bed by the horn- ; so that now, the ntter difference between the real and the ideal positively confounded him. Could it be that the little children before him were really thieves — little mannikin things like them — that were not only the very opposite in appearance to ogres, cut-throats, and ruffians, but mere babies most of them, and who seemed to require a nurse rather than a jailer to watch over them ? Was it for the safe custody of such mere Tom Thumb creatures as these that the half-military prison of- ficials went about, with those heavy bunches of keys chained round their waist ? Was it for these wretched toddlekins, who seemed to need a go- cart instead of a prison van to bring them to the jail, that the cutlasses Avere chained up over the mantel -piece in the gate -room, and those tiny, baby-handcuffs kept, ever ready, hanging against the walls ? Did those little hands, that had hard- ly outgrown their dimples for knuckles, need a fortress to resist them ? did they want iron doors as heavy as sepulchre-stones, and iron bars and bolts as thick as musket-barrels, and walls as high as cliffs, to keep them from breaking prison ? What could it all mean ? Surely, he thought, as he turned it over and over, it must be the mad- house that his uncle had brought him to, so as to have a bit of fun with him, and see whether he'd know the sane from the insane. Yet no ! What could those poor boys be there for, if the men in authority over them were really so many lunatics ? Could they be the poor idiot lads that the grown maniacs were allowed to play the fool with ? It really seemed to be so. But no, no ; the little fellows hadn't the idiot look with them, like the wretched silly boys he had seen in the poor-house. Be 3^ YOUNG BENJAMIN PEANKLIN. Besides, the warder himself had called it a prison. What coiilcl it all mean ? Then poor bewildered little Ben began, as the whirl and confusion in his brain, and the singing of the blood in his ears subsided a little, to glance his eye fitfully along the forms, and notice the features of such lads as had resumed their work, after having had their fill of staring at himself. He could see no difference in their looks from his old playmates at Mr. Brownwell's school. Some one or two were positively prettj'' lads — good-look- ing in the literal sense of the term — and seemed, despite the ugly gray prison dress, to have faces beaming with frankness and innocence. Others certainly looked dogged and sullen, and many had a sharp, knowing, and half-sly expression, with a curl at the corners of their mouth and a twinkle in their eye, as if they were ready to bm'st into laughter on the least occasion ; but not one conld he see that had that sinister averted scowl, and those heavy, bull-dog-like features that were made to characterize the thieves in the pictures of some of his schoolfellows' books. "Were these, then, really thieves before him — little baby felons and convicts in pinafores? Yet still he fancied he must have misunderstood his imcle somehow. Why, there was one poor child there in gray, with a yellow collar to his waistcoat, that wasn't bigger than little Teddy Holmes, his sister Ruth's eldest boy ; and Teddy was only just turned five, he knew. They could never have tried him^ and made a convict of such a mere babe as he was; for, if they made felons of little things of five years old, why not at four, at three — or, indeed, why should the baby in long clothes go free, if it came to that ? How could such a mere infant as that lad possibly know right from wrong, any more than Tommy, their cat at home ? — and he really was a dreadful thief, if you liked. "LOWER AND LOWER STILL." 38T But poor young Ben's speculations and bewil- derment were soon put an end to by his uncle asking the chief warder what was the character of the offense for which the misdemeanants — the boys in blue on the lower form — had been impris- oned. " Stan' up, mis'meenuns," cried the chief ward- er, as if he had been drilling a body of privates. The boys rose in a row as though they had been all hoisted by their necks at one pull ; and there they stood, with their hands straight down by their sides, and their chins cocked in the air, the very monkey mimicry of the antics of the chief warder himself. " What a' yer in for, b'y ?" squirted out the officer, addressing the first lad in the rank. " Heaving a highster-shell through a street- lamp, please, sir," was the urchin's rej^ly. Ben stared at his uncle as the answer fell upon his ear. " In thri times afore," added the officer, by way of comment. " The b'y did it to get a month's food an' shelter, dussay." " An' you ?" went on the warder, passing to the next. " Please, sir, a woman said I hit her babby," whined out this one. " An' you ?" the warder continued, running down the rank. " Heaving clay about, please, sir," responded the next. " In fo'teen times afore," the officer threw in, as a commentary on the character of this lad. "It's been mostly for cadging (begging), please, sir," expostulated the brat, " and only two times for prigging, please, sir." " Sil'ns, b'y. Nex' b'y go on," shouted the man in authority. 388 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. " Heaving stones," said Xo. 4. " Threatening to stab another boy, please, sir," cried the lad after No. 4, as the warder pointed to him. " Prigging a bell in a garding, please, sir," ex- claimed No. 6. " Heaving stones, sir," went on No. 7. " Heaving stones too," No. 8 said. 'In fur times afore," again interposed the warder. " Heaving stones," ejaculated No. 9. "The same," answered No. 10. And there the file ended. " Heaving stones ! Heaving stones ! Heaving stones !" The words echoed and echoed again in young Ben's brain ; and then, in the natural sym- pathy and justice of his little heart, he cried aloud, " Oh, uncle ! do they put these poor little fellows among thieves, and lock them up in this horrid place, and make them wear that ugly prison-dress, for such mere child's ^\aj as that? Isn't it a shame ! Why, there wasn't a boy at our school that shouldn't have been here, then, if all were punished alike. Oh, isn't it a shame — a wicked shame !" he repeated. " Why, I remember my- self," and the lad was pouring forth a torrent of generous boyish indignation, and would have run on for heaven knows how long, hadn't the chief warder cut him short with one of his peculiar ex- plosive commands in the shape of " Sil'ns, sir, pliz. Can't allow such remuks as them in pressuns of pris'nus." Young Ben was tongue-tied in an instant, and he drew up close to his uncle's side, for he hardly knew whether, if " heaving clay about" was pun- ishable with imprisonment, he too mightn't have rendered himself liable to be locked up by what he had said. "lower and lower still." 389 "Xow," exclaimed Uncle Ben to the warder, " let's hear the offenses of some of the others." " Stan' up, you b'y, ther'," shouted the officer, addressing the first of the lads in gray seated on the next form. The boy shot up from his seat in an instant as sharply and suddenly as a Jack in the box on the removal of the lid, and stood as stiff as a dummy in the window of a " youth's fashionable clothing mart." " H'ould a' yer, b'y ?" said the jailer, question- ing the lad first as to his age. " Thirteen year, please, sir," was the answer. " What a' yer in for?" 'went on the laconic turn- key. " Coat and umbereller, i^lease, sir," the little fel- low replied, with a faint smile ; and then added, as if he knew what would be the next query, "This makes seven times here, please, sir, and three times at the Old Hoss, please, sir." The " Old Horse" was the cant name for the next county jail. "Hollong ha' yer got this time?" demanded the warder, so as to make him state the term of his imprisonment. "Three calendar, please, sir" {Anglice^ three calendar months) . " This makes four times, please, sir, as I've had to do three calendar," said the lad ; " and I've had two two-monthses as well — one of the two-monthses here, and one at the Old Hoss, please, sir ; and I've done one six weeks and two two-dayses besides. It's mostly been for prig- ging, please, sir," added the young urchin. Little Ben stared with amazement at his uncle as he heard the confession, uttered as it was with- out the faintest tinge of shame to color the cheeks, ay, and (what struck him as still more strange) without the least quake of fear, even though the warder stood at the boy's elbow. 390 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. *' Woddid yer tek ?" shot out the official, now drawing the lad out as to the kind of articles he had been in the habit of stealing. " I took a watch and chain wunst, please, sir, and I did a pair of goold bracelets another time," was the unabashed and half-exulting reply. " I frisked a till twice'd ; and this time it's for the coat and umbereller, as I told you on afore. One of the two-dayses I had was for a bottle of pickles, but that was three or four year ago." "Why, I beginned thieving about four year ago," he went on, in answer to another question from the officer, who seemed as j^leased as the boy himself with the examination. "I went out with a butcher-boy. He's got seven year on it now, please, sir. He sent me into the shop with a bit of a hold seal to sell, when I prigged the stooj^" (stole the watch) ; " and I tried on the same dodge when I did the pair of goold bracelets." "Have you got any father, my lad?" asked Uncle Ben, with a hitch in his breath. " Yes, please, sir," the answer ran. " Mother mends glass and chayney, please, sir," and father's in the consumptive hospital down in the country. I don't mean to go out prigging no more, please, sir," added the youngster, as he suddenly lowered his eyelids with affected penitence, "not if I can get any other work that'll keep me, I won't."* "Won' do, b'y!" cried the inexorable warder; " yer pitched that ther' tale to the lady as went over the pris'n las' time we had yer here ; an' then yer got three calen'ar the second day after yer went out." * There is no fiction in the above answers of the boys. These, and those ^yhich follow, are simply the replies of the young thieves at the boys' prison in Westminster, which were taken down verbatim by the author at the time of his visit to Tothill Fields' House of Correction in the year 1856. "lower and lower still. 391 Little Ben was heart-stricken with what he heard. It was all so new to him — so startling — so shameless — so frank, and yet so subtle — so heartless, and yet so knowing ; in a word, it was so utterly unlike all his preconceptions concern- ing robbers and thieves, that, now that he was really convinced he was standing in the presence of a host of boy-felons, he felt sick and half scared with the terrible consciousness of the fact. There was such a sense of massiveness in the large array of crime before him, that, now the boy had learned that the greater part of the mere children were there for thefts as brazen-faced as those which the urchin of thirteen had just con- fessed to, he was fairly appalled with the vastness of the vice. Few, indeed, know what it is to see crime in the mass — wickedness in the lump, as it were ; to look U20on some hundred heads, and feel as if they were fused into one monster brain, in- stinct with a hundred devil-power, and quickened Avith a hundred fold niore than ordinary human cunning and cheatery. Most people know crime only as an exceptional thing ; they hear, read of, or become personally acquainted with merely in- dividual cases, and never see it in such huge con- glomerates — such immense corporate bodies of devilry as give the mind a foretaste of the con- crete wickedness of Pandemonium itself. It is no longer one wayward human heart we contemplate, but hundreds of such hearts, every one of them pulsing like a hundred clocks in terrible unison, throbbing with one universal rancor and hatred of all that is good and grand, and never a gener- ous passion nor a noble sentiment, and hardly a kindly feeling stirring Avithin them. Crime seen under such circumstances seems to be as much a part of the " ordinations of nature" as even grav- itation itself, and a sense of destiny and fatalism almost overpowers the souk 392 YOUNG BEXJAiinT FEANKLIN. As for poor little Ben, there was such a kind of rattlesnake fascination in the terror that was on him, that he couldn't, for the life of him, take his eyes off* the lad who had just sat down. The boy was a sharp-featured and sly-looking youngster of about Ben's own height, and had a pucker and twitter about the corners of his mouth which showed, despite his downcast look, that, though pretended penitence was on his eyelids, incipient laughter was on his lips. Indeed, he needed but to have the prison garb exchanged for the man's coat, with the tails dragging on the ground, and the trowsers tied up over the shoul- ders with string instead of braces, and the bare muddy feet too, to mark him as one of the con- firmed young street-vagabonds that are to be found in every city. Were these the poor little human waifs and strays of the town, that Ben had so often seen collected at the entrances to the courts and alleys about the neighborhood ? he asked himself, without shaping the thoughts into words. Were these the slij^s and cuttings that, after being duly inoculated and planted, and trans- planted into the hot-bed prison soils, were des- tined to bear the felon fruit ? As the light burst through the parting clouds of his brain, his mind's eye grew half dazed with the flash. He looked again and again at the lad, and tried if he could read innate wickedness branded like the mark of Cain upon his brow. But no ! The boy-thief, now that he came to gaze at him well, was the very image of Bob Cooper, who was the kindest and best-natured boy of them all at Mr. Brownwell's school. Then the recollection that the father of the young thief was in the hospital, and the mother out all day mending "chayney and glass," came stealing over his heart, as soft and genial as the warm south wind on a winter's 393 day ; and as his nature melted, young Ben thought, what would that boy-thief have been had he been blessed with friends and counselors like himself? and what might he himself have become had the same iron circumstances cradled his childhood? The thought once in the little fellow's brain, and he looked upon the crowd of boy-thieves before him through the liquid lens of j^ity flooding his eyes. " Stan' up, nex' b'y !" again snapped out the prison official. This boy knew by the questions put to the pre- vious one the kind of information he had to give ; so, directly he was on his feet, he put his hands straight down by his side, and raising his chin, and looking directly before him, he delivered him- self of the following statement, almost in one breath, and certainly in one sentence : Sixteen year old please sir and in for a stealing a coat I've been a prigging about four year I done one calendar here for a pair of boots and four calendar at the Old Hoss for prigging a tray of silver pencil-cases the way as I prigged that there was this here I took a hold aypenny ring and broke it up and went into a shoj) to ax whether it were goold or not and while the gennelman was a looking at it I slips the tray of pencil-cases un- der my coat then I got took for two bundles of cigars and did another month here after that I was took for some meresome pipes and had an- other month on it here I was took for a coat be- sides and done my three calendar at the Old Hoss again for that father's a hingineer and I ain't got no mother please sir and that's all." " Wait, boy !" cried Uncle Ben, as he saw the lad about to resume his seat ; " what do you mean to do when you leave here ?" "Do !" echoed the young thief, as if he was astonished at such a question being put to him. 394 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. " Yes, lad," repeated the elder Benjamin ; " what do you mean to do ?" " Why, when I gets out here I shall go prigging again, in coorse," was the candid and fearless re- ply of the lad, as he looked the warder full in the face. "But why," inquired the old man, "why will you thieve rather than work, lad ?" " Why, 'cos I don't know no other way of get- ting a living honestly," he answered, with an ill- used air. The odd blunder set every one in the prison laughing, officers and all, except the head turnkey himself, and he merely shouted out, " Sil'ns, b'ys ! we can't ha' no laughing here !" and when the place was quiet, the warder added as before, " Stan' up, nex' b'y." " Been fourteen times in prison," began the lad of his own accord, as he rose from his seat. " I've had three calendar in this here prison four times, and one fourteen-days, and I don't know how many two-monthses and one-monthses besides." Uncle Benjamin could no longer bear to hear the boys recount their several imprisonments with all the glory with which an old soldier fights his " battles o'er again," so he cut this lad's state- ment short by asking what alone the old man cared to know. " And when you leave this prison, you'll begin thieving again, I suppose ?" " No, I ain't a-going this time," answered the lad, in a dogged tone. " Indeed !" exclaimed the old man. "No," went on the other; "I means to hook it, and go to sea." It was now time to pass from the salient de- tails of the foreground into the broad masses and deeper tones.of the general view. So Uncle Ben began to inquire as to ages rather than the crim- "lower and LOWEK still." 395 inal histories of the different boy-prisoners, for he knew that the mere years of the children impris- oned there would tell a far sadder tale than they themselves could recount. " What is the age of the youngest prisoner you have here, officer ?" said he, addressing himself to the head turnkey. " Fi' ye'rs," exploded the official, with all the callousness of true routine. " Stan' up, you Tom Tit there," he cried, addressing the child by the nickname he had got in the prison ; and imme- diately a little head of short-cropped hair popped up at the back of some of the bigger boy-thieves in the front row. " Ther', get on the form, do, and let's see you a bit," added the chief w^arder. The mannikin scrambled up on the bench as he was ordered ; and little Ben shuddered as he saw the mere babe stand there grinning in the felon's suit of gray, that hung about him like a sick man's clothes. " Secon' time o' being here," went on the disci- plinarian. " In for stealing — what's yer 'fense ?" he asked, sharply. The child grinned-again as he lisped out, " Frith- king a till, pleathe." " Woddid yer tek ?" demanded the other. " Five bob and a tanner, thir," was the urchin thief's reply. " Fi' and sixpuns, he means," went on the of- ficer, acting as a glossary to the baby's slang. " Ther', that'll do ; stan' down. That's the youn- gest we've had for some time. But I've knowed a child o' six sent to the hulks, I have, though he cud hardly say ' not g'i'tty' when he was tried." Uncle Ben wouldn't trust himself to speak upon such a matter in such a place, so he bit his lips to keep back the w^ords that ^ere burning for utterance at the tip of his tongue ; and he 39G YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. frowned and shook his head at his little godson as he saw the boy, in his indignation, scowling and making mouths at the -warder before him. " Want th' ages of so' more, sir, eh ?" the official asked ; and as the uncle gave a nod in reply, he cried, " None here eight ye'r old — nor nine ; let's see," the man said, talking to himself — " ten's the nex' youngest we got— ^isn't it, Corrie ?" he inquired of one of the other warders near him. The man addressed shot up from his seat as he replied " Yezzir !" in a voice that made the place echo again as with the report of a pistol. " Stan' lip now, all ten-ye'r b'ys," shouted out the head turnkey, authoritatively ; and the words were no sooner uttered than the lads rose from different parts of the room. " Ther' they a', sir," he added — " one ! two ! three ! four ! five ! Fi' ten-ye'r b'ys, and three on them in once afore; others firs' 'fense b'ys." " What are they here for ?" Uncle Ben sought to learn. " What a' yer in for ?" said the man, pointing first to the one nearest at hand, and then to the others, while the answers of the lads ran success- ively thus : *' Pick-pocketing — stealing brass — stealing seven razors — taking tui^pence — spinning a top." " What's that ?" asked Uncle Ben; "surely that lad didn't say he was here for spinning a top ?" " Yezzir ; reg'lar 'fense, that ! a boy gets one calendar for it, if he's took up for 'structing the king's highway, sir;" such was the information that came like a thunder-clap upon the two Ben- jamins ; and the younger couldn't help throwing up his little honest hands, and tossing his good- natured head^ in the depth of his pity for the poor little sufiering things before him. ''LOWER AND LOWER STILL." 39T " Stan' up all'leven-ye'r b'ys,now," was the next order; and when it had been obeyed, his man pro- ceeded to tell them off with his fingers as before. " Sev'n b'ys here !" then he said, " One in ten times afore ; another six times ; another five ; the res' stranjus and firs' 'fense b'ys ?" Uncle Ben nodded ; and again the warder cried, " What a' yer in for, b'y ?" and went pointing to the lads in succession, and drawing from them the following answers, one after another, as he did so: " Taking a silver kettle — stealing pigeons — spin- ning a top (the two Benjamins again looked at each other) — begging — killing a dog — sleeping in the public gardens (another exchange of glances) — steaUng a tray^of goold rings." " Now twel'-ye'r old b'ys, sir, eh ?" again in- quired the warder ; and, as the uncle nodded again, up shot ten more boys, and their offenses were found, in the same manner as before, to have been " pickpocketing — stealing a coat — pawning a jacket — stealing lead — pickpocketing — stealing meat — breaking a window — stealing a goold watch and chain — stealing bread" — ("You didn't want it, b'y, eh ?" " Oh no, sir ; meant to sell it") was the parenthetical inquiry and answer) — " and steal- ing brass." And when all the offenses had been stated, the warder added, by way of comment, " Pickpockets here all old hands. One in six times afore. On'y two stranjus 'mong the whole twel' b'ys. See any mo', sir?''* Uncle Ben shook his head, and then said " Stay" as he cast his eyes upon the ground. " Yes," he went on, " I should like to know how many of the * The remarks made in the note to page 390 apply also to the above statements. They are matters. of fact rather than imagination. 398 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. boys here have no fathers or mothers to take care of them." The words were hardly out of the old man's mouth before the warder had made the building ring with the command of " Stan' up, b'ys with no fathers and mothers !" and then, as he saw one lad rising whose parents he knew to be living, he bawled out, *' What a' yer doing there, b'y ? You're not a no father an' mother !" " Please, sir," cried the lad in return, " I'm a no mother, sir — I got a step, please, sir." " Well, si' down, then ! It'll come to yer turn nex' ;" and as the lad did as he was bidden, the warder went on counting again, and ended by saying, "Ther' they a', sir. Fi' no fathers an' mothers." " Five utterly destitute !" muttered Uncle Ben, as he felt his heart drop like a stone in his bo- som. His little godson stared at him with all the bewilderment of utter horror, for he knew well what was passing in the old man's mind. " Now, sir, I s'pose you'll take the b'ys with a father or a mother on'y, eh ?" suggested the offi- cial ; and, as he saw the other nod assent once more, he bellowed out the order ; but such a mul- titude of young ones rose at the word of com- mand that the Avarder knew half of them had mis- taken the summons. So he kejDt shouting to those he was in doubt about, "i^ow, b'y, a' yer a father or a mother, eh?" whereupon the urchin would answer either that he was " a mother" or " a fa- ther," as it might happen, or else that he Avas " both a father and mother too ;" in which latter case he would be told to " si' down and pay more 'tention, or he'd get in the 'fract'ry cell if he didn mind." " Ther' they a', sir, at last," again cried the man in authority. " Fifteen no father ! Twel' no mother !" "lower and lower still." 399 "Please, sir, my father and mother's supper- ated," shouted one of the bigger boys; "and mine's in the poor'us, please, sir," cried another ; "and mine's gone to sea;" "and my mother's been in the 'ospital for the last year with dickey" (decay) " of the thigh-bone ;" and so they went on, each shouting out after the other, as if they fancied some wrong had been done to them in not being allowed to stand uj) as orphans beside the others. " Sil'ns !" shouted the warder ; " we can't ha' this kere !" Uncle Ben went up to the official, and said thoughtfully, " I want to find out how many of these boys have got relatives in prison." " Oh, a'most all on 'em, sir," was the laconic re- ply; "regular jail-birds, greater part on 'em; but I'll see, sir, an' let you know." It cost the official some trouble to make the lads understand what they really had to answer ; and the warder had to put the question to them in their own peculiar terms, as to whether their family or friends were " flats or sharps" (^. e., hon- est or dishonest people) ; and then, as some mis- understanding arose, the urchins would cry out, " Please, sir, my father an't a sharp, he's a flat, sir — an't never been in pris'n in his life." Other lads, too, would call out that their mother was a cadger (a beggar), and want to know what the gennelman would say that there was — a flat or a sharp ; while others shouted out that they had got a brother who was a "gun" (2.6., thief). However, at last the warder had settled the matter ; and as he told the numbers off", he shout- ed in his usual official tone, " Five got fathers in prison ! One, father at hulks ! Three, mothers in prison! Twenty-six got brothers in prison! Four got brothers at hulks ! Two, sisters in 400 YOUNG BENJA3IIN FRANKLIN. prison ! Three, cousins in j^rison ! Two, cousins at hulks ! One, uncle in j^rison ! One, uncle at hulks ! One, aunt in prison ! And now all's told, sir." " But one more question," said Uncle Ben, sor- rowfully, " and I have done. How many of the parents of these boys, who have got fathers and mothers, are habitual drunkards ?"* The question was clearly put and clearly under- stood, and the statements duly checked by the attendant warders, who, from the repeated return of the greater part of the lads to those quai'ters, knew pretty well the family history of most of those under their charge ; and the answer proved to be that twenty -five boys, at least, in every hundred, were rendered even worse than father- less by the brutal sotting of their parents. Poor Uncle Ben, in his desire to read his little godson a lesson, had given himself a severer lec- ture than he had expected. He was touched to the very quick of his own kindly nature, and stood for a moment with his chin on his bosom and his eyes on the ground, as if stricken down Avith shame. Then his lips moved quickly, though he uttered not a word, and he locked the knuckles of one hand in the palm of the other, as he flung his eyes for an instant upAvard. The next minute he was looking wildly about him, half afraid that some one might have noticed his Aveakness, and the minute after Avard he Avas rubbing aAvay at his forehead, as if to rouse himself out of the trance that AA'as on him. The Avarders Avere too busy in restoring order, and the prisoners in too much commotion to give heed to the old gentleman. No one noticed him indeed, not CA^en his little godson ; for he, poor lad, had turned his face to the door, so that none * Sec Mr. Antrobus' book, "The Prison and the School." 401 might see and know what he felt. Boy as he was, he Avas well aware how those young thieves would only sneer at him for his girlish compas- sion ; accordingly, he clenched his little fists, and dug his nails into his flesh, so that his eyes might not seem red when he turned round again. " A'thing more, sir ?" asked the chief, when the boys had been got back to their seats, and the place was quiet again. " A'thing more, sir ?" he repeated, in a louder and sharj^er tone, as he saw the old gentleman stand still, looking on the ground. *'^No! no! no! no!" was the half-bewildered answer. " I'm going — poor fatherless things — home now directly." " Like to see our women's prison, sir ?" went on the warder. Uncle Ben gave a shudder that seemed to go all through his body as he replied " Xo ! no ! I've had quite enough for one day, thank you." " Wooden take yer quarter-an-hour, sir, t'run through it," went on the officer, who was as anx- ious as a showman that the visitors should see all the sights of the place. " See the little things in the nuss'ry, then ?" Uncle Ben just caught the last words of the sentence, and he was all alive again at the bare mention of such a place in a jail. " What !" he cried, in utter astonishment, " did you say you had a nursery here, officer ?" and he stared at the man as narrowly as if he was watching the work- ings of his countenance, though the gesture was merely the instinctive emotion of incredulity on Uncle Ben's part. The warder bore the scrutiny without as much as a wink, and replied, " Yes ; nuss'ry was my words, sir. Like to see 't, sir ?" The old man, now that he was assured of the Cc 402 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. fact, gave vent to no emotion whatever, but mere- ly said quickly, " Of course I should ;" and then, jerking down his long waistcoat, he set oif at a quick pace out into the yard, saying, "Come along, Ben ! come, boy ! we're going to see the prison nursery !" and, as he hurried along, even an inexperienced eye might have told by the short, quick steps he took, and the rapid, twitchy jerkings of the arms as he went, that his whole frame was in a state of high irritability. Again the heavy gates had to be unlocked and locked, and more gates forced slowly back, before the women's part of the prison was reached. There the visitor and his young friend were handed over to the care of a matron, with a re- quest that they might be shown the nursery por- tion of the bolted and barred establishment. CHAPTER XXL FELONS IN THE CRADLt:. Once on the female side of the jail, Ben and his uncle soon began to feel that they were out of the close and stifling atmosphere of mere drill and military discipline (of drill and military dis- cipline, save the mark! among a brood of chil- dren, who cried aloud for good fathership rather than drill-sergeantship to train and tend them) ; for the matrons really spoke, and seemed to act toward their "erring sisters" as if they had some sense of their own frail tendencies, and some little feeling for those poor human reeds who had not had the power to stand up against the wind.* * There may be readers of a sterner mood, unacquainted witli prison economy, who may fancy that the transition from the mere disciplinarian male jailer to the more humane fe- male one borders somewhat on the sentimental or Kosa Ma- FELONS IN THE CRADLE. 408 The matron to whose charge or care Uncle Ben and his little nephew were handed over was a tilda school of literature. It may be so ; but the transition is not given as a stroke of art, but as a touch of nature. In making the prison-tour of the metropolis, and passing day- after day with the governors of the several penal establish- ments, as the author did but lately, with the view of making himself acquainted with the "prison-world," no change was so marked, and, indeed, none so refreshing, as the transition from the formalities of the male warders to the amenities of the female ones. The women's prison at Brixton, as well as that at Wandsworth, and, let me add in all justice, that at Tothill Fields too (though the punishments at the latter place are inordinately excessive, being upward of fifty per cent, more than the average proportion of punishments throughout the female prisons of all England and Wales), these were cer- tainly not the heartless and senseless places that the men's and boy's prisons seemed to be (always excepting the stupid tyranny of the silent hour (!) at the Brixton Institution) ; and they were not so simply because there was some show of kind- ly consideration and feeling on the part of the lady-officers in charge of the prisoners. Indeed, to this day the author has no happier memory than that of going the rounds with the compassionate little post- woman at the Brixton prison, and seeing what happiness she found in delivering her little packets of happiness to the wretched female convicts there, or than that of hearing the long prison corridors at the Wandsworth House of Correction (which is really a "model prison" as to its general management) echo" with the kisses of the matrons as they caressed and hugged one of the pretty little prison babies, that was being bandied from one female warder to the other. The reader may account for this as he pleases, but the author believes the simple explanation is to be found in the very constitution of womankind itself Male power always runs into routine, idle forms, and silly cere- monies; but women have so little of the powerful, and so little of the drill-master about their nature, while they have, on the other hand, so much of the opposite qualities of ten- derness and gentleness, that feeling and common sense with them are sure not to be utterly overlaid and crushed by mere right-about-face tomfoolery. All that is wanted at our male prisons is a little less drill and a little more heart — a mild medium between your Martinet old-soldierism on the one hand, and your Maconochie maudlinry on the other. What the female jailers may have been in the olden time the au- 404 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. lady of very bulky proportions ; so bulky, indeed, that the chain which she wore as a girdle round her waist, and to which the heavy bunch of prison- keys was attached, sank into a deep crease of fat, and it was only by the glitter of an obtruding corner of a link here and there that one could tell she wore any such iron girdle around her waist. Her face was as round and pleasant-look- ing in its lining, its dimpling and puffy cheeks, as a hot-cross bun ; and whether the typical traits lay in the amplitude of bust, or the roly-poly char- acter of the pudding-bags of flesh about the neck, or the obvious staylessness and wabbliness of her whole figure, it was difficult to tell ; but there was an unmistakable look of the " mother of a large family" stamped upon her whole appear- ance. Indeed, it was by the name 'mother' — mother, in its bare simplicity, without any cog- nominal affix — that she was spoken of throughout the entire prison. The gate-keeper asked how much beer he was to take for " mother" to-day — the chief warder, when he met the lady, held out his finger and thumb, and threw up his nose as he exclaimed, "Pinch asntiff*, mother!" The visiting justices shook their powdered wigs and smiled beneficent- thor has not been able to discover. Whethei* they were as brutal and as base as the males (who should have changed places with the prisoners themselves, for most of them had been thieves in their younger days), it is impossible to say ; but the writer of this book has sufficient faith in womanly tenderness to believe not. There may have been, and doubt- less was, many a gnarled old harridan among the female turnkeys of the "good old times;" but as human nature be- longs to no one age, depend upon it that, even a century and a half back, the majority of the women jailers had the same women's hearts as now to temper the rigor of prison rule — the same women's weakness and women's pity for misery and helplessness — ay, and let me add, the same women's prison babies too. FELONS IN 'THE CEADLE. 405 ly as they passed her in the passages leading to the governor's room, saying the while, "Well, mother, how do we find ourselves to-day, mother — eh ?" The impudent boy-thieves would shout out after her in the streets when they got their discharge, and saw her toddling along to or from the prison morning and evening, "I say, moth- airr ! come an' give us a kiss, old gal ;" while the woman who had just left the prison nursery, and stood, with her infant on her arms, at the entrance to some court in the town, would drop the good prison mother a silent courtesy as she went by and chucked the liberated little babe under the chin. " Well, sir," said this most matronly matron as she led Uncle Ben and the boy along the narrow and dark passages of the prison, and proceeded to answer the question the elder Benjamin had just put to her, " if you askes my opinion as a mother, sir," she began, throwing all her wonted force upon ' mother,' " as I've been this sixteen year come next grotter day, as is the fourth of August, as my own Jimmy was borned upon, and he's as good and upright and downstraight a boy as ever could please a poor dear mother's heart, though it is his own poor dear mother as says so — if you askes my opinion in that compacity, sir, why I reely must say as I can't see as the women in our mothers' ward here is at all difterent, in no- wise, in their motherly feelings for their poor dear little ones, from them as is outside." The lady j^aused for a minute, and then added : ^'That there is what I says to every body, sir — they're mothers, sir ;" and here the lady stopped again, with the double view of enforcing her fa- vorite point upon the gentleman's attention, as well as fetching a little breath after the heavy flight of stairs she had just mounted — "they're mothers, sir," she repeated, " which speaks wol- 406 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. lums for 'em, sir, I says ; for a mother icill be a mother, you laiow, sh*, all the world over ; least- wise if she ain't a monster in human .form, as is what we don't allow in here, in nowise, sir. I'm a mother myself, sir," said she, proudly, pausing again and turning full round to stare at Uncle Ben as she said the Avords; "the mother of nine as fine strapping children as ever you see, sir, as is all straight and well made, sir, with never so much as a club-foot, nor a hare-lip, no, nor not even so much as a j^ort- wine-stain neither among one on 'em to blemish their dear bodies, which is saying a great deal — ain't it, now, sir? So in coorse I knows what a mother's feelings is — which is only common humane natur', sir, as I tells my good man — he's one of the city watchmen as walks the docks ; maybe he ain't onbeknown to you, sir," she threw in joarenthetically as she turned suddenly roimd once more, "and hasn't never slept in his bed by nights, like a Christian man, for this twenty year and more, I give you my word, sir. I tells him he don't know what a moth- er's feelings is, as in coorse he do not ; and them as does know what a mother's feelings is, and it's only common humane natur', I says again, why, they can't but let alone having some bowels of passion for them as is mothers in their turn, sir — let their sity wation be what it may, poor things. So long as they're mothers is all as I cares about." By this time the trio had reached the part of the building which was set aside as the prison nursery. Uncle Ben was little inclined to be talk- ative himself, for what he had already seen, and what he felt he was about to see, had taken near- ly all the words out of him, and made him moody with the grave reflections engendered within him. There was, however, little demand for siDcech from any other while " mother" was present, for even FELONS IN THE CEADDE. 407 the most pertinacious would have found it diffi- cult to have insinuated so much as a parenthesis into the monologue on her part. As the matron dragged back the heavy prison door of the "mother's ward," it disclosed a clean- ly-looking whitewashed room, about the size of an ordinary barn, with barn-like rafters appearing overhead. A strong smell of babies and babies' food pervaded the place, and the entire shed re- sounded with the kissing and prattling of the fel- on mothers, and the gurgling and cooing, the cry- ing and laughing of the imprisoned babes. On the hobs of the ample fireplace at the end of the ward were rows of saucepans and pannikins, to keep up a constant supply of warm pap, and the rails of the high guard-like fender were hung with an array of LiUputian linen -r- the convict hahy- clotJies^ such as shirts hardly bigger than sheets of note-paper, socks but little larger than thumb- stalls, and colored blue and white frocks of about the same size as the squares of chintz in a patch- work counterpane. The room seemed positively crowded with cradles too, for they were ranged at the foot of the iron bedsteads in Hues, like so many tiny boats drawn up on a beach. " Them there's our own mothers, sir !" said the matron, in an exulting tone, as she stood within the doorway previous to entering, and pointing to the assembly of babes as if she was proud of the exhibition. "There's twenty-three mothers altogether in now, with five-and-twenty children — two twinses," she whispered in the old man's ear. " Poor things ! I never looks at 'em, and thinks about 'em, I don't, but what I feels as if I were a-going to be took with a 'tack of the spagms. You see," she continued, talking in an under tone to Uncle Ben, "they're a far betterer class of prisoners, the mothers is, than them brazen-faced 403 YOUNG BENJAMIN PEANKLIN. minxes on the t'other side of the women's side, as is enough to crud all a mother's milk of humane kindness, sir, that they is, I give you my word. Augh !" she burst out, with all a true matron's indignation, " I'd have such humane warmin as them there gals of ourn whipped at the cart's tail, I would ; I can't abide sitch unwomanly things ; and yet, do you know, I often drops a tear into my beer, sir, when I sits and thinks of the little bits of gals we has among 'era, and turns my eyes innards to their latter end. " But these here poor dears, sir," the corpulent lady resumed, with a sigh that made the body of her dress heave up and down like a carpet in a draughty room, " is mothers, sir, as I said afore ; and that there shows as there ain't no cuss upon them, and they ain't the shameless and 'fection- less hussies the other gals is, as I can't abide. Ah ! sir, a mother's heart is a great thing, sir — a fine thing, sir," the old body went on, as she grew half solemn in her tone ; " it makes a woman of a woman, it c?o, sir, let alone however bad she may ha' been afore ; for d'reckly she has a bit of her own flesh and blood in her arms to cuddle and take care on, and d'reckly she feels the little thing a-drawing its life from out of her own buzzum, and a-looking up and a-smiling in her face the whiles, I tell you she can't but wish (for I've know'd it, and gone through it all myself) as she mayn't never do nothink in the world as will hin- der her dear child from always a-looking uj) to her as it do then." Then drawing Uncle Ben half aside, she j^ro- ceeded with no little earnestness in her manner to say, " And do you mean to tell me, sir, as them there poor things, when they has these here moth- ers' thoughts come over 'em — as is only common humane natur', I say agin — when they sees the FELONS IN THE CEADLE. 409 little hinnocent kritter of their own a-kickiog and a-cooing in their lap, and wishes in their 'arts as they could make it a hemperor or a par- son, as every mother do, as is a reel mother to her babe, sir — do you mean to tell me, I askes you, as these here poor things, as is made of the same flesh and blood as ourselves is, sir, don't hate their- selves and cuss theirselves for the shame and hard lines they've put upon their little one's life in a-bringing it into the world with a hand- cuff", as a body may say, about its little hinnocent wrist ? Well, I can tell you they does^ sir — not as they says as much to me, but I sees 'em, when they leastwise thinks it, with the tears a-rolhng down their cheeks like a boy's marbles does some- times onbeknown to hisself down the hile at church-time — and that, too, as they sits a-dabbing their hands, quite unconscionably, over the little dear's mouth, so as to make it babble again like the bleating of a little lamb, you know, or maybe a-tickling it with their apron-strings in the folds of its dear little fat neck as it lays a-sprawling on the bed. You'd think they was a-playing with the little darling, I dessay, and a-taking part in the play too, as a mother loves to do ; for I know it, sir — Zknow there ain't nothink in all the wide world so beautiful as a baby's laugh to a mother's 'art. But these here poor things can't hardly a-bear to hear their little hinnocents laugh ; for it only 'minds them, you see, that the babe hasn't no sense of the place it's in, and it's like daggers in their 'arts consequently ; 'cos they fears that when it grows up to know the start it got in life, it'll come to cuss 'em, as they cusses theirselves, for the millstone they've been and hung about their poor little poppet's neck. This here is only com- mon humane natur', I says agin and agin. Why, there ain't no parson living as could put the 410 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. thouglits into these poor mothers' buzzums as them there little babes as can't talk can do. They're little hangels, I says, sent from heaven to tm-n their 'arts, sir. I knows it, I do. I've got a mother's 'art myself, sir, and I feels it often a-bleeding for 'em." Uncle Ben was so little prepared for this sim- ple burst of earnest kindness, after the stolid cal- lousness of the male officers, that he stared for a minute in mute wonder at the good old dame, and then said, as he saw his little nephew looking up and smiling in her fat, good-natured face, " Kiss her — go and kiss her, Ben, for her mother- ly love of these poor creatures ;" and then, as the boy flung his arms about her neck, he hugged the prison " mother," and the " mother" hugged the boy, as if they'd been parent and child, while the old uncle turned into the corridor and paced rap- idly up and down the flag-stones, flinging his arms about as if he was preaching to the winds. The paroxysm past, he returned to the dame's side, repeating her words, " Little angels sent from heaven to turn their mother's hearts." Then he paused, and looked her full in the face as he ask- ed sharply, " And what w^ill they grow up to be, think you, mother ?" " Young devils, sir — devils," was the emjDhatic and not particularly mealy-mouthed answer of the woman. " I guessed so," said Uncle Ben ; " I foresaw as much;" then he was silent for another minute, and ultimately jerked out, " But why should it be so, mother — why can't such as you prevent it ?" " Lor' love you, sir," " mother" replied, her face growing as creasy as an old kid glove with the smiles that played all over it, " Avhy, how you talk ! The world's agin it — every humane being's agin it — common hilmane natur' " (her favorite FELONS IN THE CRADLE. 411 reference) " is agin it. Do you think, I askes you, these here poor little babes can ever have the same chance of getting a honnest penny as that there boy of yourn, or any decent folk's child, let alone gentlefolks? It's one thing to be borned with a silver spoon, or even any spoon at all — no matter whether it's a hold hiron or a wooding one — in the mouth, and quite another pair of shoes to come into the world with a handcuff ready locked about your wrist; for there ain't hardly no gitting it off, I can tell you : it grows into the flesh like this here wedding-ring has, you see." The woman put out her finger to show that the little gold hoop had become imbedded deeply into the skin. " A boy as has come of a felon mother is sure to find it out sooner or later," she went on, " and often much sooner than need be; for people is only too quick to fling the 'stificut of his buth in any one's face, when it ain't worth paying a shil- ling to get it. And so the boy's the more ready to take to felon ways than a honnest j^erson's child ; for, fust and foremost, he ain't got no ker- ackter to lose, you see, and 'cos he ain't got no keracter, why honnest people won't have nothink at all to do with him. Then I askes you, sir, as a gennelman as has seed some little of the world, how can sitch a boy ever find out as honnesty's the best poUercy, as the saying goes, if so be as he can't never get no chance of gitting so much as a crust of bread honnestly for hisself ? " But there's another p'int as I should like you to see, sir, and that there is this here. Though the mother's heart of the woman as bore him may be, and is mostly, dreadful cut up to see her poor little hinnocent with the prison swaddlmg-clothes on his httle new-born limbs, and this makes her 412 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. swear and swear over agin to the little uncon- scionable kritter hisself as she'll lead a new life for his sake d'reckly she gets her discharge, and though she means it all too at the time, more hon- nestly than a honnest woman ever can, yet, sir, d'reckly as our gate-keeper opens the door to her, and her baby and she's got her libbity agin once more, why, back she goes, in coorse, to her old kimpanions, with her little one in her arms (for where elsewhere has she to go to, poor dear ?), and then her good resolves is no better than fruit- blossoms in Feberrary ; and arter that her moth- er's 'art won't hardly dare to open its lips to her- self any more about the child. So the poor little thing is sent out to play with the young thieves and wagabones in the gutter, and there the boy larns gutter moralses and thieves' p'ints of right and wrong, in coorse ; and then I leaves you to judge what his principles is like to be after a few quarters of that there schooling. 'Cording, w^hen he's about five or six, maybe, he comes to us, either for ' cadging,' as they calls it, or for ' pick- ing up' coals for his mother ofl" the barges 'long shore, or else for stealing bits of hold metal to get slices of pudding for hisself, or j^'r'aps for break- ing winders for the 'musement of a whole lot of the young scarrymoudges. And then, sir, when he's been and made his fust plunge, and got over the fust shudder-like of going headlong into this here pool, why then, sir, he's ready for I don't know how many dips agin ; so 'cording he keeps on going out and coming in here, like the folks at a show dooring fair time, for he finds there's al- ways a table ready laid for him here, and a well- haired bed always kept made up for him too, and that without nothink at all to pay for it, which larns him a lesson, sir, as there ain't no unlarning as ever I seed in all my time. So in coorse he FELONS IN THE CRADLE. 413 keej^s on a-coming backuds and foruds to ns, six months out and four months in, until at last he gets more and more owdacious and devilmay- careyfied, till the 'ulks or the gallus puts a final end at length ultimately to his k'reer. " Ah ! sir, it sets my mother's 'art a-bleeding," concluded the good-natured old dame, " when I looks at the hinnocent faces of these little things (as is liked to the kingdom of heaven, you know, sir, in the Church sarvice), and I knows — far bet- terer than here and there one — what fate's wrote down in the book agin their names, why then I sometimes thinks to myself, surelie it 'ud be bet- termost if the whole litter of kittens was drownd- ed outright. If they're to be hanged arter a while, I says, why, where's the good of keeping on 'em just to breed more kittens like theirselves in their turn, sir, and have more hangman's work to do in the final end, sir, after all? These is hard words, sir, for a mother to speak, as has got a mother's 'art in her buzzum, and a whole coopful of chicks of her own at home, bless 'em. But I can't help it, sir ; it's my mother's 'art as puts the words into my mouth, sir — it is." " Come ! come, Ben ! come along, boy ! I've seen and heard enough, lad, and so have you," cried the uncle, as the dame came to an end ; and then, turning round, he was about to thank the good old body and hurry oflT; but the matron seized him by the arm as she said, " You're never a-going in that there way, surelie, without never so much as a shake of the hand, or a chuck under the chin, or a ' God bless you' to my little ones here. I calls this here little lot my second fam- erly, sir ; and I can tell you, when some of their times is up, I often has a good cry over the part- ing from some on 'em, the same as if they was a tearing my own flesh and blood from me." 414 YOUNG BENJAMIN FKANKLIN. As the dame and the two Benjamins walked slowly down the long room, between the double file of prison cradles, they found some of the little felon babes j^ropped up in their beds, amusing themselves with the rude playthings that the mothers had invented to quiet them. One had a rag doll, with a couple of stitches in black thread for eyes ; another was thumping one of the prison tin j^latters, and crowing at the sound it made; and another was rattling some pebbles in one of the prison pannikins. A few of the mothers were walking hurriedly up and down the room with their infants in their arms, endeavoring to hush them to sleej) by pat- ting their backs, and hissing the while as a groom does to a horse he is rubbing down ; and others were seated at the edge of the iron bedstead, jog- ging the little one on their knees to allay the fret- fulness of teething. But not one lullaby song was to be heard in the place. As the visitors passed along, most of the women rose and courtesied in turn, and every face they saw was marked more or less by that dogged, sullen, and ill-used air which is so distinctive of the criminal character before it is utterly harden- ed and shameless. "D'ye mind, sir," whispered the matron, in Uncle Benjamin's ear, as they moved on a few paces, and then came to a stand-still, "there ain't a smile nowhere, 'cepting on that there one's face — the woman on my right here — and she's got six months on it for bigotry, sir ?" " For what ?" inquired the old gentleman, in a suppressed voice, that still had a deej? tone of as- tonishment about it. The dame put her mouth close to Uncle Ben's ear, and whispered, " Marrying two husbands, sir — bigotry we calls it here !" FELONS IN THE CRADLE. 415 Even Uncle Benjamin, sad and sick at heart as he was, had to blow his nose violently on hearing the explanation. " Ah ! she's a brazen-faced bit of goods, and I can't abide shamelessness, I can't," she ran on, with a significant toss of the head. " Yonder, you see, is a woman Avith two infants, sitting by the bed near the door — don't turn your head just yet, jDlease, sir, or she'll fancy we're a-talking about her," added the kind old matron, speaking in the same under tone as one instinctively adopts in a sick person's room. " She ain't one of the twinses ; she's minding another prisoner's child. Oh yes, they're very good and patient to one another's children, and we most seldom has cases of hill-treatment to punish in 'em. She's in for 'tempted 'fanticide, sir," continued the loquacious guide, as she turned her head away from the young woman that Uncle Ben was now regarding with an air of pretended vacancy and indifference; " and yet there ain't a better mother in the whole ward, nor a kinder-hearted kritter breathing nee- ther. " That there prisoner, two off from the one with the couple of babbies," the matron babbled on, looking straight away to the opposite side of the ward from that which she was directing Uncle Ben's attention to — "don't you see, sir? — the woman with the sailer complexion, and that there dreadful cast in her eye, so that you can only catch sight of half the happle on it, sir — she's a very bad, dang'rous kerackter, she is : we had to take her child from her. Do you know, she treated the poor little dear so inhumanely, we really thought as how she'd a' been the death on it. But she's a rare 'zeption, she is ; and, to tell you my mind, I don't b'lieve she's all there, sir," the old gossip added, pointing to her forehead, which she affect- 416 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. ed to scratch the minute afterward. " Her hus- band was a ground-lab'rer, sh', and went out for an olhdy about six months back, and she never sot eyes on him since. She's here for 'legal pawn- ing, sir, and got two year on it." At this point a clean, flaxen-haired little thing, with eyes so intensely blue that the very whites had a faint tint of azure in 'em, came toddling toward the matron with its plump short arms stretched out, and shrieking "Mamma! mamma!" The matron, or "mother" as she was called, stooped down and caught the little human ball in her arms, crying, " What, Annie, my little ducks o' dimons !" and then raising it up, she fell to kiss- ing it, and rubbing her mouth in its soft neck, making the same spluttering noise the while as though she was washing her own face with a handful of soap and water in her palms. " Bless it ! bless its own little heart ! she's mother's own poppet, she is — a little booty as ever was horned, and as clean and sweet as a new pink, that she is, every bit of her, sir. This is my Annie, sir, as I calls her ; my dear little darling Annie," she ran on, as she tossed the child up and down, crying " ketchy, ketchy," right in front of Uncle Benja- mm's face — "sAe'5 a sad romp, I can tell you. She's two year and three months come the — " "21st of May, please," interposed the tidy pris- on mother timidly, with a courtesy, for the woman had followed her child to the spot. "And was horned in this here prison, sir. The mother's got six year on it," the old matron add- ed aside, as she kept dancing the little one in the air till it fairly laughed again, " for shoplifting, sir ;" and then, putting her lips close to Uncle Ben's ear again, she whispered, " Xot married." The " mother" now passed up the ward, car- rying and cuddling Uttle Annie in her arms ; and FELONS IN THE CRADLE. 417 as she journeyed from bed to bed, she put her finger in the dimples of the prison babes, and made all kinds of tender inquiries, first about the teeth of this one, and then the legs of that, as well as reminding the women whose terms were about to expire that their time would be up next so-and- so, and she hoped as how they'd take care and never bring that sweet little hinnocent of theirn into such a place again. Presently, stopping suddenly short at one of the beds, she said, '"''Tliat there is the most tim- bersome child I ever met with ;" she alluded to a poor little white-faced thing who had thick irons down its legs, and who was evidently suftering from " soft bones." The prison mother was about to lead it toward Uncle Ben ; but, though the old man held out his hand toward it, the little creature hung its head, and struggled and screamed to get back to the prison cat that lay curled up on the bed it had just left. "The mother is married to a private in the Granadiers, sir," went on the matron, " and she ain't never heerd from him wunst since she was took for making away with the work of her 'ployer, sir. She's got four year on it, and fifteen month more to do, sir. You see the child is nat'- ral timbersome, sir; besides, poor thing ! it never sees no man's face here but the guv'nor's and the surjin's, so no wonder it's afeard at the sight of strangers' looks. " Well, sir," she rattled on, in answer to a ques- tion from Uncle Ben, as they turned away, and, passing out of the ward, proceeded to descend the steps that led to the " mothers' airing-yard," " we don't keep no hinfant babe here to over four year, sir, though there ii^iere one little thing as we wunst had in the prison so long, that when its mother's libbity came, it used to call every horse Dd 418 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. it seed in the streets a great big pussy. It did, I give you my word, sir." Uncle Ben shuddered as a sense of the brute ignorance of the Uttle baby-prisoner came over him, and the boy at his side stared up with won- der and terror in the old " mother's" face, for he remembered the tales he had read of the " wild boys" found in the w^oods, and how they had grown up as senseless as baboons. " I won't ask you, sir," said the matron, while passing across the yard back to the passages lead- mg to the entrance to the women's prison, "now that you've that there sweet boy of yourn wdth you, who's as like w^hat my own dear Jemmy were a year or two agone as ever he can stare — only he ain't got my Jemmy's nose 'zackly — to come and see our women's ward over on the t'other side, for, to speak the candid straightforud truth, sir, it ain't 'zackly the place a mother, with a mother's 'art in her buzzum, would like to take a boy of tender year like hizen to. Ah ! they're shocking brazen-faced, ondecent, foul-mouthed ter- mygints, that they is, sir, and the little-est on 'em is as bad as the biggest-est. They'd only be grin- ning in the young gen'elman's hinnocent face, sir, and a-making all kinds of grimages at you, sir, behind your hinnocent back, as you went along ; and as I'm a mother myself — the mother of nine living, sir, and have had as many as a baker's dozen on 'em, bless 'em! in my time — why, in coorse, I knows what a mother's dooty is, thank God, and so I won't demean myself to press you to stay and see the Jessybells, sir." By this time they had reached the heavy and big-locked door by which they had entered, and as "mother" put the monstei' key into the key- hole, she paused for a minute before turning it as she said, stooping down to young Ben, " Kiss me. FELONS IN THE CEADLE. 419 my sweet child. I know lie's a dear good boy to his poor dear mother as bore him, by the very looks on him. Yom* name's Benjamin, ain't it? for I heerd your dear father here call you by that. Well, I've got a Benjamin of my own, I have, but he's four year younger than you, if he's a day ; and I'm sorry to say it, my dear, but he's the werry worrit of my life, he is, for he bustis his clothes out, till, Lor' love you ! it's one person's time to look after him, and keep him any thing like tidy and 'spectable." All the time she was delivering this little do- mestic episode she was smoothing young Benja- min's hair, or stroking his cheek, or hugging him close up to her side. *' There, kiss me agin, dear child, for the last final time," she said, " and al- ways mind and be a good boy to your poor dear mother, whatever you do; for you don't know what it is to have a mother's 'art, I can tell you." The catch of the enormous prison lock then re- sounded with a loud capstan-pall-like click through the corridors, and the mother was dropping a courtesy to the old gentleman, and giving her last broad grin to the young one, as the couple went nodding to her through the doorway, when she suddenly espied the gate-keeper running, with a pewter ^^ot in his hand, so as to get to the " wom- en's-side entrance" before the door closed again. " Oh, there you are with my beer, at last, young man ! Come along, Bennett, for goodness gracious sake do^ there's a good soul ! for, heaven knows, I'm come over quite swoundy-like for the want on it." In a few minutes Uncle Ben and his nephew were retracing their steps across the boys' " side" of the prison, and as the couple strode along sor- rowfully, the godfather said, " Ah ! my boy, we 420 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. have only to imagine tliat years are flying past us now instead of minutes to recognize the httle baby faces we have just left in the prison nursery in that file of boy-thieves that are exercising yon- der in the airing-yard before us, and circling away one after another like the horses m the equestrian booth at a fair." As the endless troop of little felons kept shuf- fling on (the heavy prison boots clattering on the flag-stones with a very difierent noise from what their bare feet were wont to make on the pave- ment outside the prison gates), the uncle told lit- tle Ben to notice the figures on the red cloth that was fastened round the left arm of the boys, say- ing he would see by them the number of times they had been in prison before. " Call the num- bers out, Ben, as the lads go by, and let's hear the tale they tell of boys many of whom are not yet in their teens, and none out of them." Little Benjamin did as he was bidden, and the story ran as follows : 10 (recommittals), 2, 4, 7, V, 3, 6, 2, 14, 7, 12, 10, 2, 4.* " That's enough, my boy — that will do, in heav- en's name," exclaimed the uncle ; " and hardly half a score years back these children were many of them in the prison nursery." At this point the discipline-loving chief warder approached the couple, saying, " Like to see pris'n bur'al-groun', sir ?" Uncle Ben shook his head. "Very cur'ous — not a tomb-stun 'lowed in it — only a 'nitial letter to some — others without noth- ink at all to mark whose grave it is — place chuck full of bones, sir." " No, no," cried Uncle Ben, half petulantly, as * These figures are no fiction, but were taken down un- der similar circumstances. — See "Great World of London," Part VIII., p. 414. FELONS IN THE CRADLE. 421 if he thought this wretched finish to the story might have been spared him. " I want to go." " Pris'nus own clothes store, very cm-'ous too, sir," persisted the showman- warder. " Their own clothes is an oncommon strange sight — every one says so. All things been foomigutted, so there's no fear, I 'sure ye, sir." "No, no, man, I want to go, I say," was the answer ; whereupon the warder proceeded to un- lock door after door as before, and to conduct Uncle Ben and his nephew back to the gate. "Who are these boys?" asked the old uncle; " a fresh batch of prisoners just come in, I sup- pose !" " No, sir," was the sharp response, " they's the 'scharges." Uncle Ben as well as the warder alluded to a group of some half dozen lads who had cast the prison garb, and now stood gathered about the little clerk's office beside the gate-room, habited in their own rags and tatters, ready to regain their liberty. Half an hour before they had been warmly and comfortably clad, but now many of them stood shivering in their scant and rent ap- parel. One was without a jacket, while another had his coat pinned up so as to hide the want of a waistcoat, and perhaps a shirt. Uncle Ben waited to see the story to its end. " William Collins" was called out from within the clerk's office, and the warder outside the of- fice door, echoing the name, told the boy who an- swered to it to step up to the office window. Here he was placed in a small jDassage, imme- diately in front of the casement, within which stood one of the prison clerks, against a desk in the office on the other side. " You ever been here before ?" asked the clerk, in a tone of authority. 422 YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. " No," was the simple answer. " B'longs to the Docks," mteri3osed the attend- ant warder ; " and a friend's come for him." " Ho ! let 'm stejD here, then," rejoined the clerk ; and the " friend," who was a boy hardly older than the young thief himself, no sooner ap- peared outside the window than the voice with- in went on, " Who a' you ?" " Collins's brother, sir," the boy responded. "Well," the voice continued, "his majesty's justices of the peace 'uv oddered this boy a shil- ling, and they 'opes they'll never see 'm here again. So do you ta' care of him." And with this admonition and the money the couple passed on, to wait till the rest were ready to depart. " We alwa's sen's letter to paren's or fren's of pris'nus, sirs, prevus to 'scharging on 'em," ex- plained the chief warder, who stood aside with the two Benjamin Franklins while they watched the proceedings. " We does this so that the b'ys' fren's may be at gate at the time of thur going out, so's to take charge on 'em." " James Billington" was next shouted out. The minute afterward a mere urchin made his appearance outside the office window, his head scarcely reaching above the sill. " You've been in for robbing yer mother, eh ?" began the clerk, who had perceived that there were strangers present, and therefore commenced laying on the morality in full force. " What a horrible fellow of a son you must be to go and do that ! W^hy 7nust you go plundering her, poor woman, of all persons in the world ? The next boy to you has been flogged, and that'll be your case if ever you come here again, I can tell you" — and, having delivered himself of this lecture, he put his head out of the window and inquired, " Any body for James BiUington ?" •* How came you to break sixty panes of glas5, eh?" FELONS IN THE CKADLE. 426 " Nobody for Billington," answered the gate- keeper. "Where does your mother live?" demanded the clerk. " In a cellar in Hold Street, please, sir," was the reply of the boy, with a smile on his lip, and utterly unaffected, of course, by what had been said to him. " B'y's been here offen afore," the chief warder said aside to Uncle Ben. " He's bad boy 'deed, sir !" " Henry Norris" was the next lad called for. " How long ha' you been here, Norris ?" the clerk began with this one. " Six weeks," the boy said, doggedly. " How offen afore ?" the other went on. "Three times here, and twice in jail up in the country," was the cool and frank rejoinder. " Ha ! we're getting it out of you a little," add- ed the clerk. " Nobody for Norris, I s'pose?" he said, again thrusting his head out of the window. " No, sir," exclaimed the gate-keeper. " Thomas Wilson" was then called. '* What time ha' you been here, Wilson ?" in- terrogated the clerk, as a fresh boy came up to the window, but who was so short that the man in the office had to thrust his head out in order to see him. " Ten days, please, sir," answered the brat, in a whining tone. "And how offen afore?" demanded the other. " Six time, please, sir," the boy went on, whin- ing. " Now that's very pretty for a child of your age, ain't it ?" continued the moral man in office. " How came you to break sixty panes of glass? — for that's what you were charged with, you know —eh?" ■i2G YOUNG BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. • " I did it all along with other boys, please, sir — 'eaving stones," the child again whined out. " A set of mischeevous young ragamuffins," the moralist persisted. " Was the house empty, eh?" "No, please, sir, it wer'n't no house, sir; it were a liold factory, please, sir, and there was about a hundred panes broke afore we begunned ; so us boys was a trying to smash the rest on 'em, sir, when I got took." Such was the childish ex- planation of the felonious offense. "Any body for boy of the name of Thomas Wilson ?" shouted out the clerk. " No, sir, nobody for Wilson," the gate-keeper made answer once more. "Well, then," continued the clerk, "that's all the 'scharges for to-day, so you can let 'em all go, Bennett." " Come along, Ben," said the imcle, hurriedly, as he heard the last words; "I want to see the end of all this. Good-day, warder, good-day;" and the moment afterward the officer in charge of the gate opened the outer door, and the w^retch- ed young thieves and vagabonds were once more at large in the world. Uncle Ben j^assed with his nephew through the prison portal at the same time, and stood close against the gate, watching the proceedings of the liberated boys. The lad whose "brother" had come to take charge of him had two other youths of rather questionable appearance waiting to welcome him outside the prison gates. The other little creatures looked round about to see if they could spy any friend of theirs loi- tering in the neighborhood. None was to be seen. Of all the young creatures discharged from the hoys'' x>rison that morning^ not a father^ nor a UNCLE BEN AT HOME. 427 mother^ nor even a grown and decent friend was there to receive them.^ Uncle Ben stood and watched the wretched little friendless outcasts turn the corner of the roadway, and saw the whole of them go off in a gang, in company with the susj^icious - looking youths who had come to welcome the boy whose "brother" alone had thought him worth the fetching. Then turning to his little nephew, he cried aloud, " If ever you forget this lesson, Ben, you've a heart of stone, lad — a heart of stone !" CHAPTER XXII. UNCLE BEN AT HOME. It has been said that it is imj^ossible to stand uj) under an archway during an April shower with a man of really great mind without being impress- ed that we have been conversing with some su- perior person. But — no matter, let it pass. Nevertheless, it is certain that we have but to enter the ordinary sitting-room (not the " show- room," mark !) of any person, great or small, in order to read in every little article of furniture or knick-knackery, or even in the odds and ends that we find scattered about, some slight illustration of the pursuits, the habits, the tastes, the affec- tions, ay, and even the asj^irations of the individ- ual to whom the chamber belongs. Uncle Ben's " own room" was not a " reception- room," but a " retiring-room ;" a small chamber on " the two-pair front," that served him at once for study and dormitory too. * The bare fact. 428 YOUNG BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. On one side of the apartment stood the high turu-up bedstead, with its blue and white check- ed curtains drawn closely round it, and bulging- out from the wall like the hind part of a peep- show caravan. The furnitm-e was of the straight- backed, rectangular, and knubbly kind usually seen in curiosity shops nowadays, but w^hich, in Uncle Benjamin's time, was hardly old-fashioned, and this consisted simply of a small old oaken ta- ble, knobbed over with heads of cherubim round the sides, with legs as bulky as a brewer's dray- man's, and a kind of wooden " catch-cradle" to unite them at the base, as well as two or three chairs with backs as long and legs as short as weasels. In one corner was set a kind of small triangular cupboard, with a square of looking- glass in the lid, and a basin let into a circular hole beneath ; but, though this was fitted with a small door below, the style of workmanship was so dif- ferent from the rest of the furniture, that, had it not been for the box of tools in another part of the room, one might have wondered what country carpenter had wrought it. Against the wall dangled a few book-shelves slung on a cord, and these also were obviously of home manufacture. Here the very backs of the volumes (without reference to the marginal notes, with which many of the pages were scribbled round (formed a small catalogue of the tastes, principles, and habits of thought peculiar to the man who had "picked them up cheap" at auc- tions and book-stalls — for many had the lot-mark, or second-hand price-label still partly sticking to their covers. Here one shelf was devoted to Shakspeare's "Plays and Sonnets," Bacon's "No- vum Organum" and " Moral Essays ;" Newton's " Principia," " Optics," and " Observations on the Prophecies of Holy Writ ;" IMilton's " Paradise UNCLE BEN AT HOME. 4