Chapter Benjamin Franklin of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

language, and even to this day continues to teach its useful lesson of industry, frugality, and honesty, the world over.

The Autobiography.

Franklin's other literary success was his famous Autobiography, which he began to write in 1771, resumed in 1788, and left incomplete at his death. The purpose of its author was to make the experiences of his own career, the conduct and habit of life which had led to success in his own case, a source of help and inspiration to others. He therefore tells the story of his struggles, his errors, his experiments with himself, his accomplishment, with wonderful frankness and extreme simplicity.

Take for example the following passage:¹ --

"The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the subscriptions made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful project that might be supposed to raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it to be a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way, my affairs went on more smoothly, and I ever after practiced it on such occasions; and from my frequent successes, can heartily recommend it. The present little sacrifice of your vanity will afterwards be amply repaid. If it remains a while uncertain to whom the merit belongs, some one more vain than yourself may be encouraged to claim it, and then even envy will be disposed to do you justice, by plucking those assumed feathers, and restoring them to their right owner. This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repaired in some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me. Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my printing-house; I had a young family coming on to be educated, and I had two competitors to contend with for business who were established in the place before me. My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, `Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men,' I thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encouraged me, -- though I did not think that I should ever literally stand before kings, which, however, has since happened; for I have stood before five, and even had the honor of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner."

Characteristics of his Literary Work.

The predominant quality in all of Franklin's writing is its genuine humanness; this is what brought the Almanac into instant popularity, and what makes the Autobiography an enduring American classic. It is a quality that had been extremely rare in the earlier colonial literature. A keen sense of humor, also, homely and blunt but true, is constant in Franklin's work and one of the essential factors in its success. Noted examples of his wit are found in his anecdote of The Whistle and The Dialogue between Dr. Franklin and the Gout, which are among the papers entitled Bagatelles, written when Franklin was in France.

Franklin's literary work was thoroughly typical of himself. Honest, plain, democratic, clear-headed, shrewd, worldly-wise, he was interested in the practical side of life. To him the matter of "getting on" in the world was a duty; and to enable others to see the advantages of integrity, application, and thrift was his self- appointed task. His influence in this direction was immense. The absence of ideality is obvious in all his compositions. He never reached the high levels of imaginative art, but on this lower plane of material interest and every-day life he was, and is, without a peer among writers. The works which have been mentioned possess a universal charm. "I will disinherit you," said Sidney Smith to his daughter, "if you do not admire everything written by Franklin."