Mason Locke Weems - The Life of Benjamin Franklin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ben answered that he was no Daniel to interpret dreams.

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

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

Only four pence halfpenny , said the old lady.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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