t brought to bear among
them against the men, their fellows, who have vigour enough of intellect
to think and act for themselves; and such always is the character of the
born leader: these true leaders are almost always forced into the
opposition; and thus separating between themselves and the men fitted by
nature to render them formidable, they fall under the direction of mere
chatterers and stump orators, which is in reality no direction at all.
The author of the "Working Man's Way in the World"--evidently a very
superior man--had, he tells us, to quit at one time his employment,
overborne by the senseless ridicule of his brother workmen. Somerville
states in his Autobiography, that, both as a labouring man and a
soldier, it was from the hands of his comrades that--save in one
memorable instance--he had experienced all the tyranny and oppression of
which he had been the victim. Nay, Benjamin Franklin himself was deemed
a much more ordinary man in the printing-house in Bartholomew Close,
where he was teased and laughed at as the _Water-American_, than in the
House of Representatives, the Royal Society, or the Court of France.
The great Printer, though recognised by accomplished politicians as a
profound statesman, and by men of solid science as "the most rational of
the philosophers," was regarded by his poor brother compositors as
merely an odd fellow, who did not conform to their drinking usages, and
whom it was therefore fair to tease and annoy as a contemner of the
_sacrament_ of the _chapel_.[9]

The life of my friend was, however, pitched on a better and higher tone
than that of most of his brother unionists. It was intellectual and
moral, and its happier hours were its hours of quiet self-improvement,
when, throwing himself on the resources within, he forgot for the time
the unions and combinations that entailed upon him much troublesome
occupation, but never did him any service. I regretted, however, to find
that a distrust of his own powers was still growing upon him, and
narrowing his circle of enjoyment. On asking him whether he still amused
himself with his flute, he turned, after replying with a brief "O no!"
to a comrade with whom he had lived for years, and quietly said to him,
by way of explaining the question, "Robert, I suppose you don't know I
was once a grand flute-player!" And sure enough Robert did not know. He
had given up, too, his water-colour drawing, in which his taste was
decidedly fine; and