ntific guidance, finds by himself all medicinal
herbs in the wild woods.

"If I had a youth to educate, not for any special calling, but that he
might become a genuine man and a good citizen, I would place my hands
upon his head and say, 'My son, become like Benjamin Franklin--no,--not
this; develop thine own being, as Benjamin Franklin developed his.'"

Eric rested his chin upon his hand, and gazed out into the darkness of
the night.

What is that? Are there miracles in our life? He looked to the right
and to the left, as if he must have heard the voice of his father; as
if he had not written, but was speaking the words,--My son, become like
Benjamin Franklin!

Eric, with great effort, continued his reading:--

"It is indeed well for us to form ourselves after the first men of the
old world, the period of generative, elementary existence; the
characters of the Bible and of Homer are not the creations of a single,
highly endowed mind, but they are the embodiments of the primitive,
national spirit in distinct forms, and embrace a far wider compass than
the span of individual existence.

"Understand me well. I say, I know in modern history no other man,
according to whose method of living and thinking a man of our day can
form himself, except Benjamin Franklin.

"Why not Washington, who was so great and pure?

"Washington was a soldier and a statesman, but he was not an original
discoverer of the world within himself, and an unfolder of that world
from his own inner being. He exerted influence by ruling and guiding
others; Franklin, by ruling and guiding himself.

"When the time shall ever come, and it will come, that battles shall be
spoken of as in this day we speak of cannibals; when honorable,
industrious, humane labors shall constitute the history of humanity,
then Franklin will be acknowledged.

"I would not willingly fall into that sanctimonious tone, the remnant
of pulpit oratory, that comes out in us whenever we approach the
eternal sanctities; and I hope our tone must be wholly different from
that of those who claim to speak in the name of a spirit which they
themselves do not possess.

"God manifested himself to Moses, Jesus, Mohammed in the solitude of
the desert; to Spinoza in the solitude of the study; to Franklin in the
solitude of the sea." (This last clause was stricken out, and then
again inserted.) "Franklin is the man of sober understanding, who knows
nothing of enthusiasm.

"The world