hought it worth while to write those pages, Franklin had
been taught to think very well of himself and his career. For this
reason he was, upon the one hand, somewhat indifferent as to setting
down what smaller men would conceal, confident that his fame would not
stagger beneath the burden of youthful wrong-doing; on the other hand,
he deals rather gently, a little ideally, with himself, as old men are
wont to acknowledge with condemnation tempered with mild forgiveness the
foibles of their early days. It is evident that, as a young man,
Franklin intermingled sense with folly, correct living with dissipation,
in a manner that must have made it difficult for an observer to forecast
the final outcome, and which makes it almost equally impossible now to
form a satisfactory idea of him. He is not to be disposed of by placing
him in any ready-made and familiar class. If he had turned out a bad
man, there would have been abundance in his early life to point the
moralist's warning tale; as he turned out a very reputable one, there is
scarcely less abundance for panegyrists to expatiate upon. Certainly he
was a man to attract some attention and to carry some weight, yet not
more than many another of whom the world never hears. At the time of his
marriage, however, he is upon the verge of development; a new period of
his life is about to begin; what had been dangerous and evil in his ways
disappears; the breadth, originality, and practical character of his
mind are about to show themselves. He has settled to a steady
occupation; he is industrious and thrifty; he has gathered much
information, and may be regarded as a well-educated man; he writes a
plain, forcible style; he has enterprise and shrewdness in matters of
business, and good sense in all matters,--that is the chief point, his
sound sense has got its full growth and vigor, and of sound sense no man
ever had more. Very soon he not only prospers financially, but begins to
secure at first that attention and soon afterward that influence which
always follow close upon success in practical affairs. He becomes the
public-spirited citizen; scheme after scheme of social and public
improvement is suggested and carried forward by him, until he justly
comes to be one of the foremost citizens of Philadelphia. The
enumeration of what he did within a few years in this small new town and
poor community will be found surprising and admirable.

His first enterprise, of a quasi public nat