A Benjamin Franklin Reader Read Online Free
Author: Walter Isaacson
benefactor (and in a manner a father to me) I could not well deny his request, when I once perceived he was in earnest. Whether it was love, or gratitude, or pride, or all three that made me consent, I know not; but it is certain, he found it no hard matter, by the help of his rhetoric, to conquer my heart, and persuade me to marry him.
This unexpected match was very astonishing to all the country round about, and served to furnish them with discourse for a long time after; some approving it, others disliking it, as they were led by their various fancies and inclinations.
We lived happily together in the height of conjugal love and mutual endearments, for near seven years, in which time we added two likely girls and a boy to the family of the Dogoods: but alas! When my sun was in its meridian altitude, inexorable unrelenting death, as if he had envied my happiness and tranquility, and resolved to make me entirely miserable by the loss of so good an husband, hastened his flight to the heavenly world, by a sudden unexpected departure from this.
I have now remained in a state of widowhood for several years, but it is a state I never much admired, and I am apt to fancy that I could be easily persuaded to marry again, provided I was sure of a good-humored, sober, agreeable companion: but one, even with these few good qualities, being hard to find, I have lately relinquished all thoughts of that nature.
At present I pass away my leisure hours in conversation, either with my honest neighbor Rusticus and his family, or with the ingenious minister of our town, who now lodges at my house, and by whose assistance I intend now and then to beautify my writings with a sentence or two in the learned languages, which will not only be fashionable, and pleasing to those who do not understand it, but will likewise be very ornamental.
I shall conclude this with my own character, which (one would think) I should be best able to give. Know then, that I am an enemy to vice, and a friend to virtue. I am one of an extensive charity, and a great forgiver of private injuries: a hearty lover of the clergy and all good men, and a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power. I am naturally very jealous for the rights and liberties of my country; and the least appearance of an encroachment on those invaluable privileges, is apt to make my blood boil exceedingly. I have likewise a natural inclination to observe and reprove the faults of others, at which I have an excellent faculty. I speak this by way of warning to all such whose offences shall come under my cognizance, for I never intend to wrap my talent in a napkin. To be brief; I am courteous and affable, good humored (unless I am first provoked,) and handsome, and sometimes witty, but always, sir, your friend and humble servant,
Silence Dogood
Silence Dogood Attacks Harvard
Of the fourteen Dogood essays that Franklin wrote between April and October of 1722, the one that stands out both as journalism and self-revelation is his attack on the college he never got to attend. Many of the classmates he had bested in grammar school had just entered Harvard, and Franklin could not refrain from poking fun at them. The form he used was an allegorical narrative cast as a dream, similar to that in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Addison had also used the form somewhat clumsily in an issue of The Spectator that Franklin had read, which recounted the dream of a banker about an allegorical virgin named Public Credit.
S ILENCE D OGOOD # 4, T HE N EW - E NGLAND C OURANT , M AY 14, 1722
An sum etiam nunc vel Graec loqui vel Latin docendus?
—Cicero
Sir,
Discoursing the other day at dinner with my reverend boarder, formerly mentioned, (whom for distinction sake we will call by the name of Clerics,) concerning the education of children, I asked his advice about my young son William, whether or no I had best bestow upon him academical learning, or (as our phrase is) bring him up at our college:
This unexpected match was very astonishing to all the country round about, and served to furnish them with discourse for a long time after; some approving it, others disliking it, as they were led by their various fancies and inclinations.
We lived happily together in the height of conjugal love and mutual endearments, for near seven years, in which time we added two likely girls and a boy to the family of the Dogoods: but alas! When my sun was in its meridian altitude, inexorable unrelenting death, as if he had envied my happiness and tranquility, and resolved to make me entirely miserable by the loss of so good an husband, hastened his flight to the heavenly world, by a sudden unexpected departure from this.
I have now remained in a state of widowhood for several years, but it is a state I never much admired, and I am apt to fancy that I could be easily persuaded to marry again, provided I was sure of a good-humored, sober, agreeable companion: but one, even with these few good qualities, being hard to find, I have lately relinquished all thoughts of that nature.
At present I pass away my leisure hours in conversation, either with my honest neighbor Rusticus and his family, or with the ingenious minister of our town, who now lodges at my house, and by whose assistance I intend now and then to beautify my writings with a sentence or two in the learned languages, which will not only be fashionable, and pleasing to those who do not understand it, but will likewise be very ornamental.
I shall conclude this with my own character, which (one would think) I should be best able to give. Know then, that I am an enemy to vice, and a friend to virtue. I am one of an extensive charity, and a great forgiver of private injuries: a hearty lover of the clergy and all good men, and a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power. I am naturally very jealous for the rights and liberties of my country; and the least appearance of an encroachment on those invaluable privileges, is apt to make my blood boil exceedingly. I have likewise a natural inclination to observe and reprove the faults of others, at which I have an excellent faculty. I speak this by way of warning to all such whose offences shall come under my cognizance, for I never intend to wrap my talent in a napkin. To be brief; I am courteous and affable, good humored (unless I am first provoked,) and handsome, and sometimes witty, but always, sir, your friend and humble servant,
Silence Dogood
Silence Dogood Attacks Harvard
Of the fourteen Dogood essays that Franklin wrote between April and October of 1722, the one that stands out both as journalism and self-revelation is his attack on the college he never got to attend. Many of the classmates he had bested in grammar school had just entered Harvard, and Franklin could not refrain from poking fun at them. The form he used was an allegorical narrative cast as a dream, similar to that in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Addison had also used the form somewhat clumsily in an issue of The Spectator that Franklin had read, which recounted the dream of a banker about an allegorical virgin named Public Credit.
S ILENCE D OGOOD # 4, T HE N EW - E NGLAND C OURANT , M AY 14, 1722
An sum etiam nunc vel Graec loqui vel Latin docendus?
—Cicero
Sir,
Discoursing the other day at dinner with my reverend boarder, formerly mentioned, (whom for distinction sake we will call by the name of Clerics,) concerning the education of children, I asked his advice about my young son William, whether or no I had best bestow upon him academical learning, or (as our phrase is) bring him up at our college:
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