Thus speaketh the honest wisdom of Benjamin Franklin.

* * * * *

I do not see that a better plan can be chosen for carrying out the title of this book than the one I have adopted, namely, tracing from the earliest years to old age the author’s literary lifework, illustrated by accounts of, and specimens from, his various books and writings, especially those which are absolutely out of print, or, haply have never been published.  No doubt, in such excerpts, exhibited at their best, the critical accusations of unfairness, self-seeking, and so forth, will be made, and may be met by the true consideration that something of this sort is inevitable in autobiography.  However, for the matter of vanity, all I know of myself is the fact that praise, if consciously undeserved, only depresses me instead of elating; that a noted characteristic of mine through life has been to hide away in the rear rather than rush to the front, unless, indeed, forced forward by duty, when I can be bold enough, if need be; and that one defect in me all know to be a dislike to any assumption of dignity—­surely a feeling the opposite to self-conceit; whilst, if I am not true, simple, and sincere, I am worse than I hope I am, and all my friends are deceived in their kind judgment of me.

But let this book speak for itself; I trust it is honest, charitable, and rationally religious.  If I have (and I show it through all my writings) a shrinking from priestcraft of every denomination, that feeling I take to be due to some ancient heredity ingrained, or, more truly, inburnt into my nature from sundry pre-Lutheran confessors and martyrs of old, from whom I claim to be descended, and by whose spirit I am imbued.  Not but that I profess myself broad, and wide, and liberal enough for all manner of allowances to others, and so far as any narrow prejudices may be imagined of my idiosyncrasy, I must allow myself to be changeable and uncertain—­though hitherto having steered through life a fairly straight course—­and that sometimes I can even doubt as to my politics, whether they should be defined Whig or Tory; as to my religion, whether it is most truly chargeable by the epithet high or low; as to my likings, whether I best prefer solitude or society; as to literature, whether gaieties or gravities please me most.  In fact, I recognise good in everything, though sometimes hidden by evil, right (by intention, at least) in sundry doctrines and opinions otherwise to my judgment wrong, and I am willing to believe the kindliest of my opponents who appear to be honest and earnest.  This is a very fair creed for a citizen of the world, whose motto is Terence’s famous avowal, “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.”

CHAPTER II.

INFANCY AND SCHOOLDAYS.