The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Front Cover
Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1888 - 192 pages

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Contents

I
7
II
31
III
55
IV
70
V
85
VI
115
VII
131
VIII
137
IX
149
X
159
XI
172
XII
187
XIII
199
XIV
206
Copyright

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Page 231 - MR. STRAHAN, You are a member of parliament, and one of that majority which has doomed my country to destruction. — You have begun to burn our towns, and murder our people. — Look upon your hands! — They are stained with the blood of your relations ! — You and I were long friends: — You are now my enemy, — and I am • Yours, B. FRANKLIN.
Page 106 - Here will I hold. If there's a power above us (And that there is, all Nature cries aloud Through all her works), he must delight in virtue ; And that which he delights in must be happy.
Page 36 - Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance.
Page 22 - I thought the writing excellent, and wished if possible to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator...
Page 238 - THE BODY of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Printer, (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding) lies here food for worms ; yet the work itself shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition, corrected and amended by THE AUTHOR.
Page 104 - My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once but to fix it on one of them at a time, and when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on till I should have gone thro
Page 26 - My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America, and was called the New England Courant. The only one before it was the Boston...
Page 23 - ... same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again.
Page 98 - Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men...
Page 31 - My son at Philadelphia has lately lost his principal hand, Aquila Rose, by death; if you go thither, I believe he may employ you." Philadelphia was one hundred miles further; I set out, however, in a boat for Amboy, leaving my chest and things to follow me round by sea. In crossing the bay, we met with a squall that tore our rotten sails to pieces, prevented our getting into the Kill, and drove us upon Long Island.

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