Reading Ben Franklin’s autobiography is hilarious because randomly at the end of the first third, there’s this:
What follows was written many years after in compliance with the advice contain’d in these letters, and accordingly intended for the public. The affairs of the Revolution occasion’d the interruption.
In other words, “Hey gang, we’re gonna take a quick break for a few years to throw of British oppressors. During the intermission, feel free to grab a burger or a pretzel from one of our fabulous vendors. Mind your step. Restrooms to the right.”
The rest of the autobiography went every which way but loose and proved that Ole Ben (not to be confused with Kenobi) cared little for what everyone else thought important and meant to cover virtues and vices, and his praactice. I counted at least six “erratum” in the first section, all of which made huge emotional scars of regret in his life, all of which he attempted to correct through these virtues:
- Temperance – “Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.”
- Silence – “Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.” (Perhaps this provided inspiration for the pseudonym Silence Dogood?)
- Order – “Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.”
- Resolution – “Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”
- Frugality – “Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.”
- Industry – “Love no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.”
- Sincerity – “Use no boastful deceit; think innocently and justly, and if you speak, speak accordingly.”
- Justice – “Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.”
- Moderation – “Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.”
- Cleanliness – “Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.”
- Tranquility – “Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.”
- Chastity – “Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.”
- Humility – “Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”
- negrofied (yes, that’s right, negro-fied. Thank your racist forefather for that one) – to blacken
- concord – agreement between people, groups; harmony
- incorrigable – beyond correction or reform
- probity – integrity and uprightness
- harangue – scolding or intense verbal attack – “Lancelot harangued Ben Franklin for being an obvious racist.”
- inimical – adverse in tendency; harmful
- conflagrations – an extensive, destructive fire
- jocosely – given to joking, jesting
- extirpate – to remove or destroy totally
- prerogative – an exclusive right, privelage
- celerity – swiftness, speed
- ambuscades – ambushes
- remonstrated – to say or plead in protest
- whimsical – given to fanciful notions; capricious; upredictable
- palisades – a fence of stakes or pales set firmly in the ground
- loopholes – a narrow opening in a wall or ceiling as to let in light or air; or in a fortification to discharge missles
- hautboy – oboe
- escritoire – writing desk
- enumerated – to mention separately as if in counting; name one by one; as in a list
- viva voce – by word of mouth; orally; lit. “with living voice”
- plenipotentiary - a person, especially a diplomatic agent, invested with full power or authority to transact business on behalf of another.
[...] “the fourteen publishers that rejected my work” and then self-published a masterpiece. Ben Franklin ran his own press and printed his own work on it. Even the St. Luke self-published his own [...]