Part 36

2--6 p.m. Work.

6--10 p.m. Put things in their places. Supper. Music or diversion, or conversation. Examination of the day. What good have I done this day?

10 p.m.--5 a.m. Sleep.

In truth, I found myself incorrigible with regard to order, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I should have been if I had not attempted it. It may be well that my posterity should be informed that to this little artifice, with the blessing of God, their ancestor owed the constant felicity of his life.

I purposed publishing my scheme, writing a little comment on each virtue, and I should have called my book "The Art of Virtue," distinguishing it from the mere exhortation to be good. But my intention was never fulfilled, for it was connected in my mind with a great and extensive project, which I have never had time to attend to. I had set forth on paper the substance of an intended creed, containing, as I thought, the essentials of every known religion, and I conceived the project of raising a united party for virtue, by forming the virtuous and good men of all nations into a regular body, to be governed by suitable good and wise rules. I thought that the sect should be begun and spread at first among young and single men only, that each person to be initiated should declare his assent to my creed, and should have exercised himself with the thirteen weeks' practice of the virtues, that the existence of the society should be kept a secret until it was become considerable, that the members should engage to assist one another's interests, business, and advancement in life, and that we should be called "The Society of the Free and Easy," as being free from the dominion of vice and of debt. I am still of opinion that it was a practicable scheme.

In 1732 I first published my Almanack, commonly called "Poor Richard's Almanack," and continued it for about twenty-five years. It had a great circulation, and I considered it a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people. Thus, I assembled the proverbs containing the wisdom of many ages and nations into a discourse prefixed to the Almanack of 1757, as the harangue of a wise old man to the people attending an auction. I considered my newspaper also as a means of instruction, and published in it extracts from moral writers and little pieces of my own, in the form sometimes of a Socratic dialogue, tending to prove the advantages of virtue.

I had begun in 1733 to study languages. I made myself master of French so as to be able to read books with ease, and then Italian, and later Spanish. Having an acquaintance with these, I found, on looking over a Latin Testament, that I understood much of that language, which encouraged me to study it with success.

Our secret club, the Junto, had turned out to be so useful that I now set every member of it to form each of them a subordinate club, with the same rules, but without informing the new clubs of their connection with the Junto. The advantages proposed were, the improvement of so many young citizens; our better acquaintance with the general sentiments of the inhabitants on any occasion, as the Junto member was to report to the Junto what passed in his separate club; the promotion of our particular interests in business by more extensive recommendation; and the increase of our influence in public affairs. Five or six clubs were completed, and answered our views of influencing public opinion on particular occasions.

IV.--Public Life

My first promotion was my being chosen, in 1736, clerk of the General Assembly. In the following year I received the commission of postmaster at Philadelphia, and found it of great advantage. I now began to turn my thoughts a little to public affairs, beginning, however, with small matters, and preparing the way for my reforms through the Junto and subordinate clubs. Thus I reformed the city watch, and established a company for the extinguishing of fires. In 1739 the Rev. Mr. Whitefield arrived among us and preached to enormous audiences throughout the colonies. I knew him intimately, being employed in printing his sermons and journals; he used sometimes to pray for my conversion, but never had the satisfaction of believing that his prayers were heard. Our friendship lasted till his death.

My business was now continually augmenting, and my circumstances daily growing easier. Spain having been several years at war against Great Britain, and being at length joined by France, our situation became one of great danger; our colony was defenceless, and our Assembly was composed principally of Quakers. I therefore formed an association of citizens, numbering ten thousand, into a militia; these all furnished themselves with arms and met every week for drill, while the women provided silk colours painted with devices and mottoes which I supplied. With the proceeds of a lottery we built a battery below the town, and borrowed eighteen cannon of the governor of New York.

Peace being concluded, and the association business therefore at an end, I turned my thoughts to the establishment of an academy. I published a pamphlet; set on foot a subscription, not as an act of mine, but of some "public-spirited gentleman," and the schools were opened in 1749. They were soon moved to our largest hall; the trustees were incorporated by a charter from the governor, and thus was established the University of Pennsylvania. The building of a hospital for the sick, and the paving, lighting, and sweeping of the streets of the city, were among the reforms in which I had a hand at this time. In 1753 I was appointed, jointly with another, postmaster-general of America, and the following year I drew up a plan for the union of all the colonies under one government for defence and other important general purposes. Its fate was singular; the assemblies did not adopt it, as they thought there was too much prerogative in it, and in England it was judged to be too democratic. The Board of Trade therefore did not approve of it, but substituted another scheme for the same end. I believe that my plan was really the true medium, and that it would have been happy for both sides of the water if it had been adopted.

When war was in a manner commenced with France, the British Government, not choosing to trust the union of the colonies with their defence, lest they should feel their own strength, sent over General Braddock in 1755 with two regiments of regular English troops for that purpose. He landed at Alexandria and marched to Frederictown in Maryland, where he halted for carriages. I was sent to him by the Assembly, stayed with him for several days, and had full opportunity of removing all his prejudices against the colonies by informing him of what the essemblies had done and would still do to facilitate his operations.

This general was a brave man, and might have made a figure as a good officer in some European war. But he had too much self-confidence, too high an opinion of regular troops, and too mean a one of both Americans and Indians. Our Indian interpreter joined him with 100 guides and scouts, who might have been of great use to him; but he slighted and neglected them and they left him. He said to one of the Indians, "These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible that they should make any impression." In the first engagement his force was routed in panic, and two-thirds of them were killed, by no more than 400 Indians and French together. This gave us the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of British regulars had not been well founded. Besides, from the day of their landing, they had plundered, insulted, and abused our inhabitants. We wanted no such defenders.

After this the governor prevailed with me to take charge of our north-west frontier, which was infested by the enemy, and I undertook this military business, although I did not conceive myself well suited for it.

My account of my electrical experiments was read before the Royal Society of London, and afterwards printed in a pamphlet. The Count de Buffon, a philosopher of great reputation, had the book translated into French, and then it appeared in the Italian, German, and Latin languages. What gave it the more sudden celebrity was the success of its proposed experiment for drawing lightning from the clouds. I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and they presented me with the gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copley, for 1753.

The Assembly had long had much trouble with the "proprietary," or great hereditary landowners. Finally, finding that they persisted obstinately in manacling their deputies with instructions inconsistent, not only with the privileges of the people, but with the service of the crown, the Assembly resolved to petition the king against them, and appointed me agent in England to present and support the petition. I sailed from New York with my son in the end of June; we dropped anchor in Falmouth harbour, and reached London on July 27, 1757.

* * * * *

MRS. GASKELL

The Life of Charlotte Bronte

Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, afterwards Mrs. Gaskell, was born at Chelsea on September 29, 1810. At the age of twenty-two she married William Gaskell, a minister of the Unitarian Church in Manchester. She became famous in 1848 on the publication of "Mary Barton," a novel treating of factory life. Her "Life of Charlotte Brontë," published in 1857, caused much controversy, which became bitter, and occasioned the fixed resolve on the part of its author that her own memoirs should never be published. This gloomily-haunting, vivid human "Life of Charlotte Brontë" was written at the request of the novelist's father, who placed all the materials in his possession at the disposal of the biographer. Mrs. Gaskell took great pains to make her work complete, and, though published only two years after Charlotte Brontë's death, it still holds the field unchallenged. Mrs. Gaskell died on November 12, 1865.

I.--The Children Who Never Played

Into the midst of the lawless yet not unkindly population of Haworth, in the West Riding, the Rev. Patrick Brontë brought his wife and six little children in February, 1820, seven heavily-laden carts lumbering slowly up the long stone street bearing the "new parson's" household goods.

A native of County Down, Mr. Brontë had entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1802, obtained his B.A. degree, and after serving as a curate in Essex, had been appointed curate at Hartshead, in Yorkshire. There he was soon captivated by Maria Branwell, a little gentle creature, the third daughter of Mr. Thomas Branwell, merchant, of Penzance. In 1816 he received the living of Thornton, in Bradford Parish, and there, on April 21, Charlotte Brontë was born. She was the third daughter, Maria and Elizabeth being her elder sisters, and fast on her heels followed Patrick Branwell, Emily Jane and Anne.

"They kept themselves to themselves very close," in the account given by those who remember the family coming to Haworth. From the first, the walks of the children were directed rather towards the heathery moors sloping upwards behind the parsonage than towards the long descending village street. Hand in hand they used to make their way to the glorious moors, which in after days they loved so passionately.

They were grave and silent beyond their years. "You would never have known there was a child in the house, they were such still, noiseless, good little creatures," said one of my informants. "Maria would often shut herself up" (Maria of seven!) "in the children's study with a newspaper or a periodical, and be able to tell anyone everything when she came out, debates in parliament, and I know not what all."

Mr. Brontë wished to make the children hardy, and indifferent to the pleasures of eating and dress. His strong passionate nature was in general compressed down with resolute stoicism. Mrs. Brontë, whose sweet spirit thought invariably on the bright side, would say: "Ought I not to be thankful that he never gave me an angry word?"

In September, 1821, Mrs. Brontë died, and the lives of those quiet children must have become quieter and lonelier still. Their father did not require companionship, and the daughters grew out of childhood into girlhood bereft in a singular manner of such society as would have been natural to their age, sex and station. The children did not want society. To small infantine gaieties they were unaccustomed. They were all in all to each other. They had no children's books, but their eager minds "browsed undisturbed among the wholesome pasturage of English literature," as Charles Lamb expressed it.