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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 1
of 154
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, July, 1994 [Etext #148]Benjamin Franklin
his autobiography
1706-1757
With introduction and notes
Edited by Charles W Eliot Lld
P. F. Collier & Son Company, New York (1909) TWYFORD, at the Bishop of St.
Asaph's,(0) 1771.
Dear son: I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes of my
ancestors. You may remember the inquiries I made among the remains of my
relations when you were with me in England, and the journey I undertook for that
purpose. Imagining it may be equally agreeable to(1) you to know the
circumstances of my life, many of which you are yet unacquainted with, and
expecting the enjoyment of a week's uninterrupted leisure in my present country
retirement, I sit down to write them for you. To which I have besides some other
inducements. Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which I was born
and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of reputation in the world,
and having gone so far through life with a considerable share of felicity, the
conducing means I made use of, which with the blessing of God so well succeeded,
my posterity may like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their
own situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.
That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced me sometimes to say, that
were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the
same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors have in a
second edition to correct some faults of the first. So I might, besides
correcting the faults, change some sinister accidents and events of it for
others more favorable. But though this were denied, I should still accept the
offer. Since such a repetition is not to be expected, the next thing most like
living one's life over again seems to be a recollection of that life, and to
make that recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in writing.
Hereby, too, I shall indulge the inclination so natural in old men, to be
talking of themselves and their own past actions; and I shall indulge it without
being tiresome to others, who, through respect to age, might conceive themselves
obliged to give me a hearing, since this may be read or not as any one pleases.
And, lastly (I may as well confess it, since my denial of it will be believed by
nobody), perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I scarce
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