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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 10
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read. I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces; my brother,
thinking it might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing
occasional ballads. One was called The Lighthouse Tragedy, and contained an
account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters: the other
was a sailor's song, on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard) the pirate. They
were wretched stuff, in the Grub-street-ballad style; and when they were printed
he sent me about the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event
being recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my vanity; but my father
discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were
generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one; but
as prose writing bad been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a
principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I
acquired what little ability I have in that way.
There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with whom I was
intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument,
and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way,
is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in
company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and
thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts
and, perhaps enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught
it by reading my father's books of dispute about religion. Persons of good
sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university
men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough.
A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins and me, of the
propriety of educating the female sex in learning, and their abilities for
study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that they were naturally
unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a little for dispute's sake. He
was naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words; and sometimes, as I
thought, bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons.
As we parted without settling the point, and were not to see one another again
for some time, I sat down to put my arguments in writing, which I copied fair
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