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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 11
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and sent to him. He answered, and I replied. Three or four letters of a side had
passed, when my father happened to find my papers and read them. Without
entering into the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the manner of
my writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist in
correct spelling and pointing (which I ow'd to the printing-house), I fell far
short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he
convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remark, and thence
grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and determined to endeavor at
improvement.
About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I
had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was
much delighted with it. 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 sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and
then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat 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 with the original, discovered some of my faults, and
corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in
recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that
time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of
the 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. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and
after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began
to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method
in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the
original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the
pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been
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