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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 2
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ever heard or saw the introductory words, "Without vanity I may say," &c., but
some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike vanity in others,
whatever share they have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I
meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the
possessor, and to others that are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in
many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his
vanity among the other comforts of life.
And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that
I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life to His kind providence, which lead
me to the means I used and gave them success. My belief of this induces me to
hope, though I must not presume, that the same goodness will still be exercised
toward me, in continuing that happiness, or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse,
which I may experience as others have done: the complexion of my future fortune
being known to Him only in whose power it is to bless to us even our
afflictions.
The notes one of my uncles (who had the same kind of curiosity in collecting
family anecdotes) once put into my hands, furnished me with several particulars
relating to our ancestors. From these notes I learned that the family had lived
in the same village, Ecton, in Northamptonshire, for three hundred years, and
how much longer he knew not (perhaps from the time when the name of Franklin,
that before was the name of an order of people, was assumed by them as a surname
when others took surnames all over the kingdom), on a freehold of about thirty
acres, aided by the smith's business, which had continued in the family till his
time, the eldest son being always bred to that business; a custom which he and
my father followed as to their eldest sons. When I searched the registers at
Ecton, I found an account of their births, marriages and burials from the year
1555 only, there being no registers kept in that parish at any time preceding.
By that register I perceived that I was the youngest son of the youngest son for
five generations back. My grandfather Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at
Ecton till he grew too old to follow business longer, when he went to live with
his son John, a dyer at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, with whom my father served an
apprenticeship. There my grandfather died and lies buried. We saw his gravestone
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