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"Ben Franklin"
Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography: Page 59
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the loan-office. The answer to this, after some days, was, that they did not
approve the match; that, on inquiry of Bradford, they had been inform'd the
printing business was not a profitable one; the types would soon be worn out,
and more wanted; that S. Keimer and D. Harry had failed one after the other, and
I should probably soon follow them; and, therefore, I was forbidden the house,
and the daughter shut up.
Whether this was a real change of sentiment or only artifice, on a supposition
of our being too far engaged in affection to retract, and therefore that we
should steal a marriage, which would leave them at liberty to give or withhold
what they pleas'd, I know not; but I suspected the latter, resented it, and went
no more. Mrs. Godfrey brought me afterward some more favorable accounts of their
disposition, and would have drawn me on again; but I declared absolutely my
resolution to have nothing more to do with that family. This was resented by the
Godfreys; we differ'd, and they removed, leaving me the whole house, and I
resolved to take no more inmates.
But this affair having turned my thoughts to marriage, I look'd round me and
made overtures of acquaintance in other places; but soon found that, the
business of a printer being generally thought a poor one, I was not to expect
money with a wife, unless with such a one as I should not otherwise think
agreeable. In the mean time, that hard-to-be-governed passion of youth hurried
me frequently into intrigues with low women that fell in my way, which were
attended with some expense and great inconvenience, besides a continual risque
to my health by a distemper which of all things I dreaded, though by great good
luck I escaped it. A friendly correspondence as neighbors and old acquaintances
had continued between me and Mrs. Read's family, who all had a regard for me
from the time of my first lodging in their house. I was often invited there and
consulted in their affairs, wherein I sometimes was of service. I piti'd poor
Miss Read's unfortunate situation, who was generally dejected, seldom cheerful,
and avoided company. I considered my giddiness and inconstancy when in London as
in a great degree the cause of her unhappiness, tho' the mother was good enough
to think the fault more her own than mine, as she had prevented our marrying
before I went thither, and persuaded the other match in my absence. Our mutual
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