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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: and induces more men to spend lives fit to be written, it will be
worth all Plutarch's Lives put together. But being tired of figuring
to myself a character of which every feature suits only one man in
the world, without giving him the praise of it, I shall end my letter,
my dear Dr. Franklin, with a personal application to your proper self.
I am earnestly desirous, then, my dear sir, that you should let the
world into the traits of your genuine character, as civil broils nay
otherwise tend to disguise or traduce it. Considering your great age,
the caution of your character, and your peculiar style of thinking,
it is not likely that any one besides yourself can be sufficiently
master of the facts of your life, or the intentions of your mind.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
