Henceforth be masterless,' retorts Ben. ' Be ye each one his own master unto himself, and don't let even the Lord put His spoke in.' 'Each man his own master' is but a puffing up of masterlessness.
Well, the first of Americans practiced this enticing list with assiduity, setting a national example. He had the virtues in columns, and gave himself good and bad marks according as he thought his behaviour deserved. Pity these conduct charts are lost to us. He only remarks that Order was his stumbling block. He could not learn to be neat and tidy.
Isn't it nice to have nothing worse to confess ?
He was a little model, was Benjamin. Doctor Franklin. Snuff-coloured little man! Immortal soul and all!
The immortal soul part was a sort of cheap insurance policy.
Benjamin had no concern, really, with the immortal soul. He was too busy with social man.
(1) He swept and lighted the streets of young Philadelphia.
(2) He invented electrical appliances.
(3) He was the centre of a moralizing club in Philadelphia, and he wrote the moral humorisms of Poor Richard.
(4) He was a member of all the important councils of Philadelphia, and then of the American colonies.
(5) He won the cause of American Independence at the French Court, and was the economic father of the United States.
Now what more can you want of a man? And yet he is infra dig., even in Philadelphia.
I admire him. I admire his sturdy courage first of all, then his sagacity, then his glimpsing into the thunders of electricity, then his common-sense humour. All the qualities of a great man, and never more than a great citizen. Middle-sized, sturdy, snuff-coloured Doctor Franklin, one of the soundest citizens that ever trod or 'used venery'.
I do not like him.
And, by the way, I always thought books of Venery were about hunting deer.
There is a certain earnest naivete‚ about him. Like a child. And like a little old man. He has again become as a little child, always as wise as his grandfather, or wiser.
Perhaps, as I say, the most complete citizen that ever 'used venery'.
Printer, philosopher, scientist, author and patriot, impeccable husband and citizen, why isn't he an archetype?
Pioneer, Oh Pioneers! Benjamin was one of the greatest pioneers of the United States. Yet we just can't do with him.
What's wrong with him then? Or what's wrong with us?
I can remember, when I was a little boy, my father used to buy a scrubby yearly almanac with the sun and moon and stars on the cover. And it used to prophesy bloodshed and famine. But also crammed in corners it had little anecdotes and humorisms, with a moral tag. And I used to have my little priggish laugh at the woman who counted her chickens before they were hatched and so forth, and I was convinced that honesty was the best policy, also a little priggishly. The author of these bits was Poor Richard, and Poor Richard was Benjamin Franklin, writing in Philadelphia well over a hundred years before.
And probably I haven't got over those Poor Richard tags yet. I rankle still with them. They are thorns in young flesh.
Because, although I still believe that honesty is the best policy, I dislike policy altogether; though it is just as well not to count your chickens before they are hatched, it's still more hateful to count them with gloating when they are hatched. It has taken me many years and countless smarts to get out of that barbed wire moral enclosure that Poor Richard rigged up. Here am I now in tatters and scratched to ribbons, sitting in the middle of Benjamin's America looking at the barbed wire, and the fat sheep crawling under the fence to get fat outside, and the watch-dogs yelling at the gate lest by chance anyone should get out by the proper exit. Oh America! Oh Benjamin! And I just utter a long loud curse against Benjamin and the American corral.
Moral America! Most moral Benjamin. Sound, satished Ben!
He had to go to the frontiers of his State to settle some disturbance among the Indians. On this occasion he writes:
We found that they had made a great bonfire in the middle of the square; they were all drunk, men and women quarrelling and fighting. Their dark-coloured bodies, half-naked, seen only by the gloomy light of the bonfire, running after and beating one another with fire-brands, accompanied by their horrid yellings, formed a scene the most resembling our ideas of hell that could be well imagined. There was no appeasing the tumult, and we retired to our lodging. At midnight a number of them came thundering at our door, demanding more rum, of which we took no notice.
The next day, sensible they had misbehaved in giving us that disturbance, they sent three of their counsellors to make their apology. The orator acknowledged the fault, but laid it upon the rum, and then endeavoured to excuse the rum by saying: 'The Great Spirit, who made all things, made everything for some use; and whatever he designed anything for, that use it should always be put to. Now, when he had made the rum, he said: "Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with." And it must be so.'
And, indeed, if it be the design of Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make room for the cultivators of the earth, it seems not improbable that rum may be the appointed means. It has already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited all the seacoast …
This, from the good doctor with such suave complacency, is a little disenchanting. Almost too good to be true.
But there you are! The barbed wire fence. 'Extirpate these savages in order to make room for the cultivators of the earth.' Oh, Benjamin Franklin! He even 'used venery' as a cultivator of seed.
Cultivate the earth, ye gods! The Indians did that, as much as they needed. And they left off there. Who built Chicago? Who cultivated the earth until it spawned Pittsburgh, Pa?
The moral issue! Just look at it! Cultivation included. If it's a mere choice of Kultur or cultivation, I give it up.
Which brings us right back to our question, what's wrong with Benjamin, that we can't stand him? Or else, what's wrong with us, that we kind fault with such a paragon?
Man is a moral animal. All right. I am a moral animal. And I'm going to remain such. I'm not going to be turned into a virtuous little automaton as Benjamin would have me. 'This is good, that is bad. Turn the little handle and let the good tap flow,' saith Benjamin, and all America with him. 'But first of all extirpate those savages who are always turning on the bad tap.'
I am a moral animal. But I am not a moral machine. I don't work with a little set of handles or levers. The Temperance-silence-order-resolution-frugality-industry-sincerity-justice-moderation-cleanliness-tranquillity-chastity-humility keyboard is not going to get me going. I'm really not just an automatic piano with a moral Benjamin getting tunes out of me.
Here's my creed, against Benjamin's. This is what I believe:
'That I am I.'
'That my soul is a dark forest.'
'That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.'
'That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.'
'That I must have the courage to let them come and go.'
'That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.'
There is my creed. He who runs may read. He who prefers to crawl, or to go by gasoline, can call it rot.
Then for a 'list'. It is rather fun to play at Benjamin.
1. TEMPERANCE
Eat and carouse with Bacchus, or munch dry bread with Jesus, but don't sit down without one of the gods.