MR. CALAMITY.
THERE was a fine, busy old gentleman that young Franklin met about the
time that he opened his printing office, whose course it will be
interesting to follow. Almost every young man sometimes meets a man of
this type and character. He is certain to be found, as are any of the
deterrent people in the Pilgrim's Progress. He is the man in whose eyes
there is ruin lurking in every form of prosperity, who sees only the
dark side of things--to whom, as we now say, everything "is going to the
dogs."
We will call him Mr. Calamity, for that name represents what he had come
to be as a prophet.[B]
One day young Franklin heard behind him the tap, tap, tap of a cane. It
was a time when Philadelphia was beginning to rise, and promised
unparalleled prosperity. The cane stopped with a heavy sound.
"What--what is this I hear?" said Mr. Calamity. "You are starting a
printing office, they say. I am sorry, sorry."
"Why are you sorry, sir?" asked the young printer.
"Oh, you are a smart, capable young man, one who in the right place
would succeed in life. I hate to see you throw yourself away."
"But is not this the right place?"
"What, Philadelphia?"
"Yes, it is growing."
"That shows how people are deceived. Haven't you any eyes?"
"Yes, yes."
"But what were they made for? Can't you see what is coming?"
"A great prosperity, sir."
"Oh, my young man, how you are deceived, and how feather-headed people
have deceived you! Don't you know that this show of prosperity is all
delusion; that people of level heads are calling in their bills, and
that this is a hard time for creditors? The age of finery has gone, and
the age of rags has come. Rags, sir, rags!"
"No, sir, no. I thought the people were getting out of debt. See how
many people are building."
"They are building to be ready for the crash--they do not know what else
to do with their money; calamity is coming."
"But how do you know, sir?"
"Know? It requires but little wit to know. I can feel it in my head. The
times are not what they used to be. William Penn is dead, and none of
his descendants are equal to him. Look at the Quakers, see how worldly
they are becoming! Most people are living beyond their means! Property,"
he added, "is all on the decline. In a few years you will see people
moving away from here. You will hear that the Proprietors have failed.
Young man, don't go into business here. Let me tell you a secret, though
I hate to do it, as your heart is bent upon setting up the printing
business here; listen to me now--the whole province is going to fail.
Before us is bankruptcy. Do you hear it--that awful, awful word
_bankruptcy_? The Governor himself, in my opinion, is on the way to
bankruptcy now. The town will have to all go out of business, and then
there will be bats and owls in the garrets, and the wharves will rot. I
sometimes think that I will have to quit my country."
"Do other folks think as you do?"
"Ay, ay, don't they? All that have any heads with eyes. Some folks have
eyes for the present, some for the past, and some for the future. I am
one of those that have eyes for the future. I expect to see grass
growing in the streets before I die, and I shall not have to live long
to pluck buttercups under the King's Arms. I pity young chickens like
you that will have no place to run to."
"But, sir," said young Franklin, "suppose things do take another turn.
The young settlers are all building; the old people are enlarging their
estates. It is easy to borrow money, and it looks to me that we will
have here twice as many people in another generation as we have now. If
the city should grow, what an opening there is for a printer! I shall
take the risk."
"Risk--risk? Jump off a ship on the high sea with an iron ball on your
feet! Go down, and stick there. Business, I tell you, is going to die
here, and who would want to read what a stripling like you would write
outside of business? You would print that this one had failed, that
that one had failed, and one don't collect bills handy from people who
have failed. I tell you that the whole province is about to fail, and
Philadelphia is going to ruin, and I advise you to turn right about and
pack up, and go to some other place. There will never be any chance for
you here."
Tap, tap, tap, went his cane, and he moved away.
Young Franklin started to go to his work with a heavy heart. The cane
stopped. Old Mr. Calamity looked around.
"I've warned you," said he with a flourish of the cane. "I tell you, I
tell you everything is going back to the wilderness, and I pity you, but
not half so much as you will pity yourself if you embark in the printing
business, and print failures for nothing, to fail yourself some day.
This is the age of rags, rags!"
Tap, tap, tap, went on the cane, and the old gentleman chuckled.
Young Franklin went on in his business. What was he to do? He saw
everything with hopeful eyes. But he was young. His heart told him to go
on in his undertaking, and he went on.
He had been laughed at in Boston, and old Mr. Calamity had risen up here
to laugh at him again.
He knew not how it was, but it was in him to become a printer. As the
young waterfowl knows the water as soon as it toddles from his nest, so
young Franklin from his boyhood saw his life in this new element; the
press was to be the source of America's rise, power, and glory, the
throne of the republic; it was to make and mold and fulfill by its
influence public opinion; the same public opinion was to rule America,
and the young printer of Philadelphia was to lead the way now, and to
reap the fruits of his spiritual resolution after he was seventy years
of age. He saw it, he felt it, he knew his own mind. So he left behind
old Mr. Calamity for the present, but he was soon to meet him again.
He had now taken a third step on the ladder of life. His business should
be built upon honor.
The next time that he met Mr. Calamity, the old gentleman gave him a
view of the prospects of a printer.
"If you think that you are going to get your foot on the ladder of life
by becoming a printer, you will find that you have mistaken your
calling. None of the great men of old were printers, were they? Homer
was no printer, was he?"
"I have never heard that he was."
"Nor did you hear of any one who ever printed the Iliad or the Odyssey.
No printer was ever heard of among the immortals. A printer just
prints--that is all. Solomon never printed anything, did he?"
"I never read that he did, sir."
"Nor Shakespeare?"
"I never heard that he did, sir."
"A printer has no chance to rise; he just builds the ark for Noah to
sail in, and is left behind himself."
"I hope to print some of my own thoughts, sir."
"You do? Ha! ha! ha! Who do you think is going to read them? Your own
thoughts--that does give me a stitch in the side, and makes me laugh so
loud and swing my cane so high that it sets the cats and dogs to
running. See them go over the garden fence! I shall watch your course,
and when you begin to scatter your ideas about in the world, I hope I
will be living to gather some of them up. I hope they will never lead a
revolution!"
Franklin's "Ca Ira" were the words that led the French Revolution.
FOOTNOTE:
[B] The old gentleman who suggests this character was named Mickle or
Mikle.