On returning to the tavern, he hastened into his chamber, where he
found his drunken comrade, poor Collins, in a fine perspiration, and
considerably sobered, owing to the refrigerating effects of a pint of
strong sage tea, with a tea-spoonful of saltpetre, which Ben, before
he set out to the governor's, had pressed on him as a remedy he had
somewhere read, much in vogue among the London topers, to _cool off_
after a rum fever. Collins appeared still to have enough of brandy in
him for a frolic; but when Ben came to tell him of the amiable
governor Burnet, in whose company, at his own palace, he had spent a
most delightful evening; and also to remind him of the golden
opportunity he had lost, of forming an acquaintance with that noble
gentleman, poor Collins wept bitterly.
Ben was exceedingly affected to see him in tears, and endeavoured to
comfort him. But he refused comfort. He said, "if this had been the
_first time_, he should not himself think much of it; but he candidly
confessed, that for a long time he had been guilty of it, though till
of late he had always kept it to himself, drinking in his chamber. But
now he felt at times," he said, "an awful apprehension that he was a
_lost man_. His cravings for liquor were so strong on the one hand,
and on the other his powers of resistance so feeble, that it put him
fearfully in mind of the dismal state of a poor wretch, within the
fatal attraction of a whirlpool, whose resistless suction, in spite of
all his feeble efforts, was hurrying him down to sure and speedy
destruction."
Collins, who was exceedingly eloquent on every subject, but especially
on one so nearly affecting himself, went on deploring his misfortune
in strains so tender and pathetic, that Ben, whose eyes were fountains
ever ready to flow at the voice of sorrow, could not refrain from
weeping, which he did most unfeignedly for a long esteemed friend now
going to ruin. He could bear, he said, to see the brightest plumed
bird, charmed by the rattle-snake, descending into the horrid
sepulchre of the monster's jaws. He could bear to see the richest
laden Indiaman, dismasted and rudderless, drifting ashore on the
merciless breakers; because made of dust, these things must at any
rate return to dust, again. But to see an immortal mind stopped in her
first soarings, entangled and limed in the filth of so brutal a vice
as drunkenness--that was a sight he could not bear. And as a mother
looking on her child that is filleted for the accursed Moloch, cannot
otherwise than shed tears, so Ben, when he looked on poor Collins,
could not but weep when he saw him the victim of destruction.
However, as a good wit turns every thing to advantage, this sudden and
distressing fall of poor Collins, set Ben to thinking: and the result
of his thoughts noted down in his journal of that day, deserves the
attention of all young men of this day; and even will as long as human
nature endures.
"Wit," says he, "in young men, is dangerous, because apt to breed
vanity, which, when disappointed, brings them down, and by depriving
them of _natural_ cheerfulness, drives them to the bottle for that
which is _artificial_.--And learning also is dangerous, when it is
aimed at as an _end_ and not a _mean_. A young man who aspires to be
learned merely for _fame_, is in danger; for, familiarity breeding
contempt, creates an uneasy void that drives him to the bottle. Hence
so many learned men with red noses. But when a man from a benevolent
heart, seeks learning for the sublime pleasure of imitating the Deity
in _doing good_, he is always made so happy in the spirit and pursuit
of this godlike object, that he needs not the stimulus of brandy."
This one hint, if duly reflected on by young men, would render the
name of Franklin dear to them for ever.