" Such comments on the best ways of dealing with human nature
are frequent in the _Autobiography_.
At the age of twenty, he returned to Philadelphia, much wiser for his
experience. Here he soon had a printing establishment of his own. By
remarkable industry he had at the age of forty-two made sufficient money to
be able to retire from the active administration of this business. He
defined leisure as "time for doing something useful." When he secured this
leisure, he used it principally for the benefit of others. For this reason,
he could write in his _Autobiography_ at the age of seventy-six:--
"... were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a
repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the
advantages authors have in a second edition, to correct some faults of
the first. So I might, besides correcting the faults, change some
sinister accidents and events of it for others more favorable. But though
this were denied, I should still accept the offer. Since such a
repetition is not to be expected, the next thing like living one's life
over again seems to be a recollection of that life."
The twentieth century shows an awakened sense of civic responsibility, and
yet it would be difficult to name a man who has done more for his
commonwealth than Franklin.
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