In grammar school-and as new to American history as to the American tongue-I nevertheless puzzled through several junior biographies of Franklin because young Ben's ambition magnified my own. I kept lists in those years of the books I read. I recognized the yearning to escape the limits of family-"a strong inclination for the sea”-as well as some more vertical yearning: a boy becomes a man by gaining wisdom; each book a rung therefore; each rung a classical tag. I weighed the shame of the sordid candle shop where Franklin was forced to work for his father against the optimism of old New England.