[15] Franklin certainly set an example on this occasion of the vigilant regard to the future which he afterwards enjoined in such a picturesque way upon Temple, when he was counselling the latter not to let the season of youth slip by him unimproved by diligence in his studies. "The Ancients," he said, "painted _Opportunity_ as an old Man with Wings to his Feet & Shoulders, a great Lock of Hair on the forepart of his Head, but bald behind; whence comes our old saying, _Take Time by the Forelock_; as much as to say, when it is past, there is no means of pulling it back again; as there is no Lock behind to take hold of for that purpose." The advice of similar tenor in a somewhat later letter from Franklin to Temple has a touch of poetry about it. "If this Season is neglected," he said, "it will be like cutting off the Spring from the Year." So quick was the sympathy of Franklin always with youthful feelings and interests that he never grew too old for the application to him of Emerson's highly imaginative lines, "The old wine darkling in the cask, Feels the bloom on the living vine." CHAPTER IV FRANKLIN'S FAMILY RELATIONS When we turn from Franklin's philanthropic zeal and public spirit to his more intimate personal and social traits, we find much that is admirable, not a little that is lovable, and some things with quite a different aspect. His vow of self-correction, when he had sowed his wild oats and reaped the usual harvest of smut and tares, was, as we have intimated, retrospective as well as prospective. He violated his obligations, as his brother James' apprentice, by absconding from Boston before his time was up, and added aggravation to his original offence by returning to Boston, and exhibiting his genteel new suit, watch and silver money to his brother's journeymen, while he descanted to them upon the land of milk and honey from which he had brought back these indicia of prosperity; his brother all the time standing by grum and sullen, and struggling with the emotions which afterwards caused him to say to his stepmother, when she expressed her wish that the brothers might become reconciled, that Benjamin had insulted him in such a manner before his people that he could never forget or forgive it. In this, however, he was mistaken, as Franklin tersely observes in the _Autobiography_. Some ten years subsequently, on his return from one of his decennial visits to Boston, Franklin stopped over at Newport, to see this brother, who had removed thither, and he found him in a state of rapid physical decline. The former differences were forgotten, the meeting was very cordial and affectionate, and, in compliance with a request, then made of him by James, Franklin took James' son, a boy of ten, as an apprentice, into his own printing house at Philadelphia. Indeed, he did more than he was asked to do; for he sent the boy for some years to school before putting him to work. Afterwards, when