This hostility was not altogether due to his humble origin or to the little printing-office and stationery store where he sold goose-feathers as well as writing material and bought old rags. These disadvantages would not have been sufficient, for his accomplishments and wit raised him far above his early surroundings, and the colonial society of Philadelphia was not illiberal in such matters. The principal cause of the hostility towards him was his violent opposition to the proprietary party, to which most of the upper classes belonged, and, having this ground of dislike, it was easy for them to strengthen and excuse it by the gossip about his illegitimate son and the son’s mother kept as a servant in his house. They ridiculed the small economies he practised, and branded his religious and moral theorizing as hypocrisy. He was very fond of broad jokes, which have always been tolerated in America under certain circumstances; but the man who writes them, especially if he also writes and talks a great deal about religion and undertakes to improve prayer-books, gives a handle to his enemies and an opportunity for unfavorable comment. The _Portfolio_, a Philadelphia journal, of May 23, 1801, representing more particularly the upper classes of the city, prints one of his broad letters, and takes the opportunity to assail him for “hypocrisy, hackneyed deism, muck-worn economy,” and other characteristics of what it considers humbug and deceit. It has been suggested that far back in the past one of Franklin’s ancestors might have been French, for his name in the form Franquelin was at one time not uncommon in France. This might account for his easy brightness and vivacity, and also, it may be added, for such letters as he sometimes wrote: “TO Mr. JAMES READ “Saturday morning Aug 17 ’45. “DEAR J. “I have been reading your letter over again, and since you desire an answer I sit me down to write you; yet as I write in the market, will I believe be but a short one, tho’ I may be long about it. I approve of your method of writing one’s mind when one is too warm to speak it with temper: but being myself quite cool in this affair I might as well speak as write, if I had opportunity. Your copy of Kempis must be a corrupt one if it has that passage as you quote it, _in omnibus requiem quaesivi, sed non inveni, nisi in angulo cum libello_. The good father understood pleasure (_requiem_) better, and wrote _in angulo cum puella_. Correct it thus without hesitation.” * * * * * (Portfolio, vol. i. p. 165.) The letter continues the jest in a way that I do not care to quote; but the last half of it is full of sage and saintly advice. It is perhaps the only letter which gives at the same time both sides of Franklin’s character. But Sparks and Bigelow in their editions of his works give the last half only, with no indication that the first half has been omitted.