3.

The Han dsom e and Def orm ed L eg

Benjamin Franklin

There are two types of people in the world. Although they have equal
degrees of health and wealth and the other comforts of life, one becomes
happy, the other becomes miserable. This arises from the different ways in
which they consider things, persons, and events, and the resulting effects
upon their minds.

In whatever situation men can be placed, they may find conveniences and
inconveniences. In whatever company, they may find persons and
conversations more or less pleasing. At whatever table, they may find meat
and drink of better and worse taste, dishes better or worse prepared. In
whatever climate, they may find good and bad weather. Under whatever
government, they may find good and bad laws, and good and bad
administration of these laws. In every poem or work of genius, they may see
beauties and faults. In almost every face and every person, they may
discover fine features and defects, good and bad qualities.

Under these circumstances, the people who are to be happy fix their
attention on the conveniences of things, the pleasant parts of conversation,
the well-prepared dishes, the goodness of the wines, the fine weather. They
enjoy all the cheerful things. Those who are to be unhappy think and speak
only of the contrary things. Therefore, they are continually discontented
themselves. By their remarks, they sour the pleasures of society, offend
 Benjamin
The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

many people, and make themselves disagreeable everywhere, If this turn of

mind were founded in nature, such unhappy persons would be the more to
be pitied. The disposition to criticize and be disgusted is perhaps taken up
originally by imitation. It grows into a habit, unknown to its possessors. The
habit may be strong, but it may be cured when those who have it are
convinced of its bad effects on their nature. I hope this little admonition may
be of service to them, and help them change this habit. Although in fact it is
chiefly an act of the imagination, it has serious consequences in life, since it
brings on real grief and misfortune. These people offend many others,
nobody loves them and no one treats them with more than the most
common civility and respect, and scarcely that. This frequently puts them in
bad humor and draws them into disputes. If they aim at obtaining some
advantages in rank or fortune, nobody wishes them success. Nor will anyone
stir a step or speak a word to favor their ambitions. If they incur public
censure or disgrace, no one will defend or excuse them, and many will join to
aggravate their misconduct. These people should change this bad habit and
condescend to be pleased with what is pleasing, without fretting themselves
and others. If they do not, it will be good for others to avoid an acquaintance
with them. Otherwise, it can be disagreeable and sometimes very
inconvenient, especially when one becomes entangled in their quarrels.

An old philosopher friend of mine grew very cautious from experience, and
carefully avoided any contact with such people. He had a thermometer to
show him the temperature, and a barometer to show when the weather was
likely to be good or bad. Since there is no instrument, however, to discover
an unpleasant disposition in a person at first sight, he made use of his legs.
One of his legs was remarkably handsome, the other, by some accident, was
crooked and deformed. If a stranger looked at his ugly leg more than his
handsome on, he doubted him. If he spoke of it and took no notice of the
handsome leg, my friend had sufficient reason not to bother with him any
longer.

Not everyone has this two-legged instrument, but everyone, with a little
attention, may observe signs of that kind of faultfinding disposition and make
the same resolution to avoid those infected with it. I therefore advised those
critical, argumentative, discontented, unhappy people, that if they wish to be
respected and loved by others, and happy in themselves, they should stop
looking at the ugly leg.

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The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

Comprehension questions

What kinds of people does the author say there are in the world?

What causes the difference between them?

How do different men react to the same situations? Give example.

What do happy people do? What do unhappy people do?

What is the result of their discontent?

Is the disposition natural? How does it develop?

What does Franklin suggest as a solution to the problem?

How does this disposition affect the lives of unhappy people?

How did a friend of Franklin’s judge people?

How does Franklin use the example of his friend to advise others?

Synonyms :select the correct synonym for the underlined word in each

Ambitious consequence grief misconduct Cautious

fretting condescend serious
Admonition administration conveniences
censure Scarcely aggravate disposition
disputes Situations

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 Benjamin
The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

In whatever circumstances men may be placed, they may find

conveniences.

They fix their attention on the advantages of things.

They inclination to criticize is taken up by imitation.

They are certain of its bad effects.

I hope this warning may be of service to them.

It has serious results in life.

It brings on real unhappiness.

No one treats them with more than the most common civility and
hardly that.

It draws them into arguments.

No one will speak a word to favor their hopes.

Many will join to intensify their bad behavior.

They should change this habit without worrying needlessly.

They should change his habit and stoop to be pleased with what is
pleasing.

An old friend of mine grew very careful from experience.

No one will defend them if they incur public disapproval.

Vocabulary: select the word which completes the sentence

and gives it meaning.

Thermometers condescend misconduct misery

Cautiously faultfinding habit disputes

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 Benjamin
The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

Extent convenience sufficient

resolution

Barometers censured incurred

…………………measure atmosphere pressure changes.

Drivers should drive………………..….on slippery roads.

He had…………….……a great many debts during his illness.

Literacy exists to a greater……………………today than it did fifteen

years ago.

He didn’t have……………………money to pay his bill.

Subways are a…………….….not many large cities have.

It’s difficult to remain…………………..when someone else is rude.

It’s a good…………….….to look at someone when he is speaking to you.

His angry nature drew him into many……………… .

The organization…………..……..him for his negative attitude.

He made a……………..……never to smoke again.

It is difficult for people who are…………………...to keep friend.

Language Study: Conjunctions (1)

Conjunctions are joining words and their main function is to link together two
different parts of a sentence. If a conjunction is used to join words, phrases
or clauses of equal value in the sentence, they are called co-ordinate. If it is
used to join words, phrases or clauses of different value, it is called
subordinate.

Examples of Co-ordinate conjunctions

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The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

He had a car and a house .( two nouns, of equal value, are joined)

Our institute has branches in Tehran and in Shiraz. ( two phrases, both
extensions of place, of equal value are joined)

He went to the door and opened it. ( two principal clauses, of equal
value, are joined)

He asked where I had been and what I had been doing. ( two
subordinate noun clauses, of equal value, are joined)

The book which you read last week and you didn’t like gained an
important prize. (Two adj clause qualifying ‘book’, of equal value, are
joined).

Examples of subordinate conjunctions

He met the man when he reached the station.( a principal clause is

joined to a subordinate clause)

He did not know what he ought to do when he reached the place.( A

subordinate clause is subordinate to another subordinate clause, i. e.
‘what he ought to do’ and is joined to it by a subordinate conjunction.

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*Note that the parts joined by co-ordinate conjunctions ought usually to be of

exactly equal value. Be careful not to make such mistakes as:

I read most of the books and some of which I found them interesting.(wrong)

This must read:

I read most of the books and found some of them interesting.(two

principal clauses are joined by and)

I went to the theater with some friends, who and I liked the play very much.
(wrong; who is a relative pronoun and ‘I’ is a personal pronoun. So, they
cannot be joined by ‘and’.)

Correct: I went to the theater with some friends and they and I liked the play
very much.

NOTE: sometimes this rule is relaxed. Hence we can say:

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 Benjamin
The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

Come to my house on Sundays and whenever you have a holiday.

Here an adverb phrase’ on Sundays’ is joined to an adverb clause ‘whenever

you have a holiday’.

*note, too, that although the clauses which are co-ordinate to each other are
of equal grammatical value it does not always follow that we can interchange
them: the order in which they occur is usually important. It does not matter
whether we say ‘an apple and an orange’ or ‘an orange and an apple’. But it
does matter very much indeed whether we say ‘ he went to the door and
opened it” or ‘he opened the door and went to it’.

Sometimes the meaning is not greatly altered but where one shade of
meaning is given greater importance than the other merely from the position
of the words in the sentence we may call the difference a difference in
EMPHASIS. For example:

Julius Caesar was a great general and a wise legislator.

To substitute ‘a wise legislator and a great general’ would not make any
change in meaning, because both these facts were in existence at the same
time, but it would make a difference in the EMPHASIS of the sentence. What
the sentence is really saying is that ‘we all know that Caesar was a great
general but we tend to forget what is just as important – that he was a wise
legislator.’

Language Work: point out which are co – ordinate conjunctions and which
are subordinate conjunctions in the following sentences; say what word phrases,
or clauses they join.

1. While he and I were sitting here, a man came in and asked us what
we were doing.

2. Hw wanted to go on, but the rest preferred to remain.

3. He said it was expensive but absolutely necessary.

4. I did not know where he was, so I just sat down and waited.

5. We wanted to ask not only our friends but all the people we know.

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The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

6. I shall follow you when I am ready.

7. Because he had lost his passport and had no money, he had to go

to the consul.

8. I did not want to go and see him before I found out how he was.

9. While they were busy arguing whether the rumor was true or not a
messenger arrived who told them that the enemy was only five
miles away and would be on them very soon.

10.He knew that he would either have to remain where he was and risk
certain defeat, or else be forced to retire in good order and leave
the town to its fate.

Composition task.

1. Write a story with either a character who always looks on the bright
side of things or a character who always looks on the contrary side.

2. This essay described a method of judging people. How do you judge

people?

3. Franklin was famous for his words of advice on how to live well and
happily. Give ten rules for a happy life, and explain their value.

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 Benjamin
The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

Further Reading

Huck and Oliver

W. H. Auden

About six months ago reread Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, for the first
time since I was a boy, and I was trying when I read it to put myself back in
the position of what it would seem like to reread the book without knowing
the United State very well. Because Huckleberry Finn is one of those books
which is a key book for understanding the United State; just as I think one
could take other books, English books _shall I say Oliver Twist? As
corresponding picture of a British attitude.

When you read Huckleberry Finn, the first thing may be that strikes
somebody who comes from England about it is the difference in nature and
in the attitude towards nature. You will find the Mississippi, and nature
generally, very big , very formidable, very inhuman. When Oliver goes to
stay in the country with Mrs. May lie, dickens writes:

Who can describe the pleasure and delight and peace of mind and tranquility
the sickly boy felt in the balmy air, and among the green hills and rich woods
of an inland village? All very human, very comforting.

One of the great differences between Europe in general and America is in the
attitude towards nature. To us over here, perhaps, nature is always, in a
sense, the mother or the wife: something with which you enter into a semi
personal relation in the United State, nature is something much more
savage; it is much more like shall we say? St George and the dragon nature
is the dragon, against which St George proves his man hood. The trouble
about that of course is that if you succeed in conquering the dragon, there is
nothing you can do with the dragon except enslave it, so that there is always
the danger with a wild and difficult climate of alternating, if you like, between
respecting it is an enemy and exploiting it as a slave.

The second thing that will strike any European reader in reading Huckleberry
Finn is the amazing stoicism of this little boy. Here he is, with a father who is

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The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

a greater and more horrible monster than almost any I can think of in fiction,
who very properly gets murdered later. He runs into every kind of danger; he
observes a blood feud in which there is a terrible massacre, and he cannot
even bear, as he writes afterwards, to think exactly what happened. Yet, in
spite of all these things, which one would expect to reduce a small child
either into becoming a criminal or a trembling nervous wreck, Huck takes
them as Acts of God which pass away, and yet one side of this stoicism is an
attitude towards time in which the immediate present is accepted as the
immediate present; there is no reason to suppose that the future will be the
same, and therefore it does not, perhaps have to affect the future in the
same kind of way as it does here.

Then, more interestingly, the European reader is puzzled by the nature of the
moral decision that Huck takes. Here Huck is with his runaway slave, Jim, and
he decides that he is not going to give Jim up, he is going to try to get him
into safety. When I first read huckleberry Finn as a boy, I took Huck’s decision
as being a sudden realization, although he had grown up in a slave-owning
community, that slavery was wrong. Therefore I completely failed to
understand one of the most wonderful passages in the book, where Huck
wrestles with his conscience.

What Huck does is a pure act of moral improvisation. What he decides tells
him nothing about what he should do on other occasions or what other
people should do on other occasions; and here we come to a very profound
difference between American and European culture. I believe that all
Europeans, whatever their political opinions, whatever their religious creed,
do believe in a doctrine of natural law of some kind. That is to say there are
certain things about human nature, and about man as a historical creature,
not only as a natural creature, which are eternally true. If a man is a
conservative, he thinks that law has already been discovered if he is a
revolutionary he thinks he has just discovered it; nobody knew anything in
the past, but now it is known. If he is a liberal, he thinks we know something
about it and we shall gradually know more. But neither the conservative, nor
the revolutionary, nor the liberal has really any doubt that a natural law
exists.

It is very hard for an American to believe that there is anything in human

nature that will not change. Americans are often called, and sometimes who
even believe themselves to be, liberal optimists who think that t6he world is
gradually getting better and better. I do not really believe that is true, and I

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The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

think the evidence of their literature is against it. One should say, rather,
that deep down inside they think that all things pass: the evils we know will
disappear, but so will the goods. In addition to the attitude towards nature,
the attitude towards the natural law, there are two more things one might
take up briefly; the attitude towards time and the attitude towards money.
Imagine two events in history, (a) followed by (b), which in some way are
analogous. The danger to the European will be the think of them as identical,
so that if I know what to do over (a), I shall know exactly what to do with (b).
The danger in America will be to see no relation between these things at all,
so that any knowledge I have about (a) will not help me to understand (b).
The European fails to see the element of novelty; the American fails to see
the element of repetition. You may remember that both Oliver and Huck
come into some money. In Oliver’s case it is money that is his by right of
legal inheritance. In Huck’s case, it is pure luck. He and Tom Sawyer found a
robber’s cache. The money came to them only because it could not be
restored to its rightful owners. The money, therefore, is not something that
you ever think of inheriting by right.

In the States the money, which is thought as something you extract in your
battle with the dragon of nature, represents a proof of your manhood. The
important thing is not to have money, but to have made it. Once you have
made it you can perfectly give it all away. There are advantages and
disadvantages on both sides. The disadvantage in Europe is a tendency
towards avarice and meanness; the danger in America is anxiety because,
since this quantitative thing of money is regarded as a proof of your
manhood, and to make a little more of it would make you even more manly,
it becomes difficult to know where to stop. This ties up with something that
always annoys me: when I see Europeans accusing Americans of being
materialists. The real truth about Americans is they do not care about matter
enough. What is shocking is waste; just as what shocks Americans in Europe
is avarice.

Comprehension Questions
1. Why does the writer consider Huckleberry Finn is a key book for
understanding the United States?

2. Is the countryside in England today still vey human, very

comforting? Justify your answer.

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 Benjamin
The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

3. What is the danger with a wild and difficult climate?

4. Explain the amazing stoicism of this little boy.

5. What two views are given about the reasons behind Huck’s decision
not to give up his runaway, Jim? Which was correct?

6. Why did Huck have to wrestle with his conscience?

7. What is meant by moral improvisation?

8. In what way does Huck’s act of moral improvisation illustrate a

profound difference between American and European culture?

9. What beliefs, in writer’s opinion, do the conservative, the

revolutionary and the liberal hold in common?

10. Explain what is meant by liberal optimist in this passage.

11. The writer believes that Americans are not really liberal optimists.
How has he come to this opinion?

12. In what sense is there danger for the European who fails to see the
element of novelty and for the American who fails to see the element
of repetition?

13. What are the advantages and disadvantages of money in the

United States and Europe?

14. What really annoys the writer and why?

Paraphrase: rewrite the following sentences in your own words.

1. In whatever situation men can be placed, they may find

conveniences and inconveniences.

2. their remarks, they sour the pleasures of society, offend many

people, and make themselves disagreeable everywhere.

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 Benjamin
The Handsome and Deformed Leg
Franklin

3. The second thing that will strike any European reader in reading
Huckleberry Finn is the amazing stoicism of this little boy.

4. What Huck does is a pure act of moral improvisation.

5. neither the conservative, nor the revolutionary, nor the liberal has
really any doubt that a natural law exists.

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