A Mirror for Greatness: Six Great Americans

Benjamin Franklin was a jack-of-all-trades and master of many. No other American, except possibly Thomas Jefferson, has done so many things so well. During his long and useful life, Franklin concerned himself with such different matters as statesmanship and soap making, book printing and cabbage growing, and the rise of tides and the fall of empires. He also invented an efficient heating stove and proved that lightning is electricity.

As a statesman, Franklin stood in the front rank of the people who built the United States. He was the only person who signed all four of these key documents in American history: the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France, the Treaty of Paris making peace with Britain (now the United Kingdom), and the Constitution of the United States. Franklin's services as a diplomat in France helped greatly in win

Though in theory Emerson believed that "it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem," he wrote his verse in traditional forms. Conventional rhythms, rhyme patterns, and stanza forms, as well as economy of phrasing and simplicity of imagery characterize his poetry.

Ralph Waldo Emerson ranks as a leading figure in the thought and literature of American civilization. He was an essayist, critic, poet, orator, and popular philosopher. He brought together elements from the past and shaped them into literature that had an important effect on later American writing. He influenced the work of Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, and Robert Frost.

Emerson's next two books, Essays (1841 and 1844), contain much of his most enduring prose. In "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," and "The Over-Soul," he stated his faith in the moral orderliness of the universe and the divine force governing it. In "Experience," perhaps his best essay, Emerson allowed room for skepticism and showed how doubts are conquered through faith. In "Art" and "The Poet," he outlined his philosophy of aesthetics, and in "Politics" and "New England Reformers," he explained his social philosophy.

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