Exploration - “Here He Lyes”
Captain Smith is the prodigy of voyaging based on the chronicles that he offers in his works: “He left England at the age of sixteen ‘ to learn the life of a Soudier.’He fought the Spanish in France and in the Netherlands, sailed to Scotland, and returned to England to live like a hermit in the woods, reading books and practising to be a knight: ‘ His studie was Machiavills Art of warre, and Marcus Aurelius, his exercise a good horse, with his lance and Ring. In 1600, he crossed the Channel again. After adventures in France including a duel near Mont-St.-Michel, he tried to sail from Marseiiles to Italy but was thrown overboard. Rescued by pirates, he sailed the Mediterranean and learned to fight at sea.” Although Jill Lepore does not emphatically validate in some of the explanations that Smith outlines in his works, Smith depicts himself as an ardent adventurer who jeopardizes his life in the quest to explore. His exploration is not entirely shrewd because he endures trials that are deadly. His capacity to survive the risks integral in the exploration depicts him as a mystic superman of the American history.
Toiling - “The Way to Wealth”
Benjamin Franklin bestowed his life to laboring; “Franklin, the son of a chandler, had toiled dawn to dusk only to squander the tallow “reading the greatest Part of the Night. Waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough. He had some business to attend to-he wrote anew Will, and more letters than other men write in a lifetime-but it was scarcely enough.” Franklin’s philosophy in life is: laboring is the absolute “way to wealth.” Seemingly, time was never ample for Franklin because he had innumerable engagements which he sought to accomplish before his demise.
