Israel Potter (1855) - Benjamin Franklin as confidence man

[Melville, Herman. Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile. Ed. Harrison Hayford. Northwestern UP, 2000.]

[Benjamin Franklin speaks to the novel's title character, Israel Potter:]

"My good friend," said the man of gravity [Franklin], glancing scrutinizingly upon his guest, "have you not in your time, undergone what they call hard times? Been set upon, and persecuted, and very ill entreated by some of your fellow-creatures?"
[Potter]"That I have, Doctor; yes indeed."
[Franklin] "I thought so. Sad usage has made you sadly suspicious, my honest friend. An indiscriminate distrust of human nature is the worst consequence of a miserable condition, whether brought about by innocence or guilt. And though want of suspicion more than want of sense, sometimes leads a man into harm: yet too much suspicion is as bad as too little sense. The man you met, my friend, most probably, had no artful intention; he knew just nothing about you or your heels; he simply wanted to earn two sous by brushing your boots." (40-41)