Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed, Volume 1 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own WritingsBruce, Wiliam Cabell
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Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed, Volume 1 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own Writings
Bruce, Wiliam Cabell
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790
I should have read Sally's French letter with more
pleasure [he said], but that I thought the French
rather too good to be all her own composing.... I send
her a French Pamela. I hear [he further said] there has
a miniature painter gone over to Philadelphia, a
relation to John Reynolds. If Sally's picture is not
done to your mind by the young man, and the other
gentleman is a good hand and follows the business,
suppose you get Sally's done by him, and send it to me
with your small picture, that I may here get all our
little family drawn in one conversation piece.
This idea was not carried out because, among other reasons, as he
subsequently informed Deborah, he found that family pieces were no longer
in fashion.[20] In this same letter there is a gentle caress for Sally.
Had I been well [he said], I intended to have gone
round among the shops and bought some pretty things for
you and my dear good Sally (whose little hands you say
eased your headache) to send by this ship, but I must
now defer it to the next, having only got a crimson
satin cloak for you, the newest fashion, and the black
silk for Sally; but Billy (William Franklin) sends her
a scarlet feather, muff, and tippet, and a box of
fashionable linen for her dress.
In other letters there are repeated indications of the doting persistency
with which his mind dwelt upon his daughter. But the softest touch of all
is at the end of one of them. After speaking of the kindness, with which
Mrs. Stevenson, Polly Stevenson's mother, had looked after his physical
welfare, he adds: "But yet I have a thousand times wish'd you with me, and
my little Sally with her ready Hands and Feet to do, and go, and come, and
get what I wanted." All these allusions to Sally are found in his letters
to Deborah during his first mission to England. But little Sally was
growing apace, and, when he returned to England on his second mission in
1764, there was soon to be another person with an equal, if not a superior,
claim upon her helpful offices. We have already quoted from his letter to
Deborah warning her against "an expensive feasting wedding." In this letter
he says of Sally's fiance, Richard Bache:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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