Benjamin Franklin, Self-Revealed, Volume 1 (of 2): A Biographical and Critical Study Based Mainly on his own WritingsBruce, Wiliam Cabell
History
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
Present my best compliments [he adds] to your good
mamma, brother and sister Ward, and all your other
sisters, the agreeable Misses Ward, Dr. Babcock and
family, the charitable Misses Stanton, and, in short,
to all that love me. I should have said all that love
you, but that would be giving you too much trouble.
Adieu, dear good girl, and believe me ever your
affectionate friend.
On the return of Franklin from England, he resumed his correspondence with
Miss Ray; but Miss Ray she was no longer, for the divination of the
conjurer had not failed him, and she was then married to William Greene. In
a letter to Mrs. Greene, dated January 23, 1763, this fact leads to another
smutty joke on Franklin's part over the arithmetic of matrimony, the worse
for being jestingly ascribed to Mrs. Franklin, who, he said, accepted Mrs.
Greene's apology for dropping the correspondence with her, but hoped that
it would be renewed when Mrs. Greene had more leisure. That the joke should
be debited to the manners of the day fully as much as to Franklin himself,
is made clear enough by the fact that it is immediately followed by the
assurance that he would not fail to pay his respects to Mr., as well as
Mrs., Greene when he came their way. "Please to make my Compliments
acceptable to him," he added. The conclusion of this letter is in the
former affectionate vein. "I think I am not much alter'd; at least my
Esteem & Regard for my Katy (if I may still be permitted to call her so) is
the same, and I believe will be unalterable whilst I am B. Franklin."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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