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
When he next writes, it is from Paris on January 12, 1777. "My Dear, Dear
Polly," he begins, "Figure to yourself an old Man, with grey Hair Appearing
under a Martin Fur Cap, among the Powder'd Heads of Paris. It is this odd
Figure that salutes you, with handfuls of Blessings on you and your dear
little ones." He had failed to bring about a union between Polly and his
son, but, inveterate matchmaker that he was, this letter shows that he
still had, as a grandfather, the designs on Eliza, Polly's daughter, that
he had disclosed in his previous letter to Polly, when he expressed the
hope that he might be alive to dance with Mrs. Stevenson at the wedding of
Ben and this child. "I give him (Ben)," it said, with a French grimace
between its lines, "a little French Language and Address, and then send him
over to pay his Respects to Miss Hewson." In another letter, he tells Polly
that, if she would take Ben under her care, as she had offered to do, he
would set no bad example to her _other_ children. Two or three years later,
he wrote to her from Philadelphia that Ben was finishing his studies at
college, and would, he thought, make her a good son. Indeed a few days
later he referred to Ben in another letter as "your son Ben."
"Does my Godson," he asked in a letter from France to Mrs. Hewson, along
with many affectionate inquiries about his "dear old Friend," Mrs.
Stevenson, and other English friends of theirs, "remember anything of his
Doctor Papa? I suppose not. Kiss the dear little Fellow for me; not
forgetting the others. I long to see them and you." Then in a postscript he
tells Mrs. Hewson that, at the ball in Nantes, Temple took notice that
there were no heads less than five, and that there were a few seven lengths
of the face above the forehead. "You know," he observes with the old
sportive humor, "that those who have practis'd Drawing, as he has, attend
more to Proportions, than People in common do." In another letter from
Passy, he asks Mrs. Hewson whether Jacob Viny, who was in the wheel
business, could not make up a coach with the latest useful improvements and
bring them all over in it. In the same letter, he inserts a word to relieve
Mrs. Stevenson of her anxiety about her swelled ankles which she attributed
to the dropsy; and the paragraph ends with the words, "My tender Love to
her."
As Polly's children grew older, the references to them in Franklin's
letters to the mother became more and more frequent and affectionate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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