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"Oh, Rare Ben Franklin"
James C. Johnston Jr.
Of all The Founding Fathers, which one would I like most to be spending an evening with in front of the fire with a snifter of fine old brandy? My distant cousins John and Samuel Adams would be candidates of course. Washington might prove a bit too taciturn. John Hancock was rather too involved with John Hancock to have a comfortable conversation with. I think that Jefferson himself would be interesting to talk to, but being the discerning and ever discriminating man of taste, Jefferson himself would most likely enjoy seeking out the company of the great Franklin for conversation. I am sure that Jefferson knew that Franklin was truly the greatest man of The Age of the Enlightenment.
Even the greatest thinker in France, the greatest of all philosophers of the Age of the Enlightenment, Voltaire, jealously clung to life just long enough to meet “Le Grand Docteur Franklin”! Yes, Ben Franklin would be my choice among all emanate evening companions for a cozy chat by the fire on a snowy evening in Paris in 1778. What would we not discuss? The nature of mankind? The wonder of women? The beautiful intellect of Abigail Adams, and the great mystery of how she ever got mixed-up with John? No, I can hear you say, Cousin John was very bright, but oh my God Above! How stubborn he could be, but he was also rather colorful in speech. But Abigail could move him and successfully engage in disputation with him on some fine philosophical or practical point of difference with him.
Franklin knew and admired her as he did their young son John Quincy Adams who possessed the highest I.Q. of any man to ever hold the office of President of the United States to date! I would be tempted to invite Abigail by for a conversation by the fire, but if I could only select one individual from that rather large number of really intellectually gifted individuals who lived between 1700 and 1825, I would have to choose the good Doctor Ben Franklin.
This man was far in advance of the inhabitants of his whole world! His thought process was on a level with Leonardo da Vinci, Francis Bacon, and the greatest intellect of our own early colonial period, Roger Williams himself who in his lifetime knew every person of great intellect in the English and Native American World of New England from Bacon, to King James I England’s most intellectual ruler, Mr. Justice Coke, William Bradford, Metacomet, A/K/A King Philip, and too many more great people to mention here. Yes, Franklin topped them all, and besides all of the reasons I have given you, he could make you laugh.
If you don’t believe me, read Doctor Franklin’s autobiography, and I would guarantee you a smile. Ben’s advice to the lovelorn, both male and female, alone will bring a laugh to your lips, and nothing is so good for a person as a good honest laugh and sometimes a bit of ribald humor. Franklin was a very human man who forgave the world entire for its being human and actually having failings. As a matter of fact, as a true intellectual free of bourgeois hang-ups, he was unbothered by the doings of such fine old British institutions as The Hell Club. Now that was a rare thing in the puritanical environment of the New England into which our friend Benjamin was born on January 17, 1706.
A young friend once commented to me that he never met anybody my age before who embraced both “change” and new “social ideas” as quickly as I do. I credit being open minded to my long friendship and intellectual association with the one other person of about my own age who embraced everything “New” and “Intrinsically Better” with the greatest degree of enthusiasm, my dearest Old Friend, Ben Franklin. How could anybody be closed-minded to progress and intellectual honesty in conversation with Ben Franklin? It is unthinkable.
Conversation with Ben would be like jumping into a delightful pool of cool water on a very hot day, and letting great conversation just wash over you like a great new world of “Truth” and “Reality.” To bask in the full world-perspective of that great mind and flashing wit for a whole evening would be one of the greatest pleasures of my life. Such exposure must explode into conversation that would shake the Universe.
I have actually had a few experiences like this in my life when I spent almost a whole day with Colin Wilson, the great poet, biographer, and writer who explored the lives of Rasputin and the Romanovs. I also spent a day with Robert Frost’s great friend Louis Untermeyer back in the early 1960s and that day was pure magic. I also was privileged to pass part of a day at Robert Frost’s farm as he parsed some of his work in a curious way by engaging with those of us gathered at his farm us in gentle conversation about what we thought he meant by certain passages and verses he had written. Yes, Robert Frost sometimes liked having young people around him, and one way or another we were somehow invited, and we came to this place of grace. It is about sixty some years past now and sometimes feels like a dream from long ago.
We were so young then. I doubt if any of us were over twenty. I think that he liked having a joke with us about analyzing his poetry. If some young guy starting giving a long and involved analysis of the lines he had penned so long ago, he would smile like he had a secret, and then he would just look at us and say, “Maybe I just liked the way the words hung together that day.”
Back in those grand old days, I got a chance to talk to a lot of people. Some of these people were local folks who had actually been alive in the 1850s, 60s, 70s and so on. Some of them were farmers, or “Deep-Water” fishermen who had fished off the Newfoundland Banks, like Old Man John Hayes, and some of these grand old guys were from Italy at the time of the colonial wars in Africa. Some of them were from Ireland during “The Troubles”, and some of them were from Russia and some like Jacob Schmits, had survived the First World War and two Russian Revolutions which had occurred about the end of that huge historic late 1918 period which seemed to be ripping apart civilization itself. What stories these fabulous folks had to tell me, and I collected all of them in holy memory.
Yet, although I would never trade any of these memories, I would really love to spend an evening in conversation with Ben Franklin for all of the reasons I have already stated, and on January 17th, I will.
I will build a fire in my biggest fireplace, and I will gather a few friends who I know will be sympathetic to my plan, and read aloud Ben’s own words from his autobiography. I may dig up the letters he wrote to his brother, James’, newspaper as an older widow, Silence Dogood, about the human condition as she saw it, and maybe I’ll read some letters to and from his sister in Boston. I’ll set out a snifter of brandy for Ben, and maybe he will favor us with a visit on his 319th birthday. God knows, the Old Boy is always welcome to my fireside and he always loved a party.
EDITOR'S NOTE: For those interested in sharing Ben's Autobiography, there will be a participatory public reading at the Franklin Historical Museum on Thursday, Jan. 23 from 1:30 pm until approximately 8 pm. Those interested in reserving a reading slot, can do so at this link. Or just come to listen and enjoy!]
