[20] Life of Benjamin Franklin, by James Parton, vol. i. p. 263.
[21] Works of Franklin, by Jared Sparks, vol. ii. p. 9.
[22] Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, pp. 1, 2.
[23] Charles Willson Peale’s copy of Martin’s Franklin, the original of which is owned by Mr. Henry Pratt McKean.
[24] Benjamin Franklin as a Man of Letters, by John Bach McMaster, p. 277.
THE WISTAR PARTIES
If the impulse towards learning early given by the American Philosophical Society has found expression in Philadelphia, and other cities, in historical societies, scientific schools, academies of natural science, and kindred institutions, its more genial and social side has long been represented in the city of its birth by the Wistar Parties.
As this old club has, within a few years, been reorganized, it may be interesting to turn back to the period of its inception, and even further back into the past century, when Dr. Caspar Wistar held, at his own house, those informal gatherings to which the Wistar Parties of to-day owe their name. How large a place this club filled in the social life of the period may be gathered from the fact that most Philadelphians of distinction, if not actual members, were its frequent guests, while all strangers of note were introduced into the circle of choice spirits,—choice in the full sense of the word, because chosen for particular gifts or attainments, the original Wistar Club being composed of members of the American Philosophical Society, a close organization that has ever striven to keep its eye single to the interests of science, literature, art, history, and the promotion of all useful knowledge. Although Silas Deane, the Marquis de Chastellux, and John Adams grow quite enthusiastic when describing the luxurious living prevalent among “the nobles of Pennsylvania,” the latter admits, with what in a New-Englander may be considered rare generosity, that there was something to be found here better than our high living, as he speaks of the “high thinking” of some of those old Philadelphians, in one of his charming letters to his wife which are only less charming than her own.