Gout. I can scarcely acknowledge that as any objection. As to quacks, I despise them; they may kill you, indeed, but can not injure me. And as to regular physicians, they are at last convinced that the gout, in such a subject as you are, is no disease, but a remedy; and wherefore cure a remedy?—but to our business—there.
Franklin. Oh! Oh!—for Heaven's sake leave me; and I promise faithfully never more to play at chess, but to take exercise daily, and live temperately.
Gout. I know you too well. You promise fair; after a few months of good health you will return to your old habits; your fine promises will be forgotten like the forms of the last year's clouds. Let us then finish the account, and I will go. But leave you with an assurance of visiting you again at a proper time and place; for my object is your good, and you are sensible now that I am your real friend.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] The reference is to Madame Helvetius, whom Franklin knew as the widow of the writer Claude Adrien Helvetius. Her home was long a center of literary society in France. The friendship with Franklin was a notable incident in his career as American Ambassador to France. See his letter to her printed here as the sixth of these selections from Franklin.
VI
A PROPOSAL TO MADAME HELVETIUS[25]
Mortified at the barbarous resolution pronounced by you so positively yesterday evening, that you would remain single for the rest of your life as a compliment due to the memory of your husband, I retired to my chamber. Throwing myself upon my bed I dreamt that I was dead, and was transported to the Elysian fields.
I was asked whether I wished to see any persons in particular; to which I replied that I wished to see the philosophers. "There are two who live here at hand in this garden; they are good neighbors and very friendly toward one another." "Who are they?" "Socrates and Helvetius." "I esteem them both highly; but let me see Helvetius first, because I understand a little French but not a word of Greek." I was conducted to him; he received me with much courtesy, having known me, he said, by character some time past. He asked me a thousand questions relative to the war, the present state of religion, of liberty, of the government in France. "You do not inquire, then," said I, "after your dear friend, Madame Helvetius; yet she loves you exceedingly. I was in her company not more than an hour ago." "Ah," said he, "you make me recur to my past happiness, which ought to be forgotten in order to be happy here. For many years I could think of nothing but her, tho at length I am consoled. I have taken another wife, the most like her that I could find; she is not, indeed, altogether so handsome, but she has a great fund of wit and good sense, and her whole study is to please me. She is at this moment gone to fetch the nectar and ambrosia to regale me; stay here awhile and you will see her." "I perceive," said I, "that your former friend is more faithful to you than you are to her; she has had several good offers, but has refused them all. I will confess to you that I love her extremely, but she was cruel to me and rejected me peremptorily for your sake." "I pity you sincerely," said he, "for she is an excellent woman, handsome and amiable. But do not the Abbe de la R—— and the Abbe M—— visit her?" "Certainly they do; not one of your friends has dropt her acquaintance." "If you had gained the Abbe M—— with a bribe of good coffee and cream perhaps you would have succeeded; for he is as deep a reasoner as Dun Scotus or St. Thomas; he arranges and methodizes his arguments in such a manner that they are almost irresistible. Or if by a fine edition of some old classic you had gained the Abbe de la R—— to speak against you, that would have been still better, as I always observed that when he recommended anything to her, she had a great inclination to do exactly the contrary."