The True Benjamin Franklin
The True
Benjamin Franklin
By
Sydney George Fisher
Author of “Men, Women, and Manners in ColonialTimes,” “The Making of Pennsylvania,” “TheEvolution of the Constitution,” etc.
“If rigid moral analysis be not the purpose ofhistorical writing, there is no more value init than in the fictions of mythologicalantiquity.”—Charles Francis Adams, Sr.
FIFTH EDITION
WITH AN APPENDIX
Philadelphia
J. B. Lippincott Company
1903
Copyright, 1898
BY
J. B. Lippincott Company
Preface to the Third Edition
Since the appearance of the first edition there has been some discussionof the question whether Mrs. Foxcroft was really Franklin’s daughter. Inthe present edition I have added an appendix going fully into thisquestion.
Franklin’s plain language about love and marriage and his very frankdescriptions of his own shortcomings in these matters seem to havesurprised many people. I might have explained this more fully in thefirst edition, but to any one who knows the age in which Franklin livedthere is nothing that need cause surprise.
It was an age of frank autobiographies and plain, detailed,introspective statements about love affairs. Rousseau flourished inthose days, also Gozzi and Madame Roland; and Casanova began writing hismost extraordinary memoirs just about the time of Franklin’s death.Anyone who is at all familiar with these authors will readily understandwhy Franklin wrote his “Advice on the Choice of a Mistress.” His “Speechof Polly Baker” was of the same sort. It had a most extraordinarycirculation because people were then looking at these matters from thatpoint of view. The philosophic thought of that age was somewhat[Pg 4]inclining to the opinion, since then much developed by German theoristslike Nietzche, that religion had made love impure. Franklin, as at page106, was also inclining that way.
Such things must be mentioned and given their proper position andimportance in a book calling itself “The True Benjamin Franklin.” Thereare many books describing the false Franklin, the impossible Franklin,the Franklin that never existed, and could not in the nature of thingsexist, and to these books those who do not like the truth are referred.
Preface
This analysis of the life and character of Franklin has in view asimilar object to that of the volume entitled “The True GeorgeWashington,” which was prepared for the publishers by Mr. Paul LeicesterFord and issued a year or two ago.
Washington sadly needed to be humanized, to be rescued from themyth-m