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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History

CCXCII: TO MISS MARY STEVENSON - Benjamin Franklin, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. IV Letters and Misc. Writings 1763-1768 [1904]

Edition used:

The Works of Benjamin Franklin, including the Private as well as the Official and Scientific Correspondence, together with the Unmutilated and Correct Version of the Autobiography, compiled and edited by John Bigelow (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904). The Federal Edition in 12 volumes. Vol. IV (Letters and Misc. Writings 1763-1768).

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CCXCII

TO MISS MARY STEVENSON

  • Craven Street,

17 June, 1767.

We were greatly disappointed yesterday that we had not the pleasure promised us of our dear Polly’s company. Your good mother would have me write a line in answer to your letter. A muse, you must know, visited me this morning! I see you are surprised, as I was. I never saw one before, and shall never see another, so I took the opportunity of her help to put the answer into verse, because I was some verse in your debt ever since you sent me the last pair of garters.

This muse appeared to be no housewife. I suppose few of them are. She was dressed (if the expression is allowable) in an undress, a kind of slatternly negligée, neither neat nor clean, nor well made, and she has given the same sort of dress to my piece. On reviewing it I would have reformed the lines, and made them all of a length, as I am told lines ought to be; but I find I cannot lengthen the short ones without stretching them on the rack, and I think it would be equally cruel to cut off any part of the long ones. Besides, the superfluity of these makes up for the deficiency of those, and so, from a principle of justice, I leave them at full length, that I may give you, at least in one sense of the word, good measure. Adieu, my dear good girl, and believe me ever your affectionate, faithful friend,

B. Franklin.