In his spare time, Franklin perfected one of his most famous and useful inventions, bifocal glasses. Writing to a friend in August of 1784, he announced himself “happy in the invention of Double Spectacles, which, serving for distant objects as well as near ones, make my eyes as useful to me as ever they were.” A few months later, in response to a request for more information about “your invention,” Franklin provided details. A portrait by Charles Willson Peale, done in 1785, shows him wearing his new spectacles.
TO GEORGE WHATLEY, MAY 23, 1785
Dear old Friend,
I sent you a few Lines the other Day, with the Medallion, when I should have written more but was prevented by the coming in of a Bavard, who worried me till Evening. I bore with him, and now you are to bear with me: For I shall probably bavarder in answering your Letter.
I am not acquainted with the saying of Alphonsus which you allude to, as a Sanctification of your Rigidity in refusing to allow me the Plea of Old Age as an Excuse for my want of exactitude in correspondence. What was that Saying? You do not it seems, feel any occasion for such an excuse, though you are, as you say, rising 75. But I am rising (perhaps more properly falling) 80, and I leave the excuse with you till you arrive at that Age; perhaps you may then be more sensible of its validity, and see fit to use it for your self.
I must agree with you that the Gout is bad, and that the Stone is worse. I am happy in not having them both together: and I join in your Prayer that you may live till you die without either. But I doubt the Author of the Epitaph you send me was a little mistaken, when he speaking of the world, he says that
He never cared a pin, What they said or may say
of the Mortal within,
It is so natural to wish to be well spoken of, whether alive or dead, that I imagine he could not be quite exempt from that desire, and that at least he wished to be thought a wit, or he would not have given himself the trouble of writing so good an epitaph to leave behind him. Was it not as worthy of his care that the world should say he was an honest and a good man? I like better the concluding sentiment in the old song called the Old Man’s Wish, wherein after wishing for a warm house in a country town, an easy horse, some good old authors, ingenious and cheerful companions, a pudding on Sundays with stout ale and a bottle of burgundy, &c. &c. in separate stanzas, each ending with this burden
May I govern my Passions with an absolute sway
Grow wise and better as my Strength wears away
Without Gout, or Stone, by a gentle Decay,
he adds,
With a Courage undaunted may I face my last day;
And when I am gone, may the better Sort say,
In the Morning when sober, in the Evening when mellow,
He’s gone, and has not left behind him his Fellow;
For he governed his Passions, &c
But what signifies our wishing? Things happen after all as they will happen. I have sung that Wishing Song a thousand times when I was young, and now find at Fourscore that the three Contraries have befallen me; being subject to the Gout, and the Stone, and not being yet Master of all my Passions. Like the proud girl in my country, who wished and resolved not to marry a Parson, nor a Presbyterian, nor an Irishman, and at length found herself married to an Irish Presbyterian Parson. You see I have some reason to wish that in a future State I may not only be as well as I was, but a little better. And I hope it: For I too, with your Poet, trust in God. And when I observe that there is great frugality as well as wisdom in his works, since he has been evidently sparing both of labor and materials; for by the various wonderful inventions of propagation he has provided for the continual peopling his world with plants and animals without being at the trouble of repeated new creations; and by the natural reduction of compound substances to their original elements, capable of being employed in new compositions, he has presented the necessity of creating new matter; for that the earth, water, air and perhaps fire which, being compounded, from wood, do when the wood is dissolved return and again become air, earth, fire and water: I say that when I see nothing annihilated, and not even a drop of water wasted, I cannot suspect the annihilation of souls, or believe that he will suffer the daily waste of millions of minds ready made that now exist, and put himself to the continual trouble of making new ones, thus finding myself in the world, I believe I shall in some shape or other always exist: and with all the inconveniences human life is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine; hoping however that the Errata of the last may be corrected…
What you call the Cincinnati Institution is no Institution of our Government, but a private Convention among the Officers of our late Army, and so universally disliked by the people that it is supposed it will be dropt. It was considered as an attempt to establish something like an hereditary Rank or Nobility. I hold with you that it was wrong; may I add that all descending honors are wrong and absurd; that the honor of virtuous actions appertains only to him that performs them, and is in its nature incommunicable. If it were communicable by descent, it must also be divisible among the descendants, and the more ancient the family, the less would be found existing in any one branch of it; to say nothing of the greater chance of unlucky interruptions.
Our Constitution seems not to be well understood with you. If the Congress were a permanent body, there would be more reason in being jealous of giving it powers. But its members are chosen annually, cannot be chosen more than three years successively, nor more than three years in seven, and any of them may be recalled at any time, whence their constituents shall be dissatisfied with their conduct. They are of the people and return again to mix with the people, having no more durable pre-eminence than the different grains of sand in an hourglass. Such an assembly cannot easily become dangerous to liberty. They are the servants of the people, sent together to do the people’s business and promote the public welfare; their powers must be sufficient, or their duties cannot be performed. They have no profitable appointments, but a mere payment of daily wages, such as are scarcely equivalent to their expenses, so that having no chance for great places and enormous salaries or pensions as in some countries, there is no bruiging or bribing for elections. I wish old England were as happy in its government, but I do not see it. Your people however think their constitution the best in the world, and affect to despise ours. It is comfortable to have a good opinion of one’s self and of every thing that belongs to us, to think one’s own religion, king and wife the best of all possible wives, kings and religions. I remember three Greenlanders, who had traveled two years in Europe, under the care of some Moravian missionaries, and had visited Germany, Denmark, Holland and England, when I asked them at Philadelphia, (where they were in their way home) whether now they had seen how much more commodiously the white people lived by the help of the arts, they would not choose to remain among us, their answer was that they were pleased with having had an opportunity of seeing so many fine things, but they chose to live in their own country, which country by the way consisted of rock only; for the Moravians were obliged to carry earth in their ship from New York for the purpose of making there a cabbage garden.
By Mr. Dolland’s saying that my double spectacles can only serve particular eyes, I doubt he has not been rightly informed of their construction. I imagine it will be found pretty generally true, that the same convexity of glass through which a man sees clearest and best at the distance proper for reading, is not the best for greater distances. I therefore had formerly two pair of spectacles, which I shifted occasionally, as in traveling I sometimes read and often wanted to regard the prospects. Finding this change troublesome and not always sufficiently ready, I had the glasses cut, and half of each kind associated in the same circle, thus by this means, as I wear my spectacles constantly, I have only to move my eyes up or down as I want to see distinctly far or near, the proper glasses being always ready. This I find more particularly convenient since my being in France, the glasses that serve me best at table to see what I eat, not being the best to see the faces of those on the other side of the table who speak to me; and when one’s ears are not well accustomed to the sounds of a language, a sight of the movements in the features of him that speaks helps to explain, so that I understand French better by the help of my spectacles…
We shall always be ready to take your children if you send them to us. I only wonder that since London draws to itself and consumes such numbers of your country-people, your country should not to supply their places, want and willingly receive the children you have to dispose of. That circumstance, together with the multitude who voluntarily part with their freedom as men, to serve for a time as lackeys, or for life as soldiers in consideration of small wages, seems to me a proof that your island is over-peopled. And yet it is afraid of emigrations!