Fit Benjamin or Benjamin before the $100 dollar bill picture
We are used to seeing Ben as a fat and replete man in his pictures and we think so what happened to temperance, frugality and moderation? Well, according to Edmund S. Morgan in Introduction to the Papers of Benjamin Franklin, “Franklin was seventy in 1776 when he went to France as America’s emissary and nearly eighty when he returned. Most of the famous paintings of him were made in that interval, when he was racked with gout and kidney stones.”
Franklin was not always out of shape, though. As Mr. Morgan also states, Franklin mentioned having swam the Thames in his autobiography. He goes on to provide proof of Benjamin´s swimming habits by refering to a letter to Oliver Neave (before 1769). (Don´t miss Franklin´s advice on swimming below)
This is a picture displayed at The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (or so says Wikipedia) of Franklin at age 44. He´s clearly already growing his double chin but still, nothing compared to what we´re used to see. The fireman picture helps imagine Franklin like more of an active fellow than the sedentary, all-knowing one that appears in his best known portraits.
So we come back to the initial question. What happened to temperance, frugality and moderation? I don´t know, is it possible Mr. Franklin went through a different path from the one he outlines in his autobiography for the last ten years of his life? It could very well be France´s fault, I, myself, gained 20 pounds on my first trip there.
I think most likely Ben took it upon himself to live up to what came up in an Epicurean kind of way. Simple as that. He was in a diplomatic mission while he was in France. I think he put all his self-command energy into that (the purpose being getting money for his country´s war) and the occasion called for relaxing the body in some matters like food and ladies. Here´s something that might shed some light on what I´m trying to say by Ben himself:
I believe that I had omitted mentioning that in my first Voyage to Boston, being becalm´d off Block Island, our People set about catching Cod and haul´d up a great many. Hitherto I had stuck to my Resolution of not eating animal Food; and on this Occasion, I consider´d with my Master Tyron, the taking of every Fish, as a kind of unprovok´d Murder, since none of them had or ever could do us any Injury that might justify the Slaughter. All these seem´d very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great Lover of Fish, and when this came hot out of the Fying Pan, it smelt amirably well. I balanc´d sometime between Principle and Inclination: till I recollected that when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs. Then, thought I: if you eat one another, I don´t see why we mayn´t eat you. So I dined on Cod very heartily and continu´d to eat with other People, returning now and then to a vegetable Diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do.
Also, add the maladies to that.
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Here´s some advice from Ben as written in the above mentioned letter:
So, when going swimming please consider this:
- That though the legs, arms and head, of a human body, being solid parts, are specifically something heavier than fresh water, yet the trunk, particularly the upper part from its hollowness, is so much lighter than water, as that the whole of the body taken together is too light to sink wholly under water, but some part will remain above, untill the lungs become filled with water, which happens from drawing water into them instead of air, when a person in the fright attempts breathing while the mouth and nostrils are under water.
- That the legs and arms are specifically lighter than salt-water, and will be supported by it, so that a human body would not sink in salt-water, though the lungs were filled as above, but from the greater specific gravity of the head.
- That therefore a person throwing himself on his back in salt-water, and extending his arms, may easily lie so as to keep his mouth and nostrils free for breathing; and by a small motion of his hands may prevent turning, if he should perceive any tendency to it.
- That in fresh water, if a man throws himself on his back, near the surface, he cannot long continue in that situation but by proper action of his hands on the water. If he uses no such action, the legs and lower part of the body will gradually sink till he comes into an upright position, in which he will continue suspended, the hollow of the breast keeping the head uppermost.
- But if in this erect position, the head is kept upright above the shoulders, as when we stand on the ground, the immersion will, by the weight of that part of the head that is out of water, reach above the mouth and nostrils, perhaps a little above the eyes, so that a man cannot long remain suspended in water with his head in that position.
- The body continuing suspended as before, and upright, if the head be leaned quite back, so that the face looks upwards, all the back part of the head being then under water, and its weight consequently in a great measure supported by it, the face will remain above water quite free for breathing, will rise an inch higher every inspiration, and sink as much every expiration, but never so low as that the water may come over the mouth.
- If therefore a person unacquainted with swimming, and falling accidentally into the water, could have presence of mind sufficient to avoid struggling and plunging, and to let the body take this natural position, he might continue long safe from drowning till perhaps help would come. For as to the cloathes, their additional weight while immersed is very inconsiderable, the water supporting it; though when he comes out of the water, he would find them very heavy indeed.
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- From the DailyLife drawer(s)