that I
have also not been unfriendly to you. I never feed physician or quack
of any kind, to enter the list against you; if, then, you do not
leave me to my repose, it may be said you are ungrateful too.

_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.

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.

[Footnote 25: A letter now printed in Volume VI of the "Works of
Franklin," edited by John Bigelow.]

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