To Hugh Roberts
London, September 16, 1758.
Dear Friend,
Your kind letter of June 1st gave me great pleasure. I thank you for the concern you express about my health, which at present seems tolerably confirmed by my late journey into different parts of the kingdom, that have been highly entertaining as well as useful to me. Your visits to my little family in my absence are very obliging, and I hope you will be so good as to continue them. Your remark on the thistle and the Scotch motto made us very merry, as well as your string of puns. You will allow me to claim a little merit or demerit in the last, as having had some hand in making you a punster; but the wit of the first is keen, and all your own.
Two of the former members of the Junto you tell me are departed this life, Potts and Parsons.[54] Odd characters both of them. Parsons a wise man, that often acted foolishly; Potts a wit, that seldom acted wisely. If enough were the means to make a man happy, one had always the means of happiness, without ever enjoying the thing; the other had always the thing, without ever possessing the means. Parsons, even in his prosperity, always fretting; Potts, in the midst of his poverty, ever laughing. It seems, then, that happiness in this life rather depends on internals than externals; and that, besides the natural effects of wisdom and virtue, vice and folly, there is such a thing as a happy or an unhappy constitution. They were both our friends, and loved us. So, peace to their shades. They had their virtues as well as their foibles; they were both honest men, and that alone, as the world goes, is one of the greatest of characters. They were old acquaintances, in whose company I formerly enjoyed a great deal of pleasure, and I cannot think of losing them, without concern and regret.
I shall, as you suppose, look on every opportunity you give me of doing you service, as a favour, because it will afford me pleasure. I know how to make you ample returns for such favours, by giving you the pleasure of building me a house. You may do it without losing any of your own time; it will only take some part of that you now spend in other folks' business. It is only jumping out of their waters into mine.
I am grieved for our friend Syng's loss. You and I, who esteem him, and have valuable sons ourselves, can sympathize with him sincerely. I hope yours is perfectly recovered, for your sake as well as for his own. I wish he may be, in every respect, as good and as useful as his father. I need not wish him more; and can only add, that I am, with great esteem, dear friend, yours affectionately,
B. Franklin.
P.S. I rejoice to hear of the prosperity of the Hospital, and send the wafers. I do not quite like your absenting yourself from that good old club, the Junto. Your more frequent presence might be a means of keeping them from being all engaged in measures not the best for public welfare. I exhort you, therefore, to return to your duty; and, as the Indians say, to confirm my words, I send you a Birmingham tile. I thought the neatness of the figures would please you.