Works of the late Doctor Benjamin Franklin/Converſation of a Company of Ephemeræ
CONVERSATION
of a
COMPANY of EPHEMERÆ;
WITH THE SOLILOQUY OF ONE ADVANCED IN AGE.
TO MADAME BRILLIANT.
YOU may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately ſpent that happy day, in the delightful garden and ſweet ſociety of the Moulin Joly, I ſtopt a little in one of our walks, and ſtaid ſome time behind the company. We had been ſhewn numberleſs ſkeletons of a kind of little fly, called an Ephemera, whoſe ſucceſſive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to ſee a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in converſation. You know I underſtand all the inferior animal tongues: my too great application to the ſtudy of them, is the beſt excuſe I can give for the little progreſs I have made in your charming language. I liſtened through curioſity to the diſcourſe of theſe little creatures; but as they, in their national vivacity, ſpoke three or four together, I could make but little of their converſation. I found, however, by ſome expreſſions that I heard now and then, they were diſputing warmly on the merit of two foreign muſicians, one a couſin, the other a muſcheto; in which diſpute they ſpent their time, ſeemingly as regardleſs of the ſhortneſs of life as if they had been ſure of living a month. Happy people! thought I, you live certainly under a wiſe, juſt, and mild government, ſince you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any ſubject of contention, but the perfections or imperfections of foreign muſic. I turned my head from them to an old grey-headed one, who was ſingle on another leaf, and talking to himſelf. Being amuſed with his ſoliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will like wiſe amuſe her to whom I am ſo much indebted for the moſt pleaſing of all amuſements, her delicious company, and heavenly harmony.
"It was," ſays he, "the opinion of learned philoſophers of our race, who lived and flouriſhed long before my time, that this vaſt world the Moulin Joly could not itſelf ſubſiſt more than eighteen hours: and I think there was ſome foundation for that opinion; ſince, by the apparent motion of the great luminary, that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it muſt then finiſh its courſe, be extinguished in the waters that ſurround us, and leave the world in cold and darkneſs, neceſſarily producing univerſal death and deduction. I have lived ſeven of thoſe hours; a great age, being no leſs than 420 minutes of time. How very few of us continue ſo long? I have ſeen generations born, flouriſh, and expire. My preſent friends are the children and grand-children of the friends of my youth, who are now, alas, no more! And I muſt ſoon follow them; for, by the courſe of nature, though ſtill in health, I cannot expect to live above ſeven or eight minutes longer. What now avails all my toil and labour, in amaſſing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy! What the political ſtruggles I have been engaged in, for the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this buſh, or my philoſophical ſtudies, for the benefit of our race in general! for in politics (what can laws do without morals?) our preſent race of ephemeræ will in a courſe of minutes become corrupt, like thoſe of other and older buſhes, and conſequently as wretched: And in philoſophy how ſmall our progreſs! Alas! art is long, and life is ſhort! My friend would comfort me with the idea of a name, they ſay, I ſhall leave behind me; and they tell me I have lived long enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera who no longer exiſts? and what will become of all hiſtory in the eighteenth hour, when the world itſelf, even the whole Moulin Joly, ſhall come to its end, and be buried in univerſal ruin?"
To me, after all my eager purſuits, no ſolid pleaſures now remain, but the reflection of a long life ſpent in meaning well, the ſenſible converſation of a few good lady ephemeræ, and now and then a kind ſmile and a tune from the ever amiable Brilliant.