The Princess & the Patriot: Ekaterina Dashkova, Benjamin Franklin, and the Age of EnlightenmentSue Ann Prince American Philosophical Society, 2005 - 129 pages In 1782, Princess Ekaterina Dashkova was appointed dir. of Russia's Imperial Acad. of Arts & Sci. by Catherine the Great. It was just two years after she had met with another personality of the Enlightenment -- Benjamin Franklin, founding pres. of Amer. first scientific acad., the Amer. Philosophical Soc. (APS). The essays in this vol., pub. as a companion to an exhib. of the same title & on the occasion of the Franklin Tercentenary of 2006, highlight Dashkova as an accomplished Enlightenment woman. They explore how she, like Franklin, took up the challenge of living according to the newest ideals of her age. Nominated by Franklin in 1789 to become the first female member of the APS, she in turn made him the first Amer. member of the Russian Acad. |
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Page 43 - In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself ; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history ; for, even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.
Page 44 - ... a speckled ax was best;" for something, that pretended to be reason, was every now and then suggesting to me that such extream nicety as I exacted of myself might be a kind of foppery in morals, which, if it were known, would make me ridiculous ; that a perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated ; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.
Page 62 - ... as well known as that of the moon, so that he durst not do any thing that would oblige him to run away, as his phiz would discover him wherever he should venture to show it. It is said by learned etymologists that the name doll, for the images children play with, is derived from the word IDOL. From the number of dolls now made of him, he may be truly said, in that sense, to be i-doll-ized in this country.
Page 61 - The two aged actors upon this great theatre of philosophy and frivolity then embraced each other, by hugging one another in their arms, and kissing each other's cheeks, and then the tumult subsided. And the cry immediately spread through the whole kingdom, and, I suppose, over all Europe, ' Qu'iT etait charmant de voir embrasser Solon et Sophocle !'
Page 43 - In this piece it was my design to explain and enforce this doctrine, that vicious actions are not hurtful, because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful; the nature of man alone considered...
Page 57 - Those who write of the art, of poetry," says Franklin, " teach us, that, if we would write what may be worth reading, we ought always, before we begin, to form a regular plan and design of our piece ; otherwise we shall be in danger of incongruity. I am apt to think it is the same as to life. I have never fixed a regular design in life, by which means it has been a confused variety of different scenes.
Page 58 - I drew up required, that every member in his turn should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be...
Page 62 - I have at the request of friends," Franklin wrote to one of them in 1780, "sat so much and so often to painters and statuaries that I am perfectly sick of it. I know of nothing so tedious as sitting hours in one fixed posture. I would nevertheless do it once more to oblige you if it was necessary; but there are already so many good likenesses of the face that if the best of them is copied it will probably be better than a new one; and the body is only that of a lusty man which need not be drawn from...
Page 60 - Voltaire's on the Subject of Religious Toleration. I will give you a Passage of it, which being read here at a Time when we are torn to Pieces by Faction, religious and civil, shows us that while we sit for our Picture to that able Painter, 'tis no small Advantage to us that he views us at a favourable Distance...
Page 58 - I do not find that I have gained any point in either country, except that of rendering myself suspected, by my impartiality, in England of being too much an American, and in America of being too mucK an Englishman.