“No ideas but in things—nothing but the blank faces of the housesand cylindrical treesbent, forked by preconception and accidentsplit, furrowed, creased, mottled, stainedsecret—into the body of the light—These are the ideas, savage and tendersomewhat of the music, et ceteraof Paterson, that great philosopher— —William Carlos Williams, Paterson (1927) Benjamin Franklin died quietly in his bed on April 17, 1790, at the age of eighty-four. His public funeral four days later was one of the most ...extraordinary processions of humanity in American history, with a crowd of mourners, marchers, and onlookers estimated at roughly twenty thousand—or two thirds of Philadelphia’s total population. A phalanx of local printers, practitioners of Franklin’s beloved craft, walked behind the coffin to the Christ Church cemetery, followed by members of the American Philosophical Society, physicians from the medical college, the clergy, and delegates from the various artisans’ associations.MoreLessRead More Read Less
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