I have certainly experienced severe trials, and some hard dispensations of Providence … To travel with some dignity, innocence, and usefulness, down … - Elizabeth Willing Powel

I presume your Grand Children are with you, and doubt not that they will afford you every consolation that existing Circumstances will admit. Present me affectionately and sympathetically to them they also have lost a protecting affectionate Connection, and I have lost a much valued Friend.

[You] have frequently demonstrated that you possess an Empire over yourself. For Gods sake do not yield that Empire to a Love of Ease, Retirement, rural Pursuits, or a false Diffidence of Abilities which those that best know you so justly appreciate. Convince the World then that you are a practical Philosopher, and that your native Philanthropy has inducted you to relinquish an Object so Essiential to your Happiness...That you are not indifferent to the Plaudits of the World I must conclude when I believe that the love of honest Fame has and ever will be predominate in the best the noblest and most capable Natures. Nor is the Approbation of Mankind to be disregarded with Impunity even by you.

Powel: Well, Doctor, what have we got?
Benjamin Franklin: A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.
Powel: And why not keep it?
Franklin: Because the people, on tasting the dish, are always disposed to eat more of it than does them good.