FFQF: The Humor of John Adams

Posted by: Hercules Mulligan on Saturday, January 10th, 2009

John Adams had such a way of telling stories. In his letters, and in his Autobiography (today’s selection comes from the latter), his recounting of amusing incidents, or, incidents he made amusing with his retelling, are unforgettable. Today’s selection reveals the amusing side of his “yankee” nature. John Adams liked to dicker and argue by nature. He walked, talked, ate, breathed, and yes, slept argument — literally. Perhaps no incident demonstrates this more than the little discussion he and Benjamin Franklin had about “theory of colds.” (You’ve probably never heard this one before.)

In the year 1776, they were traveling together, but it was getting late and they needed a place to stay before they could continue their journey. Adams recounted that the taverns were so full, there was not enough room to accommodate them, but they finally found some space at Brunswick — a single bed, in a room not much bigger than the bed, with no Chimney, and a small, open window.

The Window was open, and I, who was an invalid and afraid of the Air in the night (blowing upon me), shut it close. “Oh!” says Franklin, “don’t shut the Window. We shall all be suffocated. I answered I was afraid of the Evening Air. Dr. Franklin replied, the Air within this Chamber will soon be, and indeed now is worse than that without Doors: come! open the Window and come to bed, and I will convince you: I believe you are not acquainted with my Theory of Colds.”

Opening the Window and leaping into Bed [giving the Doctor a little bounce, perhaps?], I said that I had read his Letters to Dr. Cooper in which he had advanced, that Nobody ever got cold by going into a cold Church, or any other cold Air: but the Theory was so little consistent with my experience, that I thought it a Paradox: However I had so much curiosity to hear his reasons, that I would run the risque of a cold. [Here, ladies and gentlemen, is proof that the inhabitants of Missouri are descended from John Adams.]

The Doctor then began an harrangue [sic], upon Air and cold and Respiration and Perspiration, with which I was so amused that I soon feel asleep, and left him and his Philosophy together: but I believe they were equally sound and insensible, within a few minutes after me, for the last Words I heard were pronounced as if he was more than half asleep. … I remember little of the Lecture…
Autobiography

How eagerly Adams must have wished to cut in with one of Franklin’s own sayings, especially the one about small packages!