ODD CODGERS
"()DD" and "whimsical" are words the dictionary uses to define "eccentric," but whether or not you think that either or both fit the writers discussed ) by H. W. Youren in Eccentrics in Liter-
ature youll elmost certainly agree that they’re all in one way or another "different." Take Benjamin Franklin. "His beginning," says Mr. Youren, "was so obscure, his later prestige so great, and the range of his interests so wide, that you sometimes wonder how he got
through all his activities in one lifetime." Franklin is the first subject in this series-a man whose literary fame tests on a book which he didn’t bother to complete, and which was all but lost to posterity. Then there was that box kite of his which demonstrated to an incredulous world the identity of electricity and lightning. Did you know that the lightning rod you still see on chimneys was his invention? And, of course, he was a journalist. Then, when he was over 70, he undertook that great mission in France for the American colonists, topping it off with his work on the peace negotiations. Mr. Youren’s talk on Franklin will be heard from 4YC at 10.7 p.m. on Friday, August 13. Other talks are about Benvenuto Cellini, Sir Richard Burton, Tolstoy and Herman Melville.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540806.2.28
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 785, 6 August 1954, Page 14
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216ODD CODGERS New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 785, 6 August 1954, Page 14
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