Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6Sylvester, Charles Herbert
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Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6
Sylvester, Charles Herbert
Children's literature; Literature -- Collections
"Many estates are spent in the getting,
Since women for tea[415-4] forsook spinning and knitting,
And men for punch forsook hewing and splitting."
If you would be wealthy, says he in another almanac, "think of saving as
well as of getting. The Indies have not made Spain rich, because her
outgoes are greater than her incomes."
Away, then, with your expensive follies, and you will not have so much
cause to complain of hard times, heavy taxes, and chargeable families;
for, as Poor Dick says,
"Women and wine, game and deceit,
Make the wealth small and the wants great."
And further, "what maintains one vice would bring up two children." You
may think, perhaps, that a little tea or a little punch now and then, a
diet a little more costly, clothes a little finer, and a little more
entertainment now and then, can be no great matter; but remember what
Poor Richard says, "many a little makes a mickle"; and further, "beware
of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship"; and again,
"Who dainties love shall beggars prove";
and moreover, "fools make feasts and wise men eat them."
Here are you all got together at this vendue of fineries and
knick-knacks. You call them goods; but if you do not take care they
will prove evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and
perhaps they may for less than they cost; but if you have no occasion
for them they must be dear to you. Remember what Poor Richard says: "Buy
what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy
necessaries." And again, "at a great pennyworth pause awhile." He means
that perhaps the cheapness is apparent only and not real; or the bargain
by straitening thee in thy business may do thee more harm than good. For
in another place he says, "many have been ruined by buying good
pennyworths."
Again, Poor Richard says, "'tis foolish to lay out money in a purchase
of repentance;" and yet this folly is practiced every day at vendues for
want of minding the almanac.
"Wise men," as Poor Richard says, "learn by others' harm; fools scarcely
by their own;" but _Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum_.[416-5]
Many a one, for the sake of finery on the back, has gone with a hungry
belly and half-starved his family. "Silks and satins, scarlets and
velvets," as Poor Richard says, "put out the kitchen fire." These are
not the necessaries of life; they can scarcely be called the
conveniences; and yet, only because they look pretty, how many want to
have them! The artificial wants of mankind thus become more numerous
than the natural; and as Poor Dick says, "for one poor person there are
a hundred indigent."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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