Favours and great Goodness to me; and let me resolve to be virtuous, that I may be happy, that I may please Him, who is delighted to see me happy. Amen! THANKS For peace and liberty, for food and raiment, for corn, and wine, and milk, and every kind of healthful nourishment, Good God, I thank thee! For the common benefits of air and light; for useful fire and delicious water, - Good God, I thank thee! For knowledge, and literature, and every useful art, for my friends and their prosperity, and for the fewness of my enemies, - Good God, I thank thee! For all thy innumerable benefits; for life, and reason, and the use of speech; for health and joy, and every pleasant hour,- My good God, I thank thee! S. II. 91. [These Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion, Franklin carried with him as a daily companion, to the time of his death. The manuscript is now in the Library of Congress. The divisions entitled "Adoration" and "Petition are given in S. II. 94–9.] HINTS FOR THOSE THAT WOULD BE RICH [October, 1736] The Use of Money is all the Advantage there is in having Money. For £6 a Year you may have the Use of £100 if you are a Man of known Prudence and Honesty. He that spends a Groat a day idly, spends idly above £6 a year, which is the Price of using £100. He that wastes idly a Groat's worth of his Time per Day, one Day with another, wastes the Privilege of using £100 each Day. He that idly loses 5s. worth of time, loses 5s. and might as prudently throw 5s. in the River. He that loses 5s. not only loses that Sum, but all the Advantage that might be made by turning it in Dealing, which, by the time that a young Man becomes old, amounts to a comfortable Bag of Money. Again, He that sells upon Credit, asks a Price for what he sells equivalent to the Principal and Interest of his Money for the Time he is like to be kept out of it: therefore He that buys upon Credit, pays Interest for what he buys. And he that pays ready Money, might let that Money out to Use; so that He that possesses any Thing he has bought, pays Interest for the Use of it. Consider then when you are tempted to buy any unnecessary Householdstuff, or any superfluous thing, whether you will be willing to pay Interest, and Interest upon Interest for it as long as you live; and more if it grows worse by using. Yet, in buying goods, 't is best to pay Ready Money, because, He that sells upon Credit, expects to lose 5 per Cent by bad Debts; therefore he charges, on all he sells upon Credit, an Advance that shall make up that Deficiency. Those who pay for what they buy upon Credit, pay their Share of this Advance. He that pays ready Money, escapes or may escape that Charge. A Penny sav'd is Twopence clear, A Pin a Day is a Groat a Year. From Poor Richard's Almanac. S. II. 211. THE COUNTRY MAN Happy Man whose wish and care Content to breathe his native Air, In his own ground. Whose Herds with Milk, whose Fields with Bread, Whose Flocks supply him with Attire, Whose trees in Summer yield him Shade, In Winter Fire. Blest, who can unconcernedly find Hours, Days and Years slide soft away, Quiet by Day. With Meditation. Thus let me live, unseen, unknown, Thus, unlamented, let me die, Steal from the World, and not a Stone Tell where I lie. Poor Richard's Almanac, 1844. A WHIRLWIND [From a letter to Peter Collinson, written in Philadelphia, August 25, 1755.] Being in Maryland, riding with Colonel Tasker, and some other gentlemen to his country-seat, where I and my son were entertained by that amiable and worthy man with great hospitality and kindness, we saw in the vale below us, a small whirlwind beginning in the road, and shewing itself by the dust it raised and contained. It appeared in the form of a sugar-loaf, spinning on its point, moving up the hill towards us, and enlarging as it came forward. When it passed by us, its smaller part near the ground, appeared no bigger than a common barrel, but widening upwards, it seemed, at 40 or 50 feet high, to be 20 or 30 feet in diameter. The rest of the company stood looking after it, but my curiosity being stronger, I followed it, riding close by its side, and observed its licking up, in its progress, all the dust that was under its smaller part. As it is a common opinion that a shot, fired through a waterspout, will break it, I tried to break this little whirlwind, by striking my whip frequently through it, but without any effect. Soon after, it quitted the road and took into the woods, growing every moment larger and stronger, raising, instead of dust, the old dry leaves with which the ground was thick covered, and making a great noise with them and the branches of the trees, bending some tall trees round in a circle swiftly and very surprizingly, though the progressive motion of the whirl was not so swift but that a man on foot might have kept pace with it; but the circular motion was amazingly rapid. By the leaves it was now filled with, I could plainly perceive that the current of air they were driven by, moved upwards in a spiral line; and when I saw the trunks and bodies of large trees invelop'd in the passing whirl, which continued intire after it had left them I no longer wondered that my whip had no effect on it in its smaller state. I accompanied it about three quarters of a mile, till some limbs of dead trees, broken off by the whirl, flying about and falling near me, made me more apprehensive of danger; and then I stopped, looking at the top of it as it went on, which was visible, by means of the leaves contained in it, for a very great height above the trees. Many of the leaves, as they got loose from the upper and widest part, were scattered in the wind; but so great was their height in the air, that they appeared no bigger than flies. My son, who was by this time come up with me, followed the whirlwind till it left the woods, and crossed an old tobacco-field, where, finding neither dust nor leaves to take up, it gradually became invisible below as it went away over that field. The course of the general wind then blowing was along with us as we travelled, and the progressive motion of the whirlwind was in a direction nearly opposite, though it did not keep a strait line, nor was its progressive motion uniform, it making little sallies on either hand as it went, proceeding sometimes faster and sometimes slower, and seeming sometimes for a few seconds almost stationary, then starting forward pretty fast again. When we rejoined the company, they were admiring the vast height of the leaves now brought by the common wind, over our heads. These leaves accompanied us as we travelled, some falling now and then round about us, and some not reaching the ground till we had gone near three miles from the place where we first saw the whirlwind begin. Upon my asking Colonel Tasker if such whirlwinds were common in Maryland, he answered pleasantly, "No, not at all common; but we got this on purpose to treat Mr. Franklin." And a very high treat it was. S. III. 273. |