from all that
observe it. Never use a slighting expression to her, even in jest; for
slights in jest, after frequent bandyings, are apt to end in angry
earnest. Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be
industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate,
and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will be
happy: at least, you will, by such conduct, stand the best chance for
such consequences. I pray God to bless you both; being ever your
affectionate friend.

THE ART OF VIRTUE

From the 'Autobiography,' in Bigelow's Edition of Franklin's Works

We have an English proverb that says, "_He that would thrive must ask
his wife_." It was lucky for me that I had one as much disposed to
industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my
business, folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing
old linen rags for the paper-makers, etc., etc. We kept no idle
servants; our table was plain and simple, our furniture of the
cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was a long time bread and milk
(no tea), and I ate it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a
pewter spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, and make a
progress, in spite of principle: being called one morning to
breakfast, I found it in a china bowl, with a spoon of silver! They
had been bought for me without my knowledge by my wife, and had cost
her the enormous sum of three-and-twenty shillings, for which she had
no other excuse or apology to make but that she thought _her_ husband
deserved a silver spoon and china bowl as well as any of his
neighbors. This was the first appearance of plate and china in our
house, which afterward, in a course of years, as our wealth increased,
augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value.

I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and though some of
the dogmas of that persuasion, such as _the eternal decrees of God,
election, reprobation_, etc., appeared to me unintelligible, others
doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of
the sect (Sunday being my studying day), I never was without some
religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of
the Deity; that he made the world, and governed it by his Providence;
that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man;
that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished and
virtue rewarded, either here or hereafte