d 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."

By these and other extravagances the genteel are reduced to poverty and
forced to borrow of those whom they formerly despised, but who, through
industry and frugality, have maintained their standing; in which case it
appears plainly that "a plowman on his legs is higher than a gentleman
on his knees," as Poor Richard says. Perhaps they have had a small
estate left them, which they knew not the getting of; they think, "'tis
day and will never be night;" that "a little to be spent out of so much
is not worth minding" (a child and a fool, as Poor Richard says, imagine
twenty shillings and twenty years can never be spent); but "always
taking out of the meal-tub, and never putting in, soon comes to the
bottom." Then, as Poor Dick says, "when the well's dry they know the
worth of water." But this they might have k