"_When poverty comes in at the door_," said a shrewd observer, "_love flies out at the window_." When foolish families, "_wasting their substance in riotous living_," have fairly run their estates through the girt, and brought a host of hungry sheriffs and constables to the door, seizing on all their trumpery of fine carpets and curtains, and side-boards, and looking-glasses for _auction_, oh what sudden palpitations and blank looks ensue! what bitter upbraidings between husbands and wives, parents and children! what lyings, and perjuries, and secret transfers of property to _cheat creditors_! with universal wreck of character, and conscience, and every thing else that can give dignity or pleasure to life!
But while Franklin, by his famous Almanack "_poor Richard_," was generously striving to prevent all these curses of _sloth_ and _extravagance_, his wide spread newspapers were scattering thousands of the finest lectures on that _honest industry_ and _prudence_, which makes nations wealthy and glorious. And his lecturing, like one born to be the moralist of nations, was in that style of brevity, sprightliness, and nerve, that young and old, men, women, and children were never tired of reading. And to give more value to these beautiful little essays, they were always written under the smarting recollection of what himself had suffered, from the follies which he wished to guard others against. Witness first, his celebrated little story, entitled
When I was a child, about seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop, where they sold toys for children, and being charmed with the sound of a _whistle_, that I met by the way, in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered him all my money for it. I then came home, and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my _whistle_, but disturbing all the family. My brothers, and sisters, and cousins, understanding the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth. This put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of my money; and they laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation; and the reflection gave me more chagrin than the _whistle_ gave me pleasure.