Benjamin Franklin

mber, my dear friend, that

YOU may remember

The ob­jec­tions and re­luct­ances I met with in so­li­cit­ing the sub­scrip­tions, made me soon feel the im­pro­pri­ety of present­ing one’s self as the pro­poser of any use­ful pro­ject, that might be sup­posed to raise one’s repu­ta­tion in the smal­lest de­gree above that of one’s neigh­bours, when one has need of their as­sist­ance to ac­com­plish that pro­ject. I there­fore put my­self as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a num­ber of friends, who had re­ques­ted me to go about and pro­pose it to such as they thought lov­ers of read­ing. In this way my af­fair went on more smoothly, and I ever after prac­tised it on such oc­ca­sions; and, from my fre­quent suc­cesses, can heart­ily re­com­mend it. The present little sac­ri­fice of your van­ity will af­ter­wards be amply re­paid. If it re­mains a while un­cer­tain to whom the merit be­longs, someone more vain than your­self will be en­cour­aged to claim it, and then even envy will be dis­posed to do you justice by pluck­ing those as­sumed feath­ers, and restor­ing them to their right owner.

“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