On this date the Pennsylvania Gazette published an advertisement for Poor Richard’s Almanack by Richard Saunders, aka Benjamin Franklin. Franklin describes the publication of the almanac in this way in his Autobiography
In 1732 I first published my Almanack, under the name of Richard Saunders; it was continued by me about twenty-five years, commonly called “Poor Richard’s Almanac.” I endeavored to make it both entertaining and useful, and it accordingly came to be in such demand that I reaped considerable profit from it, vending annually near ten thousand. And observing that it was generally read, scarce any neighborhood in the province being without it, I considered it as a proper vehicle for conveying instruction among the common people, who brought scarcely any other books. I therefore filled all the little spaces that occurred between the remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sentences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality as the means of procuring wealth and thereby securing virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want to act always honestly as, to use here one of those proverbs, it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright.
So Franklin was a blogger, too. He just wrote all his posts for the year and published them in magazine form. Just as bloggers do, Franklin borrowed from “the wisdom of the ages,” but he made the old sayings and proverbs his own as he published them in his own words and attributed them to “Richard Saunders”. Her are a few words of wisdom for you in order to inculcate a bit of industry, frugality, and virtue into your day:
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
He that lieth down with Dogs, shall rise up with Fleas.
If you would not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worthy reading,
Or do things worth the writing.
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
Finally, with the new year coming:
With the old Almanack and the old Year,
Leave thy old Vices, tho ever so dear.
Do you plan to follow Ben’s advice? How? Anybody want to hold yourself accountable by leaving your new year’s resolution in the comments?
To read more about Ben Franklin and his times, The Electric Franklin is a great educational website.
I’ve read this book before; Madeleine L’Engle is one of my favorite authors. She writes especially good fiction concerning two subjects: death and marriage. Certain Women is about both. It’s the story of Emma Wheaton, a successful stage actress, and her father David, not only successful but legendary star of the American stage. David is dying of cancer, and Emma has come to be with him on his boat in the Pacific Northwest. She’s not only coming to care for and say good-bye to her father, however; she’s also running away from her marriage in which the tension and melancholy of her writer husband have become too much to bear. Emma finds that she can’t escape the past since her father is reliving it in order to come to terms with his own imminent death.