DR. FRANKLIN’S WIFE.
Franklin, in a sketch of his life and habits, relates the following anecdote of his frugal and affectionate wife. A wife could scarcely make a prettier apology for purchasing her first piece of luxury.
We have an English proverb, that says,—
“He that would thrive
Must ask his wife.”
It was lucky for me that I have one as much disposed to industry and frugality as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my business, and in stitching pamphlets, tending shop, purchasing old linen rags for the paper-makers, &c. We kept no idle servant; our table was plain and simple; our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast was for a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate it out of a two-penny 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 or china in our house, which afterwards, in the course of years, as our wealth increased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds in value.