It is still
reprinted in whole or part almost every year by savings banks and societies
in France and England, as well as in the United States. "Dost thou love
life?" asks Poor Richard in _The Way to Wealth_. "Then," he continues, "do
not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of." Franklin modestly
disclaimed much originality in the selection of these proverbs, but it is
true that he made many of them more definite, incisive, and apt to lodge in
the memory. He has influenced, and he still continues to influence, the
industry and thrift of untold numbers. In one of our large cities, a branch
library, frequented by the humble and unlearned, reports that in one year
his _Autobiography_ was called for four hundred times, and a life of him,
containing many of Poor Richard's sayings, was asked for more than one
thousand times.
He is the first American writer to show a keen sense of humor. There may be
traces of humor in _The Simple Cobbler of Agawam_ (p. 41) and in Cotton
Mather (p. 46), but Franklin has a rich vein. He used this with fine effect
when he was colonial agent in England. He determined to make England see
herself from the American point of view, and so he published anonymously in
a newspaper _An Edict of the King of Prussia_.
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