Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

by Walter Isaacson

Have you met with anything in the author you last read remarkable or suited to be communicated to the Junto? . . .

What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation?

Hath any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have...

Have you lately heard of any citizen’s thriving well, ...

Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewh...

Do you know of any fellow citizen who has lately done a worthy action deserving praise and imitation? Or who has committed an error proper...

devised

Daniel Defoe’s essay “Friendly Societies” and John Locke’s “Rules of a Society which Met Once a Week for the Improvement of Useful Knowledge,”

felicitous

feigning

burlesqued

divining

overweening

Franklin’s favorite theme: slow and steady diligence is the true way to wealth.

proximity

gimmick

Franklin then went on (under the guise of J.T.) to praise Franklin’s own paper, point out a similar typo made by his rival Bradford, criticize Bradford for being generally sloppier, and (with delicious irony) praise Franklin for not criticizing Bradford:

faction

blundering

regimen

Now that he had established himself in business, Franklin found himself in want of a good wife.

courtship

scuttled,

Bigamy was a crime punishable by thirty-nine lashes and life imprisonment.

eking

dejected

plight,

Around that time, Franklin developed a method for making difficult decisions.

erratum

Franklin is often described as (or accused of) being far more practical than romantic, a man of the head rather than heart.

devoid

“Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.”

“invectives

abided

disdain,

elope

raucous

admonish

censorious,

Matrimonial

poignancy,

repudiated

“erratum.”

quan...

creed

arduous

endearing

worthiness.

First he made a list of twelve virtues he thought desirable, and to each he appended a short definition:

Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.