|
Here it is, less poster-genic, but just as beautiful.
I send you herewith a bill for ten louis d'ors. I do not pretend to give you such a sum. I only lend it to you.
When you shall return to your country, you can not fail of getting into some business, that will in time enable you to pay all your debts. In that case, when you meet with another honest man in similar distress, you must pay me by lending this sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the debt by a like operation, when he shall be able and shall meet with such another opportunity, I hope it may thus go through many hands before it meets with a knave that will stop its progress.
This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money. I am not rich enough to afford much in good works, and so am obliged to be cunning and make the most of little.
Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Webb, 1784
__________________
Be Just and Fear Not.
|