self. I wonder, says she, how you can propose such a thing to me; did not you always tell me you would maintain me like a gentlewoman? If I had married Capt.———, he would have scorned even to mention knitting of stockings. Prithee, says he, (a little nettled) what do you tell me of your captains? If you could have had him, I suppose you would; or perhaps you did not very well like him: if I did promise to maintain you like a gentlewoman, I suppose ’tis time enough for that when you know how to behave like one; mean while ’tis your duty to help make me able. How long do you think I can maintain you at your present rate of living? Pray, says she, (somewhat fiercely, and dashing the puff into the powder-box) don’t use me after this manner, for I assure you I won’t bear it. This is the fruit of your poison newspapers; there shall come no more here, I promise you. Bless us, says he, what an unaccountable thing is this! Must a tradesman’s daughter, and the wife of a tradesman, necessarily and instantly be a gentlewoman? You had no portion; I am forced to work for a living; if you are too great to do the like, there’s the door, go and live upon your estate, if you can find it; in short, I don’t desire to be troubled—what answer she made, I cannot tell; for knowing that a man and his wife are apt to quarrel more violently when before strangers, than when by themselves, I got up andwent out hastily: but I understood from Mary, who came to me of an errand in the evening, that they dined together pretty peaceably, (the balls of thread that had caused the difference, being thrown into the kitchen fire) of which I was very glad to hear.
I have several times in your paper seen severe reflections upon us women, for idleness and extravagance, but I do not remember to have once seen any such animadversions upon the men. If I were disposed to be censorious, I could furnish you with instances enough: I might mention Mr. Billiard, who spends more than he earns, at the green table; and would have been in jail long since, were it not for his industrious wife: Mr. Husselcap, who often all day long leaves his business for the rattling of halfpence in a certain alley: Mr. Finikin, who has seven different suits of fine clothes, and wears a change every day, while his wife and children sit at home half naked: Mr. Crownhim, who is always dreaming over the checker-board, and cares not how the world goes, so he gets the game: Mr. T’otherpot the tavern-haunter; Mr. Bookish, the everlasting reader; Mr. Tweedledum, Mr. Toot-a-toot, and several others, who are mighty diligent at any thing beside their business. I say, if I were disposed to be censorious, I might mention all these, and more; but I hate to be thought a scandalizer of my neighbors, and therefore forbear. And for your part, I would advise you, for the future, to entertain your readers with something else besides people’s reflections upon one another; for remember, that there are holes enough to be picked in your coat as well as others; and those that are affronted by the satyrs you may publish, will not consider so much who wrote, as who printed: take not this freedom amiss, from,
Your Friend and Reader,
Celia Single
In Praise of Gossip
In his first Busy-Body essay, Franklin had defended the value of nosiness and tattling. Now that he had his own paper, he made it clear that the Gazette was pleased, indeed proud, to continue this service. Using the same tone as the Busy-Body, Franklin wrote an anonymous essay defending gossip and followed it the next week by a fake letter from the aptly named Alice Addertongue urging his paper to print more gossip. Franklin, who was then 26, had Alice identify herself, with an edge of irony, as a “young girl of about thirty-five.”
T HE P ENNSYLVANIA G AZETTE , S EPTEMBER 7, 1732
Impia sub dulci melle venena latent.
—Ovid
Naturam expellas furca licet, usq; recurret.
—Horace
There is scarce any one thing so generally
I have several times in your paper seen severe reflections upon us women, for idleness and extravagance, but I do not remember to have once seen any such animadversions upon the men. If I were disposed to be censorious, I could furnish you with instances enough: I might mention Mr. Billiard, who spends more than he earns, at the green table; and would have been in jail long since, were it not for his industrious wife: Mr. Husselcap, who often all day long leaves his business for the rattling of halfpence in a certain alley: Mr. Finikin, who has seven different suits of fine clothes, and wears a change every day, while his wife and children sit at home half naked: Mr. Crownhim, who is always dreaming over the checker-board, and cares not how the world goes, so he gets the game: Mr. T’otherpot the tavern-haunter; Mr. Bookish, the everlasting reader; Mr. Tweedledum, Mr. Toot-a-toot, and several others, who are mighty diligent at any thing beside their business. I say, if I were disposed to be censorious, I might mention all these, and more; but I hate to be thought a scandalizer of my neighbors, and therefore forbear. And for your part, I would advise you, for the future, to entertain your readers with something else besides people’s reflections upon one another; for remember, that there are holes enough to be picked in your coat as well as others; and those that are affronted by the satyrs you may publish, will not consider so much who wrote, as who printed: take not this freedom amiss, from,
Your Friend and Reader,
Celia Single
In Praise of Gossip
In his first Busy-Body essay, Franklin had defended the value of nosiness and tattling. Now that he had his own paper, he made it clear that the Gazette was pleased, indeed proud, to continue this service. Using the same tone as the Busy-Body, Franklin wrote an anonymous essay defending gossip and followed it the next week by a fake letter from the aptly named Alice Addertongue urging his paper to print more gossip. Franklin, who was then 26, had Alice identify herself, with an edge of irony, as a “young girl of about thirty-five.”
T HE P ENNSYLVANIA G AZETTE , S EPTEMBER 7, 1732
Impia sub dulci melle venena latent.
—Ovid
Naturam expellas furca licet, usq; recurret.
—Horace
There is scarce any one thing so generally
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