Ben. Franklin's advice

“This is an adjunct to my 'Age' thread and for the ladies who did not want to reveal their age.

From, 'Advice to a Young Man on the
Choice of a Mistress (Old Mistresses Apologue)', Philadelphia, June 25, 1745:

(Excerpt)
...that in all your amours you should prefer old women to young ones.

You call this a paradox and demand my reasons. They are these:

1”

“This is an adjunct to my 'Age' thread and for the ladies who did not want to reveal their age.

From, 'Advice to a Young Man on the
Choice of a Mistress (Old Mistresses Apologue)', Philadelphia, June 25, 1745:

(Excerpt)
...that in all your amours you should prefer old women to young ones.

You call this a paradox and demand my reasons. They are these:

1”

“This is an adjunct to my 'Age' thread and for the ladies who did not want to reveal their age.

From, 'Advice to a Young Man on the
Choice of a Mistress (Old Mistresses Apologue)', Philadelphia, June 25, 1745:

(Excerpt)
...that in all your amours you should prefer old women to young ones.

You call this a paradox and demand my reasons. They are these:

1”

“1.”

“1.”

“1.”

“1.”

“lol”

“I'll come back later.”

“The multiple post gremlin strikes again!”

“Old age obviously.”

“Hiccups????”

“blame it on old age!”

“1 is the lonliest number....”

“Apparently when you're all alone in a thread, it echoes...”

“Oh c'mon! I've got to know the rest of this! Want to let my younger boyfriend know how lucky he is to have me!!”

“I have no idea what happened. Here goes (I hope):

1.”

“Grem, I assume you're cutting and pasting it from another source...is that source another webpage, or some kind of text document?”

“1. Because they have more knowledge of the world, and their minds are better stored with observations, their conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreeable.

2.”

“1. Because they have more knowledge of the world, and their minds are better stored with observations, their conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreeable.

2.”

“Gremilin I am rotflmao . . .I am not sure what is going on with your cut and paste . .but it sure is funny!”

“Try
http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/51-fra.html, gremlin.”

“No, I'm typing. Matt, help!!!

2. Because when women cease to be handsome they study to be good. To maintain their influence over men, they supply the diminution of beauty by an augmentation of utility.

3. Because there is no hazard of children, which irregularly produced may be attended with much inconveniance.

4. Because through more experience they are more prudent and discrete in conducting an intrigue to prevent suspicion. The commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the affair should happen to be known, considerate people might be rather inclined to excuse an old woman...

5. Because in every animal that walks upright the deficiency of the fluids that fill the muscles appears first in the highest part... the lower parts continuing to last as plump as ever, so that covering all above with a basket, and regarding only what is below the girdle, it is impossible of two women to tell an old one from a young one. And as in the dark all cats are grey, the pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal and frequently superior; every knack being, by practice, capable of improvement.

6. Because the sin is less. The debauching of a virgin may ruin her, and make her for life unhappy.

7. Because the compunction is less. The having made a young girl unhappy may give you frequent bitter reflection; none of which can attend to making a old woman happy.

8th and lastly. They are so grateful.

[He said it, not I] Phew, at last!”

“ban gremlin!”

“Ah ha! I bet you kept typing tabs, right?

Tabs are a no-no because to the browser (and a lot of other windows widgets) that means "Go to the next item in the tablist".

So you spent a lot of time trying to type text into the "Submit Message" button without realizing it.”

“Party at Gremlin's house! He finally got through it!”

“This thread reminds me of a few weeks back when my brother's Jeep took forever to start.”

“Wow Grem, I know you all haven't had the internet up there for but a few years but dang! Havin' trouble there?”

“We need to send Al Gore to Canada to show them how to use his invention.”

“It's winter up here after all. Thanks but you guys will have to keep your politicians unless you're willing to accept ours in a trade. Ours are no better, but it would be a change for a short while.”

“At least your's are openly corupt. LOL!”

“Ben Franklin was a WISE man.....

LOL..hahahahaah”

“Bad Nigal!
Be nice to your neighbors!

Ya Gremlin, they is mo' grateful!”

“Sorry Grim, I'll stop by and mow your lawn later to make restitution. 8)”

“Good Nigal !!!”

“Did I post this already? <G>




John Donne
1572 – 1631


from a LETTER

To Sir Henry Wotten(?) [ 1600(?) ]

PARADOXES AND PROBLEMS

PARADOX VI. THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO FIND SOME
VIRTUE IN SOME WOMEN



I AM not of that seared¹⁹ impudence that I dare defend women or
pronounce them good; yet we see physicians allow some virtue in every
poison. Alas, why should we except women, since certainty, they are
good for physic at least, so as some wine is good for fever. And though
they be the occasioners of many sins, they are also the punishers and
revengers of the same sins. For I have seldom seen one which consumes
his substance and body upon them, escape diseases or beggary; and this
is their justice.

And if suum cuicue dare²⁰ be the fulfilling of all civil justice, they are
most just: for they deny that which is theirs to no man.

Tanquam non liceat nulla puella negat.

And who may doubt of great wisdom in them, that doth but observe with
how much labor and cunning our justicers and other dispencers of the
laws study to embrace them, and how zealously our preachers dehort men
from them, only by urging their subtleties and policies and wisdom which
are in them? Or who can deny them a good measure of fortitude, if he
consider how valiant men they have overthrown, and being themselves
overthrown, how much and how patiently they bear? And though they be
most intemperate, I care not, for I undertook to furnish them with some
virtue, not all. Necessity, which makes even bad things good, prevails also
for them, for we must say of them, as of some sharp pinching laws: If men
were free from infirmities, they were needless. These or none must serve
for reasons, and it is my great happiness that examples prove not rules,
for to confirm this opinion, the world yields not one example.


-------------------

¹⁹seared: insensitive, unfeeling.
²⁰suum cuicue dare: to give everyone his own.




The Golden Hind: An Anthology of Elizabethan Prose and Poetry,
edited by Roy Lamson and Hallett Smith, New York, 1956.

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

ISBN    0 393 09483 9
”

“UN center!!

argh.”

“

did that fix it?”

“what did you do?”

“<whew>

I was beginning to think Gremlin's thread was POSSESSED.”

“I forgot to close a <center> tag so Everthing was centered.”