cted bargain offers
to be sold; another calls to pay money; and the like: nay, I would
almost say, but that I am loth to concern the devil in more evils than
he is guilty of--that the devil frequently draws a man out of his
business when something extraordinary is just at hand for his advantage.

But not, as I have said, to charge the devil with what he is not guilty
of, the tradesman is generally his own tempter; his head runs off from
his business by a secret indolence; company, and the pleasure of being
well received among gentlemen, is a cursed snare to a young tradesman,
and carries him away from his business, for the mere vanity of being
caressed and complimented by men who mean no ill, and perhaps know not
the mischief they do to the man they show respect to; and this the young
tradesman cannot resist, and that is in time his undoing.

The tradesman's pleasure should be in his business, his companions
should be his books; and if he has a family, he makes his excursions up
stairs, and no farther; when he is there, a bell or a call brings him
down; and while he is in his parlour, his shop or his warehouse never
misses him; his customers never go away unserved, his letters never come
in and are unanswered. None of my cautions aim at restraining a
tradesman from diverting himself, as we call it, with his fireside, or
keeping company with his wife and children: there are so few tradesmen
ruin themselves that way, and so few ill consequences happen upon an
uxorious temper, that I will not so much as rank it with the rest; nor
can it be justly called one of the occasions of a tradesman's disasters;
on the contrary, it is too often that the want of a due complacency
there, the want of taking delight there, estranges the man from not his
parlour only, but his warehouse and shop, and every part of business
that ought to engross both his mind and his time. That tradesman who
does not delight in his family, will never long delight in his business;
for, as one great end of an honest tradesman's diligence is the support
of his family, and the providing for the comfortable subsistence of his
wife and children, so the very sight of, and above all, his tender and
affectionate care for his wife and children, is the spur of his
diligence; that is, it puts an edge upon his mind, and makes him hunt
the world for business, as hounds hunt the woods for their game. When he
is dispirited, or discouraged by crosses and disappointments, an