In Health of Body, Peace of Mind,
Quiet by Day,
Sound Sleep by Night ; Study and Ease
- Together mixt ; sweet Recreation ;
And Innocence which most does please
with Meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
- Thus unlamented let me die,
Steal from the World, and not a Stone
Tell where I lie.
[Benjamin Franklin], Poor Richard, 1744. An Almanack, etc. (Philadelphia), 1-3.
95. A Year of a College Student's Life (1758)
BY NATHANIEL AMES
Ames was the son of Dr. Nathaniel Ames, publisher of almanacs. Later he also became a physician and a calculator of almanacs. The piece is characteristic of the life of the son of a well-to-do gentleman. — Bibliography : Tyler, American Literature, II, 122-130. — For an earlier view of Harvard College, see Contemporaries, I, No. 146.
CAMBRIDGE Septr. 20th 1758. They who see this in future times may know that it is the covering of an old Almanack 1758. And do not despise old times too much for remember that 2 or 3 centurys from the time of seeing this you will be counted old times folks as much as you count us to be so now, many People in these times think the Consumation very nigh much more may you think so, and do not think yourselves so much wiser than we are as to make yourselves proud for the last day is at hand in which you must give an account of what you have been about in this state of Probation & very likely you are more given to Vice than we are, and we than the last Century folks ; if you have more arts than we have that you yourselves have found out impute it not to our inability that we could not find them out for if we had had only those very arts that we have now when we first came to settle in N. America very like we should have found out those very things which you have the honour to be the Inventors of.
Dinner is ready I must leave off.
