Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her that it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.

So here I sit in the early candle-light of old age-I and my book-casting backward glances over out travel'd road.

The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life? That you are here - that life exists and identity, that the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

The earth does not argue, Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out.

Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find."

The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.