re. I
am trying to do better now."

O, I want to forget all the past, save its lessons. I am just beginning
to live. If anybody wants to be my best friend, let him come to me and
tell me how to improve--what to do and what not to do. Tell me how to
give a better lecture.

Years ago a bureau representative who booked me told me my lectures
were good enough. I told him I wanted to get better lectures, for I was
so dissatisfied with what little I knew. He told me I could never get
any better. I had reached my limit. Those lectures were the "limit." I
shiver as I think what I was saying then. I want to go on south
shivering about yesterday. These years I have noticed the people on the
platform who were contented with their offerings, were not trying to
improve them, and were lost in admiration of what they were doing, did
not stay long on the platform. I have watched them come and go, come
and go. I have heard their fierce invectives against the bureaus and
ungrateful audiences that were "prejudiced" against them.

Birthdays are not annual affairs. Birthdays are the days when we have a
new birth. The days when we go on south to larger visions. I wish I
could have a birthday every minute!

Some people seem to string out to near a hundred years with mighty few
birthdays. Some people spin up to Methuselahs in a few years.

From what I can learn of Methuselah, he never grew past copper-toed
boots. He just hibernated and "chawed on."

The more birthdays we have, the nearer we approach eternal youth!

Bernhardt, Davis and Edison

The spectacle of Sarah Bernhardt, past seventy, thrilling and gripping
audiences with the fire and brilliancy of youth, is inspiring. No
obstacle can daunt her. Losing a leg does not end her acting, for she
remains the "Divine Sarah" with no crippling of her work. She looks
younger than many women of half her years. "The years are nothing to
me."

Senator Henry Gassaway Davis, West Virginia's Grand Old Man, at
ninety-two was working as hard and hopefully as any man of the
multitudes in his employ. He was an ardent Odd Fellow, and one day at
ninety-two--just a short time before his passing--he went out to the
Odd Fellows' Home near Elkins, where he lived. On the porch of the home
was a row of old men inmates. The senator shook hands with these men
and one by one they rose from the bench to return his hearty greetings.

The last man on the bench did not rise. He helplessly looked up at