I like my job, and I want to keep it for four years longer.” (Loud laughter and applause.) I don’t think any President ever enjoyed himself more than I did.  Moreover, I don’t think any ex-President ever enjoyed himself more.  I have enjoyed my life and my work because I thoroughly believe that success—­the real success—­does not depend upon the position you hold, but upon how you carry yourself in that position.  There is no man here to-day who has not the chance so to shape his life after he leaves this university that he shall have the right to feel, when his life ends, that he has made a real success of it; and his making a real success of it does not in the least depend upon the prominence of the position he holds.  Gentlemen, I thank you, and I am glad I have violated the poet’s hope and have preached to you.

Transcriber’s Note:  Original “explaning”

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BRITISH RULE IN AFRICA

Address Delivered at the Guildhall, London, May 31, 1910[11]

[11] The occasion of this address was the ceremony in the Guildhall in which Mr. Roosevelt was presented by the Corporation of the City of London (the oldest corporation in the world), with the Freedom of the City.  Sir Joseph Dimsdale, on behalf of the Lord Mayor and the Corporation, made the address of presentation.—­L.F.A.

It is a peculiar pleasure to me to be here.  And yet I cannot but appreciate, as we all do, the sadness of the fact that I come here just after the death of the Sovereign whom you so mourn, and whose death caused such an outburst of sympathy for you throughout the civilized world.  One of the things I shall never forget is the attitude of that great mass of people, assembled on the day of the funeral, who in silence, in perfect order, and with uncovered heads, saw the body of the dead King pass to its last resting-place.  I had the high honor of being deputed to come to the funeral as the representative of America, and by my presence to express the deep and universal feeling of sympathy which moves the entire American people for the British people in their hour of sadness and trial.

I need hardly say how profoundly I feel the high honor that you confer upon me; an honor great in itself, and great because of the ancient historic associations connected with it, with the ceremonies incident to conferring it, and with the place in which it is conferred.  I am very deeply appreciative of all that this ceremony means, all that this gift implies, and all the kind words which Sir Joseph Dimsdale has used in conferring it.  I thank you heartily for myself.  I thank you still more because I know that what you have done is to be taken primarily as a sign of the respect and friendly good-will which more and more, as time goes by, tends to knit together the English-speaking peoples.