THE WORKS OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT: THE STRENUOUS LIFE.
Reading edition

THE PRESIDENT IN THE SADDLE
Mr. Roosevelt’s afternoon ride from the White House to Chevy Chase, across country and over Virginia fences

THE WORKS OF Theodore Roosevelt IN FOURTEEN VOLUMES, Illustrated
The Strenuous Life
Executive Edition
PUBLISHED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE PRESIDENT THROUGH SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT WITH THE CENTURY CO., MESSRS. CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, AND G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK P. F. COLLIER & SON, PUBLISHERS
12
Copyright 1900 By THE OUTLOOK COMPANY
Copyright 1900 By THE CHURCHMAN COMPANY
Copyright 1899 By THE S. S. McCLURE COMPANY
Copyright 1899, 1900, 1901 By THE CENTURY COMPANY
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. ... My mariners, Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honor and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done,— . . . . . . . . . . Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. —Tennyson’s “Ulysses.”
Ja! diesem Sinne bin ich ganz ergeben, Dass ist der Weisheit letzter Schluss; Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, Der täglich sie erobern muss. Und so verbringt, umrungen von Gefahr, Hier Kindheit, Mann und Greis sein tüchtig Jahr. Solch’ ein Gewimmel möcht’ ich sehn, Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn. —Goethe’s “Faust.”
Executive Mansion, Albany, N. Y. September, 1900.