I have been
permitted a certain amount of domestic felicity as my strength was best
conserved thereby, my mind free to concentrate upon public duties. I was
endowed with the gift of fascination, that men should follow me without
question, and this country be served with immediate effectiveness, I
have received deep and profound satisfaction from both these
concessions, but it would not matter in the least if I had not. They
were inevitable with the equipment for the part I had to play. I have
had an astonishing and conquering career against the mightiest
obstacles, and I may as a further concession, be permitted an enduring
place in history; but that, also, is by the way. I conquered, not to
gratify my love of power and to win immortal fame, but that I might
accomplish the part for which I was whirled here from an almost
inaccessible island fifteen hundred miles away--to play my part in the
creation of this American empire. It has been a great part, creatively
the greatest part. The proof that no native-born American could have
played it lies in the fact that he did not.
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