Excerpt from De Senectute

During the forty years that I have been a member of the Chicago Literary Club, never, except on the most imperative necessity, have I refused to respond to a demand made by its exercise committee on my limited powers of expression. Therefore, when one of those entrusted with the task of furnishing essayists for this year asked me last summer for a paper during the coming winter, I assented, involuntarily reflecting as I did so on the uncertainty of human life, and half wondering whether at my age a moral debt of this kind, payable so many months away, was not a most uncertain obligation. I was not prepared, however, for the suggestion which came pat upon my promise and my thought. "I have a subject for you, " said the suave committeeman. I was startled.

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