By the time the circuit opened in July I knew theoretically how to use my voice; but I soon found that to do it without now and then getting it into my throat, making horrible noises and throwing myself into nervous panics, I must be more conscious of it than was good for my method of handling my material. Indeed, it was not until my second year of speaking that I could count on my voice for the hour of the performance. I never came to a point where I did not have to ask that a glass of water be put within reach—just in case. I found a glass of water a safety device if my attention was distracted for a moment and I lost my line of argument. I could pick it up, pretend to drink, change my position, regain poise. So much for my voice. I knew how to make people hear what I was saying. Now as to material. I was to talk on the same subject day after day. That is, I was supposed to make daily the same speech. I was afraid of a memorized speech. A lecture experience of my old friend George Kennan was largely responsible for that. After he had published his classic work on Siberia Mr. Kennan took his story to the lecture platform. He wrote his lecture with characteristic care—memorized it and repeated it night after night on the long tours he made. It was an admirable lecture, one of the most moving I ever heard. In telling me of his platform experiences Mr. Kennan dropped this warning: “In giving a memorized lecture one must be very careful that no two sentences end with the same words. In my lecture on Siberia I unwittingly used five or six identical words to end different sentences—one near the opening, the other near the closing of my talk. One night when perhaps I was unusually tired, instead of picking up what followed the first sentence I picked up the words that followed the second. That is, I was ending my lecture when I had only just begun it. I saved myself, but after that I always took care that there were no two sentences in my talk with identical, even similar endings.”