Fame is one’s misfortune. Clara Barton did not seek fame, she sought work; fame was thrust upon her. It may be enjoyable to achieve fame, but it is misery to be a slave to fame. Only when the possessor of fame is dead can there come compensation—_that’s a monument_. A famous English Cardinal moaned, “Would that I had served my God with half the zeal I served my king!” A world-famed French philosopher soliloquized, “What a heavy burden is a name that has become famous!” An immortal American President said: “I wish I had never been born—my position is anything but a bed of roses.” Again, in the nation’s darkest night, despairingly this same President said: “Oh, if there is a man out of hell that suffers more than I do I pity him.” Another, America’s most beloved President, advised a small boy: “Grow up to be a good man, a useful man, but don’t try to be President; it won’t pay you.” Responsive to an admirer, who said “I helped to nominate you,” a world-famed President in the afternoon of his release, with nerves shattered, from an invalid chair commented: “Yes, you helped me into a lot of trouble.” Even more than a famous man does a famous woman “belong to history and self-sacrifice.” In the evening following an “afternoon at home” to a thousand people, in full dress, and while sitting on the floor entertaining her little children with their toys, America’s most famous society entertainer and wife of a multimillionaire U. S. Senator, was heard to say, “This is the only pleasure I get out of Washington society.” To reach the heights of mere social fame is an achievement of folly. To live in an atmosphere of social aristocracy is to live on a desert-waste; the only attraction, the mirage that deceives. On the steamer, while in ill health on her way to Europe, in her diary, Clara Barton philosophizes: Is my life really worth while? I give all of my time and strength to the public that seems unappreciative. In obscurity I might have had health, at least personal comfort. I might have married and had a home, a family of children; I might have taken up painting or literature, in each of which my friends say I have ability. In either of such life’s work I might have achieved success. As it is, even while serving the public, I am alone in the world, buffeted about and nobody seems to care for me unless to use me for some purpose. I wonder whether or not any woman thinks her life a success? Oh, well, I guess it was intended that I should do the work I am doing, forget myself and live for others, so I might as well make the best of it and try to be happy.