November 30 Friday – Sam’s 65th Birthday.

At 1410 W. 10th in N.Y.C. Sam wrote a postcard to Richard Watson Gilder, editor of Century Magazine: “I am laid up, but some time when you drop in I will tell you what Harpers said” [MTP].

Sam also wrote to an unidentified woman, likely a neighbor, who complained about noisy boys gathering on his front steps.

I know I ought to respect my duty & perform it, but I am weak & faithless where boys are concerned, & I can’t help secretly approving pretty bad & noisy ones, though I do object to the kind that ring door-bells. My family try to get me to stop the boys from holding conventions on the front steps, but I basely shirk out of it, because I think the boys enjoy it. And I believe I enjoy it a little, too, because it pesters the family.

My wife has been complaining to me this evening about the boys on the front steps, & under compulsion I have made some promises. But I am very forgetful, now that I am old & my sense of duty getting spongy [MTP]. Note: isn’t this a perfect and typically Mark Twain reply?

Richard Watson Gilder, Robert Underwood Johnson, and Clarence C. Buel wrote a handmade birthday card to Sam, writing in a diamond pattern, with the border as: “Congratulations; Good Wishes; Forgiveness for all sins (General Clemens—See?); and a Fortunate Horoscope”. In the middle of the diamond: “1835 / November 30 / 1900” with the signatures of Gilder, Johnson and C.C. Buel [MTP].

Oscar Wilde chose Sam’s birthday to die in Paris.