September – The second of two installments of “A Horse’s Tale” ran in Harper’s Monthly, and included five illustrations by Lucius Wolcott Hitchcock. Harper’s would publish both segments as a 153-page book by the same name on Oct. 24, 1907.
The first of 25 chapters of Mark Twain’s Autobiography selected by George B. Harvey appeared in the North American Review, and would run each month through Dec. 1907, each installment prefaced by an editor’s note: “No part of the autobiography will be published in book form during the lifetime of the author.” The New York Evening World, Sept. 10, p. 13 reported:
THE MAN WHO IS INTERESTED.
In the opening chapter of Mark Twain’s “Autobiography,” as given in the current number of the North American Review, there is a particularly fine sentence. This is it:
If I should talk to the stenographer two hours a day for a hundred years, I should still never be able to set down a tenth part of the things which have interested me in my lifetime.
This declaration is as inspiring as a confession of faith. Indeed, it is such a confession. It expresses faith in men and in the world as things worth while. It is the embodiment in simple words of an optimist’s creed. It sets forth one very excellent reason why Mark Twain, having gone past seventy years, is still going at an undiminished rate.
The man of a thousand interests does not travel in a rut. Its worst foe is he who loses himself in apathy.
In Dublin, N.H. Sam drafted a telegram to Melville E. Stone, President of Associated Press, N.Y.C. This is a reply to Stone’s telegram (not extant): “I will make a nonsense speech, but none on a serious topic. I never have a serious hour nowadays. In your program make S. Langhorne speaker number 3 and Mark Twain speaker number 4. I will explain when you come. I shall expect you, your room will be ready for you. Clemens” [MTP].
Sam also wrote on a small card (perhaps for another telegram: “NIGHT MESSAGE”) to Melville E. Stone. “Give me second place if possible, third place anyhow. If there are to be ladies I may wish to bring a member or two of my family” [MTP].
Critic ran a brief anonymous review of Eve’s Diary, p. 288. In full: “An attractive account has been made out of Mark Twain’s rather brief account of the emotions of Eve in the Garden during Adam’s courtship, with alternating pages of drawing and of text. There is no little ingenuity in the development of Eve’s character and knowledge of the world, as well as a touch of seriousness which sets off the humor. Possibly the book is less individual than some others by the same author, but there is no little charm in its pages. Every one will wish to read it” [Tenney: “A Reference Guide Sixth Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Spring 1982 p. 10].