December 15 Saturday –  Harper’s Weekly published Mark Twain’s letter to Henry Mills Alden to observe Alden’s 70 birthday. The letter was written sometime between Oct. 22 and Nov. 10, 1906.

ALDEN,—dear and ancient friend—it is a solemn moment. You have now reached the age of discretion. You have been a long time arriving. Many years ago you docked me on an article because the subject was too old; later, you docked me on an article because the subject was too new; later still, you docked me on an article because the subject was betwixt and between. Once, when I wrote a Letter to Queen Victoria, you did not put it in the respectable part of the Magazine, but interred it in that potter’s field, the Editor’s Drawer. As a result, she never answered it. How often we recall, with regret, that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember, with charity, that his intentions were good.

You will reform, now, Alden. You will cease from these economies, and you will be discharged. But in your retirement you will carry with you the admiration and earnest good wishes of the oppressed and toiling scribes. This will be better than bread. Let this console you when the bread fails. You will carry with you another thing, too—the affection of the scribes; for they all love you in spite of your crimes. For you bear a kind heart in your breast, and the sweet and winning spirit that charms away all hostilities and animosities, and makes of your enemy your friend and keeps him so. You have reigned over us thirty-six years, and, please God, you shall reign another thirty-six—“and peace to Mahmoud on his golden throne!” /Always yours, Mark

The Harper’s Weekly article was entitled “Mark Twain Soliloquizes on ‘Being Good’ and Decides to Let ‘Good Enough’ Alone,” p. 1790-1. Tenney: “Photographs of MT in a rocking chair on a porch at Dublin…with his comments. Reproduced in facsimile is his introductory note: ‘This series of 7 photographs registers with scientific precision, stage by stage, the progress of a moral purpose through the mind of the human race’s Oldest Friend SLC’” [“A Reference Guide Third Annual Supplement,” American Literary Realism, Autumn 1979 p. 190].

Herbert Welsh, a vice-president of the Anti-Imperialist League, wrote to Sam to reinterest him in the Philippine cause [MTP]. On or after this date Sam replied: “Interests are full to the brim—cannot find the time to add another one, they poison my life. The woes of the wronged & the unfortunate poison my life & make it so undesirable that pretty often I wish I were 90 instead of 70” [MTP].

Miss Bessie Hupp wrote from Chanute Kans. to ask Sam where she might get her song published [MTP].

Julia Barnett Rice wrote from NYC to thank Sam for going on the board of the Society for the Suppression of Noise [MTP].

John S. Phillips for American Magazine wrote to advise Sam that they were putting him on their complimentary list for another year. The magazine had changed hands and in many ways was new [MTP]. Note: Lyon wrote “Thank them handsomely very much obliged for extending the courtesy of that excellent magazine.”