December – Cooley writes of the decline of the Aquarium Club, something notable in less correspondence beginning this month:  

By the early winter of 1908 the Aquarium Club had begun to decline. The number of Clemens’s letters to his angelfish diminished, and he no longer pleaded for visits. In contrast to the one hundred or more letters he wrote to them in 1908, there are but twenty-five known letters from Clemens to angelfish for all of 1909, and very few surviving letters in reply. Half the angelfish swam from his Aquarium altogether, and no new “fish” were caught to take their places. Not only were there fewer letters but also significant changes in mood and content. Clemens frequently complained about his poor health, urged his angelfish to stop growing up, and muttered about their boyfriends. In these final letters he begins to sound, for the first time, like an old man admonishing his granddaughters to fold their wings and “quiet down.” When he is not complaining about the “lawless” qualities he loved but a year earlier, his letters are still warm and affectionate, though missing the exuberance so often present during the previous years [MTAq 234].

Dorothy Butes sent Sam a signed Christmas card [MTP].

Dr. Edward Quintard wrote to encourage Sam to attend a the Post-Graduate Medical School dinner [MTP].

Silk Association of America sent Sam a calligraphied invite with seal to their 37th annual banquet at the Waldorf on Feb. 11 [MTP]. Note: IVL: “Unable to be present”