December 3 Saturday – At 21 Fifth Ave. in N.Y.C. Sam wrote to Frederick A. Duneka. It may interest you to know that all of half of the letters I get concerning the Joan sketch are from Catholics; & are strongly (even fervently) complimentary, every time. “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again.” I tried to please both the British & the Boers, & didn’t succeed; I tried to please both the imperialists & the anti’s; I tried to please both the China missionaries & the clean people; I tried to please both Mother Eddy & her enemies—& failed in all these cases. But I’ve got both sides this time, anyway. Let me die now—it is a good time. I can’t score again [MTP].

Ralph W. Ashcroft sent a telegram to Sam from “SS Minnetonka vis SS La Touraine via Marconi Stn Sagaponack NY 3” –“This is a birthday anniversary congratulator Marconigram from Ashcroft” [MTP].

George W. Reeves wrote to Sam. “Enclosed please find bill for premium on insurance policy…on the Tarrytown buildings, expires May 1905…” [MTP]. Lyon wrote on the letter,“Mr. Clemens has no policy Mr. R. attended to it himself.”

James Careton Young wrote from Minneapolis, Minn. to Sam, once again asking for Mark Twain books for his planned library, and enclosing an article, “A Unique Library” from an unspecified magazine—all the books have inscriptions in them by the authors [MTP]. Note: See Apr. 30, 1903 from Young.

Richard Watson Gilder’s article, “Mark Twain: A Glance at His Spoken and Written Art,” ran in The Outlook (NY), p. 842-4. Tenney: “The two forms of his art overlap; both are marked by strong convictions and a dramatic presentation. On p. 843, a full-page portrait of MT, ‘Drawn from life for the Outlook by Kate Rogers Nowell’” [39].