the attainment of seventy years by America's
most distinguished man of letters and private citizen was a circumstance
which could not be moderately or even modestly observed. The date
was set five days later than the actual birthday--that is to say, on
December 5th, in order that it might not conflict with the various
Thanksgiving holidays and occasions. Delmonico's great room was chosen
for the celebration of it, and invitations were sent out to practically
every writer of any distinction in America, and to many abroad. Of these
nearly two hundred accepted, while such as could not come sent pathetic
regrets.

What an occasion it was! The flower of American literature gathered
to do honor to its chief. The whole atmosphere of the place seemed
permeated with his presence, and when Colonel Harvey presented William
Dean Howells, and when Howells had read another double-barreled sonnet,
and introduced the guest of the evening with the words, "I will not say,
'O King, live forever,' but, 'O King, live as long as you like!'" and
Mark Twain rose, his snow-white hair gleaming above that brilliant
assembly, it seemed that a world was speaking out in a voice of applause
and welcome. With a great tumult the throng rose, a billow of life,
the white handkerchiefs flying foam-like on its crest. Those who had
gathered there realized that it was a mighty moment, not only in his
life but in theirs. They were there to see this supreme embodiment of
the American spirit as he scaled the mountain-top. He, too, realized the
drama of that moment--the marvel of it--and he must have flashed a swift
panoramic view backward over the long way he had come, to stand, as he
had himself once expressed it, "for a single, splendid moment on the
Alps of fame outlined against the sun." He must have remembered; for
when he came to speak he went back to the very beginning, to his very
first banquet, as he called it, when, as he said, "I hadn't any hair; I
hadn't any teeth; I hadn't any clothes." He sketched the meagerness
of that little hamlet which had seen his birth, sketched it playfully,
delightfully, so that his hearers laughed and shouted; but there was
always a tenderness under it all, and often the tears were not far
beneath the surface. He told of his habits of life, how he had attained
seventy years by simply sticking to a scheme of living which would kill
anybody else; how he smoked constantly, loathed exercise, and had no
other regularity of hab