On Dec. 5, 1905, 170 friends and writers gathered at Delmonico’s in Manhattan to celebrate 70-year-old Mark Twain’s recent birthday. President Theodore Roosevelt sent a telegram of congratulations and praise, the press gave the event play in the papers, and people from around the country saluted Twain as the United States’ premier humorist and storyteller.
But it isn’t this glittering occasion that’s remembered as much as Twain’s address to his audience that evening. He was in fine comedic form, ruminating on “the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful dignity,” and bringing bursts of laughter from the crowd. In that speech, there’s a great deal of wisdom on aging, some of it only implied, that might benefit some of us today.
