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[[preprinted]]
MILWAUKEE SCHOOL OF MUSIC.
JOHN C. FILLMORE, DIRECTOR.

Milwaukee, Wis., ^[[Feb. 4th, 1894.]] 189
[[/preprinted]]

My dear Miss Fletcher:  To-day is my 5Ist birthday. I don't feel as if my life had amounted to very much thus far, and I don't see that ^[[it]] is likely to be worth much more in the possible quarter-century which remains. But I have at least tried to do my best; and if I have failed, through infirmities and weakness, why, there will soon be an end of it all. As for a future life, I hope there isn't any, for me; at least unless it means the casting off of all the burdens of human infirmity which I have had to carry through this life. Well, it simply remains to do the best I can while it lasts.

The CENTURY has at last published my paper and has sent me a check for $I00, double what I hoped for. I have sent it to a trusty friend, to be invested for the benefit of my wife. It is time I began to make some sort of provision for her. It has taken all I could earn to live and educate my children; and my daughter, although well educated and a first class teacher, is probably a hopeless invalid. The boys are well enough but neither of them is earning much yet. Confound it, I don't see what this world was meant for, anyhow.

There, I am ashamed of writing you this stuff; but I wanted to talk with you a little bit, while the rest were gone to church; and I just [[strikethrough]] pu [[/strikethrough]] put down what was in my mind. Forgive me for doing it.