Autograph letter signed with initials : Boston, to "Dear Will" [William Winter], 1904 December 2.

Concerning an incident in which the drama critic Mr. [Walter Prichard] Eaton allegedly told the theater manager Mr. Schaeffel "that the statement that 'Judith of Bethulia' was a failure in Boston was written by" recipient William Winter, and going on to explain that, "It was not a quotation of your criticism on Miss O'Neil's 'Magda'. Mr. Schaeffel is an old theatre manager, and when he sees in the N.Y. Tribune a dramatic article signed 'W.W.' he doesn't have to ask who wrote it. But he did want to know about that special paragraph damning the play beforehand."; Aldrich goes on to defend the merits of Miss [Nance] O'Neil as a tragic actress and his decision to cast her in his aforementioned play "Judith of Bethulia": "She has fifty glaring faults, a hundred, if you will, but she has the gift of tragic passion, and, as far as I know, she is the only woman on the English speaking stage who has. ... Her 'Magda' seem[s?] to me very moving; God has spared me from seeing 'Hedda Gabler' acted, though he has allowed me to read it; Miss O'Neil as Maria, in the evil-smelling 'Fires of St. John', is something I don't care to look upon again. But she played my piece at the Tremont with tragic power, dignity, and sincerity".