February 17 Wednesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Frances Nunnally.
Oh, you sweet Francesca, what a charming Valentine it is! Dear me but you are beautiful, you little rascal! We all think it just a shade, or maybe part of a shade, more beautiful than the exquisite Atlanta picture of you. Am I to put all the pictures of you out of sight except this one? Is that your idea? It isn’t going to happen. I'll merely change them around, from time to time. At present the London picture of you & me is on my dressing-table, here in my bed-room, & the Atlanta gem & the enlarged picture of you & me standing with the pergola-pillars for a background hang in the billiard room. For a time I will keep the new one with me until it is framed, then transfer it & let it glorify the Aquarium--or the "Tank," as we sometimes call it.
It came in the mail an hour ago, & Ashcroft brought it to me as soon as he had finished his breakfast. It nearly took my breath away. He has just left for New York, He is to get it framed, & bring it back when he comes day after tomorrow for the week-end. The inscription is to be cut out & countersunk in the picture-mat. I am strenuously at work on an article taking sides in the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, but I can’t possibly resume until I’ve thanked you for this lovely reproduction of your lovely self.
By my calculation you will be snatched up & married by some daring young adventurer within a twelvemonth; & if he is up to standard he will get my blessing—otherwise, bricks in place of it. Fetch him here & let me look him over & make up my mind as to whether I’ll have him in the family or not. Beatrice will fetch her young person up, next month, for judgement. She confided to me very privately a fortnight ago, that possesses such a person, She is twenty, & I have known her 16 years. See that you give me early notice, too. It is my right.
My, you ought to see the place this morning! The sun is brilliant, there’s a wind blowing, the tall grasses & the shrubs are bowing & scraping, every blade is strung with ice-beads, every bead is white, or blue, or green, or yellow, or red; and so from every window you see a wide & flashing & fiery splendor of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, & all the other imperial jewels you can name or think of. Alas, alas, alas, & you not here!
Most lovingly, you' dear child— / S L C [MTP; MTAq 249-51].
Note; the latter source offers this on Sam’s MS he was “hard at work” on: “ Between January and March 1909 Clemens worked on his manuscript “Is Shakespeare Dead?,” in which he disputed the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays. Clemens quoted extensively from a manuscript by Granville George Greenwood (1850-1928), The Shakespeare Problem Restated (1908) without credit, and no one close to him was enthusiastic about the project. Harpers was obliged to publish it, according to the terms of their contract. Lyon recorded that John Albert Macy sent Greenwood’s book, which arrived on Feb. 5, 1909. See Feb. 25 to Macy; also Gribben 276.
Mrs. F.M. Andrews wrote from Memphis, Tenn. trying to trace the genealogy of her great uncle Isaiah Sellars, whom she thought was a character in one of Sam’s books [MTP].
Frederick A. Duneka wrote to advise Sam that he’d been in error when he said Harpers published Ignatius Donnelly’s “Cryptogram’—it was his “Atlantis” which they published. The former was impossible to find. “I am sending you to-day two pamphlets which are rather rare on the controversy, and from time to time will send you other Bacon-Shakespeare material.../ A little Stormonth Dictionary was sent you yesterday, which I hope you will like as much as I do. It has the only decent synonyms of any book I know’ [MTP]. Note: IVL: “Thank him ever so much for the interest he has taken”’
Elmira Press Club per J. Maxwell Beers, Milo Shanks, John M. Connelly, and Grant De Ved were listed on a printed “Annual Banquet Bulletin” sent for Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m. at the Hotel Rathbun, tickets $3 [MTP].
Lilian A. Gibbs wrote from Peterborough (NH) to enclose a drawing from a newspaper cutting of Mark Twain. The hand seems to be a child’s [MTP].
Frank Cavendish Lascelles wrote from the Savoy Hotel, London (on S.S. Lusitania notepaper) to bid Sam “Au Revoir” [MTP].