June 29 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Helen Keller.
Dear Helen: / In that booklet I courteously hinted at the long-ago well established fact that even the most gifted human being is merely an ass, & always an ass, when his forbears have furnished him an idol to worship. Reasonings cannot convert him, facts cannot influence him. I wrote the booklet for pleasure—not in the expectation of convincing anybody that Shakspeare did not write Shakspeare. And don’t you write with any such expectation. Such labors are not worth the ink & the paper—except when you do them for the pleasure of it. Shakspeare the Stratford tradesman will still be the divine Shakspeare to our posterity a thousand years hence.
I am chained to Stormfield, by the doctor’s orders; not to stir a rod from the premises until the cold weather comes. / With love to you / ... [MTP].