May 18 Tuesday — In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Poultney Bigelow. “Dear Poultney: / Come, by all means! I shall be in New York, but that is nothing, for Jean will be here to welcome you & house you. With my best love to your father, / Ys ever / Mark” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Mr. M.B. Colcord in No. Plymouth, Mass.: “ Dear Mr. Colcord: / You see, all I want is to convince sane people that Shakspeare did not write Shakspeare. Who did, is a question which does not greatly interest me” [MTP].
Sam also wrote to Frances Nunnally at St. Timothy’s School in Catonsville, Md.
Certainly, you dear sweet, Francesca, you’ve answered every question to perfection, & I applaud! And so I have registered my itinerary—thus:
June 8. Go to New York.
June 9, “ “ Baltimore. (Belvedere.)
June 10. Taxtcab at 10 a.m for St. T.’s
Exercises to begin about 11,
During the exercises I am to talk to the girls.
Luncheon,
Taxicab to the Belvedere.
I shall certainly carry out this program if nothing of an insurmountable character intervenes to prevent it, dear heart. I would not disappoint you for any avoidable thing.
Don’t let Miss Carter take the trouble to invite me; it isn’t in the slightest degree necessary. I am coming as your auxiliary grandfather, & so the formalities are not requisite.
With lots of love / .... [MTP; MTAg 257-8].
Gertrude Carothers wrote from Pittsburgh, Pa. to ask Sam if he would come and give a reading next summer to the Mt. Holyoke Alumnae of Pittsburgh [MTP]. Note: “Ans’d May 22, ‘09”
Helen Giltinan wrote to Sam with tears in my eyes and rage in my heart” after reading JA. If she sent the book would he sign it? Her uncle was Ignatius Donnelly “and you know what that means” [MTP]. Note: “Ans’d May 22, ‘09”; Ignatius Donnelly (1831-1901), U.S. Congressman from Minn., best known for his theories concerning Atlantis, Catastrophism and Shakespearean authorship.