January 12 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam replied to the Jan. 8 from General Oliver Otis Howard (1830-1909).
Dear General Howard:
You pay me a most gratifying compliment in asking me to preside, & it causes me very real regret that I am obliged to decline, for the object of the meeting appeals strongly to me, since that object is to aid in raising the $500,000 Endowment Fund for Lincoln Memorial University.
January 11 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam inscribed his photo to Anne Sullivan Macy
(Mrs. John Albert Macy): “To Mrs. John Sullivan Macy, with warm regard, & with limitless admiration of the wonders she has performed as a miracle-worker—/ Mark Twain / Stormfield, Jan. 11/09.” [MTP].
Sam’s new guestbook:
Name Address Date Remarks
Helen Keller Jan. 11 [see below]
January 10 Sunday – Richard Watson Gilder wrote on Wells College, Aurora NY letterhead to ask Sam if he could be present on Wed. Jan. 13 at Carnegie Hall, 5 p.m. for a meeting in memory of Stedman—“if it wouldn’t be a burden” [MTP].
January 9 Saturday – The Armstrong Assoc. of New York, per May Hurlburt sent Sam tickets for a box at Carnegie Hall on Jan. 22 [MTP].
Diana Belais, President of the New York Anti-Vivisection Society wrote to ask Sam for a letter of introduction to Harpers, as they were in “a terrific fight …against the Medical Society of New York, which has banded indissolubly to crush out our movement” [MTP].
January 8 Friday – John Albert Macy brought galleys of Some Acrostic Signatures of Francis Bacon, etc. (1909) by William Stone Booth (1864-1926) . Sam then wrote the first pages of “Is Shakespeare Dead?” Sam thereby became convinced that “Booth, had demonstrated, beyond any doubt or question, that the Bacon signatures were there” (in Shakespeare’s works) [Gribben 77; MTB 1479, 1485-6].
Sam’s new guestbook:
Name Address Date Remarks
Annie S. Macy
January 7 Thursday – Sam’s new guestbook:
Name Address Date Remarks
H.W. Dearborn [signed] [New York] Jan. 7
Ragnvald Blix began a letter to Sam that he finished Jan. 21 [MTP]. Note: not found at MTP.
January 6 Wednesday – Anna L. Cunningham wrote to thank Sam for the box of chocolates [MTP]. Note: “Telephone girl”
January 5 Tuesday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote a three-paragraph letter (again on the Children’s Theatre letterhead) to an unidentified person, inviting to a course of lectures at the Lyceum Theatre [MTP: Cordelia and Tom Platt catalogs, Nov. 1993, Item 1F]. Note: like the Jan. 4 letter this and likely several others were sent out to promote “the dramatic instinct in education.”
January 4 Monday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to the Telephone Operators.
To the Young Ladies of the Telephone Office:
I have received your kind & welcome notes, & I thank you for them, & wish you a happy New year, with many & many others to follow.
Your obliged & appreciative friend Mark Twain [MTP]. Note: Sam sent each operator a box of candy.
Sam also wrote on The Educational Theatre for Children letterhead, to an unidentified man.
January 3 Sunday – In Redding, Conn. Sam wrote to Margaret Blackmer at the Misses Tewksbury’s School, Washington-on-Hudson, N.Y.