July 16 Monday – Sam’s notebook: “PLASMON 12 / Smythe, 16 Adams st Portmon Square” [NB 43 TS 22].
At Dollis Hill House in London, England Sam wrote to C.F. Moberly Bell, editor of the London Times, and enclosed, “The Missionary in World-Politics,” which he wanted printed anonymously. He did not send the note nor the essay, however.
Dear Mr. Bell:
Don’t give me away, whether you print it or not.
But I think you ought to print it & try to get up a squabble, for the weather is just suitable.
Maybe you are not in town; then I’ll mark it “private.”
If you are in town, do drive out here with the family & take a cup of tea & fan yourselves under the tree & roll in the grass. / Ys sincerely…[MTP; MTB 1097 in part]. Note: The MTP has recently changed this date from July 9? to July 16. [MTP; Who Is Mark Twain? xxvi; 103-9]. See also xvii, xx-xxi where Robert H. Hirst provides helpful facts. At the end of the letter, in pencil, Sam wrote, “Not sent.”
Sam wrote to Joe Twichell
Oh, the human race!—what a ridiculous invention it is. The duty-inspired sheriff, working that poor devil to death to keep him alive until he could be hanged. It is funny enough to make a person cry.
The ghostly news has come to-day, at last, & the Peking legations are a shambles; this news was long ago foreseen, but it did not postpone the Queen’s garden party. It’s the human-race—that explains everything; & to my mind excuses everything a man may do, too. And look to South Africa—that black blot upon England. Let us hope there is no hereafter; I don’t want to train with any angels made out of human material. Europe is going to sup in hell, there in China, I think—& will richly deserve it. …I believe the human race is filthier today than it ever was before; & that is saying much. [Sam described Dollis Hill as] “the loveliest place I have ever lived in” [and didn’t know how Livy would be able to leave it.] Jean drives into town every day to Kellgren’s, sometimes with Livy, sometimes with the maid, but I stay at home. Visitors drive out to tea, or come by rail, as suits their taste [MTP].
T. Douglas Murray wrote to Sam that he’d asked his friend William Crookes about Plasmon; Murray wasn’t sure what scientists thought of the product. He would like Crookes, an analytical chemist, to “analyse & swear to Plasmon as the best thing out.” What did Sam think? “His name would rank with Virchow” [MTP]. Note: see Crooke’s of July 12 to Murray and Sam.