September 18 Sunday – At the Hotel Des Balances in Lucerne, Switzerland Sam wrote to Susan L. Crane. Sam thanked her for a pen she sent, and teased her for going “off without filling my traveling inkstand,” which she’d given him. He told of progress made on Tom Sawyer Abroad and his “Twins” book (which became PW and also the Twins story). He also wrote of their travel woes with Livy’s condition:

We remained in Nauheim a little too long. If we had left there four or five days earlier we should have made Florence in 3 days; but by the time we got started Livy had got smitten with what we feared might be erysipelas — greatly swollen neck & face, & unceasing headaches. We lay idle in Frankfort 4 days doctoring. …

We reached here Friday evening & will leave to-morrow (Tuesday) [Monday] morning. The rest has made the headaches better. We shall pull through to Milan to-morrow if possible. Next day we shall start at 10 a.m., & try to make Bologna, 5 hours. Next day (Thursday) Florence, D.V. Next year we will walk; for these excursions have got to be made over again. When we get to Florence one of us will take Clara back to Berlin in case the Hamburg epidemic is still diminishing. The new governess will get that job, as like as not. …

Dr. Bode has kept up a volley of inquiring telegrams ever since Livy left Nauheim. I wish we had him along. His mere presence would give confidence & be curative. We shouldn’t swell so much nor have so many headaches [MTP].

Note: Kaplan writes of Livy’s new ailment,

“More likely it was the onset of acute hyperthyroid heart disease. Throughout the rest of her life she was subject to attacks of shortness of breath, complained of the heat and of overexcitement, and was terrified, when her attacks were severe, that she was choking to death” [315].

Sam also wrote a short note to Frederick J. Hall, advising he’d sent 16,000 words of Tom Sawyer Abroad to him with the rest of part I, about 25,000 words to be mailed from Frankfurt “by & by when it has been copied.” The family was on the way to Florence, and would “get there some time or other” [MTP].