July 26 Wednesday – Jean Clemens’ thirteenth birthday. In a letter from Krankenheil-Tölz, Germany to Orion and Mollie Clemens, Sam confided, “Jean has been crying at breakfast. It is her birthday & she is deadly homesick.” Sam also discussed Livy’s diagnosis by “the highest authority in Europe,” which contradicted “two American and three European doctors that she had incurable heart disease.” He confided the family’s plans and Susy’s challenge.

We have been here 2 weeks, & shall go hence in 3 weeks more. Livy & Clara will run down to Munich to-morrow & ship Susy to Franzenbad in Bohemia in charge of a governess — to take the baths there during the remaining 3 weeks that Livy & Clara take them here.

The great voice-trainer in Paris gave Susy 12 lessons — under protest — & then ordered her to bathe 3 weeks at Franzenbad, take the air above the clouds at St. Maurice 3 weeks, then 2 weeks of sea-bathing, meantime eating certain specified hearty food & great abundance of it & never using her voice except to talk with — then return in October & if she was then no longer a bloodless weakling but a person with a body robust & capable of supporting a singing voice, the lessons would be continued, but not otherwise. This teacher being monarch & without rival or competitor, is privileged to command, & must be obeyed. Therefore Susy eats — for the first time in her life. And she has to make those 3 gigantic journeys, too. Two of them the whole tribe will have to make — if the doctor will allow Livy to climb so high as St. Maurice. Besides, Clara & I have got to make a flyer from St. Maurice clear to Berlin & back. Providence is hurrying us this year [MTP].

Sam also wrote to Frederick J. Hall, first about terms to offer on the sale of LAL, and second on the cursed typesetter:

I hope the machine will be finished this month; but it took me four years & cost me $100,000 to finish the other machine after it was apparently entirely complete & setting type like a house-afire.

I wonder what they call “finished.” After it is absolutely perfect it can’t go into a printing-office until it has a months’ wear, running night & day, to get all the bearings smooth, I judge.

Sam then spun a new plan, and said he’d be over “about mid-October” — if the LAL had been sold he wanted to start a magazine, “inexpensive, and of an entirely unique sort,” with Arthur Stedman and his father Edmund Clarence Stedman as editors.

But we cannot undertake it until L A L is out of the way. With our hands free & some capital to spare, we could make it hum [MTLTP 352-4].

Note: evidently Sam was having second thoughts about getting completely out of business, and his suitability for it. The magazine was to be called “The Back Number,” and be comprised of old newspaper articles and journals. Sam also entertained the idea of his nephew, Samuel Moffett being editor [MTLTP 354n2; NB 33, TS 24, 37, 46].