May 1-7 Sunday – At the Hotel Krantz in Vienna, Austria, Sam wrote to Joe Twichell, enclosing a form letter invitation in German for a committee meeting from Bertha von Suttner.

I reckon the Peace Society must be feeling just a little sick, these days. I don’t see how a bright, dear, earnest creature like Bertha von Suttner can stand the situation the ridiculous Tsar has put it into. I used to attend the Society’s meetings here, although I was not interested, but it is no place at all for me now.

Business calls me to London indefinitely; so the family have decided to go along. We leave here in a couple of weeks, stopping a day or so in Prague, the same in Dresden, a night in Bremen & go to Southampton next day per s.s. “Lahn,” & thence to London. The saltwater will smell heavenly to me after this long privation [MTP].

Note: the “business” reason Sam felt necessary to go to London may be partially explained in his May 10 letter to Percy Spalding: Clara Clemens could be instructed there for a concert singing career with Blanche Marchesi. Dolmetsch points to another reason, not mentioned in any of Sam’s surviving letters—Jean’s epilepsy [300]. Jean had not responded to treatments in Vienna. Her seizures were occurring “as often as twice a day in 1899” [Hill 7]. Through contacts in Vienna the Clemens family heard of Jonas Henrik Kellgren (1837-1916) who had a “fashionable practice” in London and a sanatorium in Sweden based on remedial gymnastics—hardly curative for epilepsy, but little was known about the disorder at that time. Earlier plans had been to leave Vienna by late Sept. or early Oct., go to Scandanavia and perhaps St. Petersburg, Russia, then back to London and home, and undoubtedly included an evaluation by Kellgren. See also May 10 to Rogers. Sam later gave Poultney Bigelow credit for turning him on to Kellgren [July 30 to Walker].

Bertha von Suttner for Comite für Kundgebungen (Peace Society) sent a form letter invitation to a committee meeting; Sam sent it to Twichell with the above letter [MTP]. Note: Sam’s reply to von Suttner’s letter is possibly May 7.