August 25 Wednesday — William Dean Howells wrote from Carlsbad, Austria to Sam.
Dear Clemens: / Your friendly letter of prevention found me already taking quarts of cure, here. I hated abominably to come, but doctors and dear ones of all ages and sexes joined in thrusting me away. Surgeons suggested prying me open with cutlasses, and painted the process in glowing colors. But the next time I have bilious colic that ties me up in a double bow-knot I will get an osteopath to untangle me.
I was here before, you know, and it is all duller than the ditchwater one drinks: troops of yellow Jews with corkscrew curls before their ears; hordes of disemboweled and hipless hussies old [and] young; men with Tyrolean hats and goblets slung to their waists. The only good thing is the boiled ham.—I got the second volume of your Tramp Abroad out of the hotel library, and read it with the joy in you which never fails me. Read your Mrs. Eddy massacre just before I left home and gloated on every drop of her blood.
I have a fearful cold from a climate that boils you at noon and pierces you with Alpine cold at night. Pilla sends her love with mine to the whole lot of you. We hope to leave here two weeks from today and be in New York by October.—I hated so to come that I could not believe it real [MTHL 2: 847]. Note: source notes that the letter ended abruptly due to Howells running out of space. Howells referred to Twain’s Christan Science, etc.
Sam’s new guestbook:
| Name | Address | Date | Remarks |
| Mr. & Mrs. Peck | Over on the hilltop | "[Aug] 25 |