He had expected to have the manuscript finished pretty promptly, but the fact that he had promised it for a certain time paralyzed his effort.  Even at the farm he worked without making much headway.  At the end of October he wrote Howells: 

The weather turned cold, and we had to rush home, while I still lacked thirty thousand words.  I had been sick and got delayed.  I am going to write all day and two-thirds of the night until the thing is done or break down at it.  The spur and burden of the contract are intolerable to me.  I can endure the irritation of it no longer.  I went to work at nine o’clock yesterday morning and went to bed an hour after midnight.  Result of the day (mainly stolen from books though credit given), 9,500 words, so I reduced my burden by one-third in one day.  It was five days’ work in one.  I have nothing more to borrow or steal; the rest must all be written.  It is ten days’ work and unless something breaks it will be finished in five.

He had sworn once, when he had finally finished ‘A Tramp Abroad’, that he would never limit himself as to time again.  But he had forgotten that vow, and was suffering accordingly.

Howells wrote from London urging him to drop everything and come over to Europe for refreshment.

We have seen lots of nice people, and have been most pleasantly made of; but I would rather have you smoke in my face and talk for half a day, just for pleasure, than to go to the best house or club in London.

Clemens answered: 

Yes, it would be more profitable to me to do that because, with your society to help me, I should swiftly finish this now apparently interminable book.  But I cannot come, because I am not boss here, and nothing but dynamite can move Mrs. Clemens away from home in the winter season.

This was in November, and he had broken all restrictions as to time.  He declared that he had never had such a fight over any book before, and that he had told Osgood and everybody concerned that they must wait.

I have said with sufficient positiveness that I will finish the book at no particular date; that I will not hurry it; that I will not hurry myself; that I will take things easy and comfortably—­write when I choose to write, leave it alone when I do so prefer . . .  I have got everything at a dead standstill, and that is where it ought to be, and that is where it must remain; to follow any other policy would be to make the book worse than it already is.  I ought to have finished it before showing it to anybody, and then sent it across the ocean to you to be edited, as usual; for you seem to be a great many shades happier than you deserve to be, and if I had thought of this thing earlier I would have acted upon it and taken the tuck somewhat out of your joyousness.

It was a long, heartfelt letter.  Near the end of it he said: