The New Orleans plan was not wholly dead at this time.  Howells wrote near the end of January that the matter was still being debated, now and then, but was far from being decided upon.  He hoped to go somewhere with Mrs. Howells for a brief time in March, he said.  Clemens, in haste, replied: 

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: 

Hartford, Jan. 26, 1875.  My dear Howells,—­When Mrs. Clemens read your letter she said:  “Well, then, wherever they go, in March, the direction will be southward and so they must give us a visit on the way.”  I do not know what sort of control you may be under, but when my wife speaks as positively as that, I am not in the habit of talking back and getting into trouble.  Situated as I am, I would not be able to understand, now, how you could pass by this town without feeling that you were running a wanton risk and doing a daredevil thing.  I consider it settled that you are to come in March, and I would be sincerely sorry to learn that you and Mrs. Howells feel differently about it.

The piloting material has been uncovering itself by degrees, until it has exposed such a huge hoard to my view that a whole book will be required to contain it if I use it.  So I have agreed to write the book for Bliss. —­[The book idea was later given up for the time being.]—­I won’t be able to run the articles in the Atlantic later than the September number, for the reason that a subscription book issued in the fall has a much larger sale than if issued at any other season of the year.  It is funny when I reflect that when I originally wrote you and proposed to do from 6 to 9 articles for the magazine, the vague thought in my mind was that 6 might exhaust the material and 9 would be pretty sure to do it.  Or rather it seems to me that that was my thought—­can’t tell at this distance.  But in truth 9 chapters don’t now seem to more than open up the subject fairly and start the yarn to wagging.

I have been sick a-bed several days, for the first time in 21 years.  How little confirmed invalids appreciate their advantages.  I was able to read the English edition of the Greville Memoirs through without interruption, take my meals in bed, neglect all business without a pang, and smoke 18 cigars a day.  I try not to look back upon these 21 years with a feeling of resentment, and yet the partialities of Providence do seem to me to be slathered around (as one may say) without that gravity and attention to detail which the real importance of the matter would seem to suggest. 
                              Yrs ever
          
                              Mark.