>During Ward/Browne's stay in Virginia City, he, Clemens and Dan DeQuille (I
>believe), spend at least one drunken, riotous night on the town, and
>socialized frequently during Ward/Browne's stay. There is even mention of
>Ward/Browne promising Clemens a trip to Europe or the American East (I
>can't remember which), later in Clemens's lecture career that never came to
>fruition.

Point #1 -- Artemus Ward is not Charles Brockden Brown.

Point #2

I can go even farther than that -- at least speculatively speaking, of
course.  And that is to point out the by now notorious conclusions posited
by Andy Hoffman in his recent bio, _Inventing Mark Twain_ -- the notion of
Twain's homosexuality.  Hoffman describes MT, for instance, as

 "[t]hrowing himself into a flash romantic attachment with Ward," whom
Hoffman describes as "a flamboyant member of the New York bohemian scene
and one of the most frankly homosexual men in the entire literary circle."
(see pp. 84-5).

This is of course old news to most of the folks on this LIST.  But
nowadays, personally speaking, I remember these sonclusions whenever
Charles F. Browne (ie Artemus Ward, not the author of Wieland) is
mentioned.

One final note:     Before anyone "new" asks, by the way, the archives
record many LIST-members' personal takes on the issue of MT's supposed gay
life out west.  It was early in 1997, if I recall.   I bring all of this up
at the risk, of course, of re-stirring up some old war injuries among
Twainians.   However, it is a Friday at the end of a long, long semester;
and we all have our little idiosyncracies. . . .


--hb


**=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=**

Dr. Harold K. Bush
Assistant Professor
Dept. of English
Saint Louis University
221 N. Grand Blvd.
Saint Louis, MO  63103

314-977-3631;   fax  314-977-1514