While we are all certainly free to grab Twain's writings by the scruff and
apply and misapply them to modern events and issues in any way we please,
it's quite a leap to speculate what Twain would have thought or said
himself. Fun maybe, but perhaps pointless as well.  For example, I think
some of Twain's anti-Imperialist writings on the Phillipines are remarkably
relevant to the Iraqi War, and others may disagree, but none of us know what
Twain would have thought of Iraq if he were alive today. Yes, we all think
we know, but none of us do.

To approach some understanding of what Twain thought about "mixed" marriages
at different points in his life, study his writings, and don't confine the
notion of "mixed" to race. In Twain's day marrying somebody of a different
religion or nationality could be an explosive challenge to some notions of
"social norms" just as much as marrying outside one's race. The earliest of
his writings I can think of that might apply would be the newspaper story
about local funds being sent to a miscegenation society back east that
forced him to flee Nevada in 1864. PW certainly applies at a later date.
What did Twain think of House and his "ward" or whatever she might have
been? Then Clara married a Russian and Twain, who really seemed to like
Ossip, had some oddly unenthusiastic things to say about that marriage, not
framed in racial or ethnic terms, but odd. I can't think of any close
friends or acquaintances of Twain who were in mixed marriages, and invite
anyone to cite an example, as well as other relevant writings. Finally,
given Twain's general avoidance of the subject of sex and his problems
handling his daughters as they asserted their independence, he seemed
uncomfortable with the idea of any of them marrying anybody, and the subject
of race seems distant.

Kevin Mac Donnell
Austin TX