I've received this message from Robert Champ:

> Baetzhold's source for the Katy Leary quote is _A Lifetime
> with Mark Twain_ by Mary Lawton (New York, 1925), a book I
> have been unable to locate.  I would imagine though that
> Mrs. Leary's opinion was actually a reflection of a Twain
> fiat rather than a comment that that MT and Livy would
> have simply agreed to.

I am reluctant to accept any report from the Clemens
household about Mark Twain's opinions, especially on so
loaded a subject as sexual mores. We know that he loved his
wife so much that he was willing to suffer her censorship in
uncomfortable silence, even though her way of life was
anathema to him. His own daughter suppressed her father's
later writings until the 1960s, holding them a disgrace to
the family and requiring vows of secrecy from scholars in
exchange for permission to read them.

The only source for Twain's sexual views is Twain himself.

Point of information: Should not the date "1902" in your
citation in fact be 1892, three years before the Queensberry
accusation against Oscar Wilde?

Vicki Richman
Bedford, Brooklyn NY