Doesn't Twain's story about Quarry Farm's Aunty Cord ("A True
Story...") express how beyond naivete Twain was--to ask a woman who
lost to slavery her husband and all seven children why she had not had
any trouble in 60 years?  Not only was this his entrance to literary
acceptance via the Atlantic Monthly, but maybe also his entrance into
the real world of black people.  But we shouldn't be too harsh on him
should we, considering how Dempsey in "Searching for Jim" reveals how
it wasn't just Hannibal that whitewashed more than fences.  Most of the
entire America failed to see the bleakness of slavery, and many still
do.  I cringe at the number of relatives and acquaintances  I have who
still speak so naively that it rings of blatant racism.  More
importantly, how do scholars characterize Twain, overall, today; did he
not more than make up for his own shortsightedness by such courageous
gestures (I'm hearing the words of the master, Vic Doyno) that included
helping blacks through college, not to mention the Huck Finn monument
against racism?

Ron Owens
(in MT's "a foretaste of heaven" Elmira)
[although today if feels like elsewhere]