Gregg Camfield wrote (March 29) in part:
> It has always seemed to me that delirium tremens explains much of the
> mess that is _CY_.  Granted, Twain often prefaces his stories with a
> warning that the contents might be spirited, as when he says at the
> beginning of _Roughing It_ that "the tighter I get, the more I leak
> wisdom," but the order of delirium in _Yankee_ is much higher.  Is Hank
> that much tighter?  . . . Why . . .  the frame's suggestion
> that Hank is a drunk?

"Midnight being come at length, I read another tale, for a night-cap . .
. As I laid the book down there was a knock on my door, and my stranger
came in. . . . I also comforted him with a hot Scotch whiskey; gave him
another one . . .hoping always for his story. . . .After a fourth
persuader, he drifted into it himself, in a quite simple and natural way"
(_CY_,Cal,2,5)

I had the impression that the first narrator (Twain) has been drinking
before the arrival of Hank and that Twain is not sitting empty-handed
watching Hank drink.  So couldn't it be that Twain is the one who's tight
and that Hank, along with the manuscript, is the product of Twain's delirium?

Or could this be more of Twain's autobiographical fiction and he's telling
us he got the ideas for a novel with a good book in one hand and Scotch
whiskey in the other?

Thanks for reading my thoughts on the subject, and thanks to Greg for
making me think.

larry marshburne           [log in to unmask]