In her recent posting, Ms. Vicki Richman comments, re my
citation of Howard Baetzhold and a comment therein by Katy Leary:

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

        I don't know, of course, that Katy Leary attributed anything
to Twain in the full quote from the Lawton book.  Her words may
have been simply a private opinion.  But usually the private
opinions of housekeepers on such matters are "cornpone" opinions
and don't stray very far from those of their employers.  I would
like to see that book, though.

        It is perhaps as germane to consider what Twain did not say.
A previous poster commented that he had never encountered any
remark of Twain's on the subject of homosexuality.  This has been
my experience, too.  Moreover, in all that mass of unpublished
writing which Bernard Devoto made available to us in Letters from
the Earth, the writings wherein Twain wrote "with a pen warmed up
in hell" and was being most uncircumspect about sexual matters,
homosexual sex _never even occurred to him as a possibility_.  It
did not register in his consciousness that men and women engage
in such behavior; and I suspect that, except among homosexuals
themselves, it was not a subject that men and women of his era
_ever_ gave much thought to--except to express condemnation when
incidents like the Wilde case arose. Nor is there, that I have
ever been able to find, any reference in his writings to the
trial of Oscar Wilde or to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde or to
the consequent banishment of Oscar Wilde from society, though one
might expect that if Twain had had any feeling at all as to the
injustice of these things, he would have made that feeling known,
if only in a private note.  And if he had made such a statement,
you can be sure it would have been plucked before now out of his
body of writings, as a golden brick from among the clay, and made
to serve, in the critical organs of the present, as the paltry
foundation for dozens of theory-built dream castles.

        One can, on the other hand, find evidence in his writings
that Twain disapproved of effeminacy.  Not all homosexuals are
effeminate, of course, but the existence of disapproval at all--
of certain metaphors used in disparagement, in illustration of
human decadence--indicates that Twain would not have found
homosexuality, wherein effeminacy is fully embraced, so to speak,
a matter for anything but distaste.

        If you have evidence to the contrary, I would like to see
it.

        As for Clara's suppression of Twain's material, I wonder if
it had to do _only_ with sexual matters and not something else--
like politics, for instance.  Perhaps someone on the list could
enlighten us.

        Ms. Richman also notes:

        "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."

        I am a little puzzled about what you mean by the term "her
way of life."  If you refer to the way she lived her life
personally, I can't imagine that Twain would agree with the
assessment.  It seems to me that, in the inevitable compromises
that marriage entails, Livy gave up much for Twain, including her
faith (no small sacrifice).  And clearly she must have had to
make many emotional adjustments in order to deal with a man
capable of using streams of profanity and going into explosive
fits of anger, even granted that these were directed at the
general stupidity and dishonesty of politicians, kings and other
extrafamilial asses.  And what did Twain give up for Livy?
Precious little, despite occasional promises of "reform."  And
what did he get from her?  As Justin Kaplin, no light hitter,
says of their early days together: "He was overwhelmed by Livy's
prodigal affections and caresses, and his love for her, despite
his etherealizing of her, was plainly and contentedly sexual."

        As for Livy's censorship, I wonder if it was as terrible an
experience for Twain as you make out.  In many ways Twain was
unsure of himself as an author and often sought out the advice of
those whose literary taste he trusted.  He bothered Howells, for
instance, to "point out the glaring defects for me" in the
manuscript of _Tom Sawyer_, and he was always anxious after the
opinion of "Mother" Fairbanks and others of her kind. He even
went so far as to make _The Gilded Age_ a corporate enterprise in
which Livy and Susie Warner, the author's wives, were closely
involved in the development of the story and decided on the
book's ending.

        I don't know all the reasons Twain sought out the advice of
others.  But I can guess why he turned to Livy, who was a very
sharp woman intellectually. Twain was not one of these aesthetic
"purists" willing to live in poverty and and disgrace for the
sake of some lofty artistic principle.  He was a popular writer
with a taste for the good life--nice houses, expensive hotels,
tons of books, travel abroad; and he had a good size appetite for
public approval.  To keep the good life going, he intended to
make a great deal of money from his books, and if Livy could help
him do so by culling out anything that she felt would give
offense and cause his books to sell less well to an American
public that was a bit more squeamish than the public is at
present, then she was simply doing what Twain himself did not
always feel adequate to do.  And to judge by the works
themselves, I can't see that Livy's excising hand was any too
heavy.  Even given her excisions, the books provided about as
much controversy as Twain could handle. He was a man, it is true,
who loved to shock but who was well aware of his need for a
circuit breaker.

If you are referring to Livy's social life, to her circle of
friends and relations, I wonder again if Twain would agree with
your assessment.  From all that I've been able to gather from
Twain's letters and from the various biographies of him, he was
anxious to be accepted into her circle and on his own terms.  The
fact that he was, after a trial period, so accepted and came to
count individuals in that circle among his closest friends is a
credit not only to Twain's considerable charm and intelligence
but to the circle's liberality and openness to genuine ability.
For this reason I imagine that when Twain castigated the rigidity
of the English class system in such works as _A Connecticut
Yankee_, he had in mind his own easy entry--coming, as he did, as
a Western rough and comedic vulgarian--into what seemed to him
the upper reaches of American society.  And Twain undoubtedly saw
himself as a deserving occupant of those reaches.  However you
might want to see him as the very genius of democracy, a legend
he sometimes cultivated, there was little in his day-to-day life
to indicate that he was especially "of the people."  In fact, as
soon as he came East and shook the dust of California out of his
boots, he spent the rest of his life seeking out and
unapologetically revelling in the company of the rich, the
powerful, the famous and the talented.  And he took enormous
pleasure in the fact that they often sought him out and revelled
unapologetically in his company. His attachment to Livy gave him
easy and early access to any number of such individuals.

If Twain found Livy's way of life anathema to him, he certainly
didn't let on.  He seemed to enjoy his life in a way few writers
ever have; and he considered that life pretty much over after
Livy died.  Once again, if you have evidence to the contrary, I
would like to see it.

Finally, Ms. Richman says:

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

Quite right!  I have sentenced myself to a rereading of "How to
Make History Dates Stick."

Bob Champ