There is a wonderful chapter in Everett Emerson's literary biography of Twain about losing the Hartford home.--and about the image of burning homes in later fictions. Do not have the book handy to check for page numbers. I also have some comments about Twain's yearning in life to find a home (along with certain of his characters, like Huck) in my forthcoming work --esp. At the end of it. Your comments also remind me of George Harris in the Quaker village in UTC--see for example p. 122 in the Norton edition: "This indeed was a home--home,--a word that George had never yet known. . . . Harold K. Bush, Ph.D Saint Louis University