My college (Capital Community Technical College in Hartford, CT) is only a block away from the lovely Twain House on Farmington Avenue. I tried desperately, when the college re-named itself three years ago, to get it named Mark Twain Community College, but to no avail. Some benighted students and staff asked the question, "Wasn't Twain a racist?" The answer to the question was not nearly as important as the fact that the question had been asked, and that was the end of that proposal--except that it got the college some short-lived but nasty national press. But to the question at hand: if you read those parts of Huckleberry Finn in which Twain is taking those little jabs at the pretensions of the Grangerford Mansion and then go tour his home on Farmington Avenue, you do sort of wonder if he wasn't indulging himself (with some secret pleasure, indeed) in those vices of taste that he mocks in his writing. It's kind of fun, I think, to regard the house as a kind of parody--a delightful parody at that. Charles Darling