[This is the third of three thought-provoking messages sent to me by Wesley Britton, and posted to the Mark Twain Forum on his behalf. Although Wesley does not yet have access to e-mail, discussion and replies concerning these postings are welcomed at <[log in to unmask]>; Wesley receives the Forum's log files periodically and follows the discussion here. If you want to send a private or urgent reply to Wesley, though, you should direct it to his snail-mail address at the end of this message. --Taylor Roberts] On Twain and Whitman: I noticed in _Forum_ logs some interest in Twain's relationship with Whitman. As author of the Mark Twain entry for the forthcoming _Walt Whitman Encyclopedia_, I thought I'd share some of my findings with y'all: Twain and Whitman showed only perfunctory interest in each other. Whitman said Twain "might have been something. He comes near being something: but he never arrives." In turn, Twain noted "If I've become a Whitmanite I'm sorry--I never read 40 lines of him in my life." This claim is probably exaggeration; Clemens' personal copy of _Leaves of Grass_ contains many marginal comments by Clemens, and in 1897 Clemens'-owned Charles L. Webster and Co. published _Selected Poems by Walt Whitman_ with Whitman's special permission. Clemens provided financial support for Whitman on several occasions including $100 for a horse and buggy and $200 for a cottage to "make the splendid old soul comfortable." In 1889, Clemens sent Whitman a complimentary copy of _A Connecticut Yankee_. In 1884, Clemens grouped Whitman with other writers in an anecdote, and he attended Whitman's 1887 eulogy for Lincoln at Madison Square Theater. His ambivalent feelings about Whitman were reflected on Whitman's seventieth birthday when Clemens sent an impersonal, ambiguous telegram and in an unfinished essay "The Walt Whitman Controversy" in which Clemens worried about the sexual frankness in _Leaves of Grass_, saying the book should not be read by children. Bibliography Kaplan, Justin. "Starting from Paumanok . . . and from Hannibal: Whitman and Mark Twain." _Confrontation_. Vol. 27-28 (1984), 338-347. Wesley Britton