My thanks to John Bird for listing my study, along with others, as a recent attempt to emphasize Twain's role as thinker. To enphasize that role is not to deny Twain's comic genius or his penetrating observations as a satirist. Twain's humor could often be a vehicle for expressing his reflections on large and serious matters. If thinking means contemplating and reflecting upon large issues, weighing and evaluating the known in an effort to understand the unknown, examining age-old problems and their possible solutions, then Twain clearly was a thinker (note his preoccupation with the notion of a conscience, the concept of free will, the function of "training," the world of dreams). Jonathan Edwards, Emerson, and William James thought about such matters as well, and wrote about their thinking on them. So with Twain. Although I do find Twain's presentation of his findings and speculations far more delightful and, often enough, downright funny. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dr. Jason G. Horn Division of Humanities & DST Gordon College Division of Humanities and DST Gordon College 419 College Drive Barnesville, Georgia 30204 Phone: (770)358-5088 Fax: 770-358-3031 E-mail: [log in to unmask]