human
being, in fact, at all.

But this is just the very wonder of Mark Twain's Joan. She is a saint;
she is rare, she is exquisite, she is all that is lovely, and she is a
human being besides. Considered from every point of view, Joan of Arc is
Mark Twain's supreme literary expression, the loftiest, the most
delicate, the most luminous example of his work. It is so from the first
word of its beginning, that wonderful "Translator's Preface," to the last
word of the last chapter, where he declares that the figure of Joan with
the martyr's crown upon her head shall stand for patriotism through all
time.

The idyllic picture of Joan's childhood with her playmates around the
fairy tree is so rare in its delicacy and reality that any attempt to
recall it here would disturb its bloom. The little poem, "L'Arbre fee de
Bourlemont," Mark Twain's own composition, is a perfect note, and that
curiously enough, for in versification he was not likely to be strong.
Joan's girlhood, the picture of her father's humble cottage, the singing
there by the wandering soldier of the great song of Roland which stirred
her deepest soul with the love of France, Joan's heroism among her
playmates, her wisdom, her spiritual ideals-are not these all reverently
and nobly told, and with that touch of tenderness which only Mark Twain
could give? And the story of her voices, and her march, and of her first
appearance before the wavering king. And then the great coronation scene
at Rheims, and the dramatic moment when Joan commands the march on Paris
--the dragging of the hopeless trial, and that last, fearful day of
execution, what can surpass these? Nor must we forget those charming,
brighter moments where Joan is shown just as a human being, laughing
until the tears run at the absurdities of the paladin or the simple home
prattle of her aged father and uncle. Only here and there does one find
a touch--and it is never more than that--of the forbidden thing, the
burlesque note which was so likely to be Mark Twain's undoing.

It seems incredible to-day that any reader, whatever his preconceived
notions of the writer might have been, could have followed these chapters
without realizing their majesty, and that this tale of Joan was a book
such as had not before been written. Let any one who read it then and
doubted, go back and consider it now. A surprise will await him, and it
will be worth while. He will know the true personality of Joan of Arc
more