tened to read it as Mark Twain's, were inclined to
be disappointed at the very lack of these features. When the book itself
appeared the general public, still doubtful as to its merits, gave it a
somewhat dubious reception. The early sales were disappointing.

Nor were the reviewers enthusiastic, as a rule. Perhaps they did not
read it over-carefully, or perhaps they were swayed a good deal by a
sort of general verdict that, in attempting 'Joan of Arc', Mark Twain
had gone out of his proper field. Furthermore, there were a number of
Joan books published just then, mainly sober, somber books, in which
Joan was pictured properly enough as a saint, and never as anything
else--never being permitted to smile or enjoy the lighter side of life,
to be a 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 Joa