Autobiography of Mark Twain (48 page)

not
born with
_^
out
_^
sight
but blind; and it is not itself that opens its eyes, but the subtle
_^
Its eyes are opened by the subtle
_^
influences of a myriad of stimulating exterior circumstances.

2. We all know this to be
not a guess, but
a mere commonplace fact, a truism. Lorraine was
Joan of
_^
Jeanne d’
_^
Arc’s Dahomey.
And there
_^
Here
_^
the
Riddle
_^
problem
_^
confronts us. We
can understand
how she could
_^
that she might
_^
be born with
_^
intuitive
_^
military genius
with leonine courage
with incomparable fortitude
with a mind
which
_^
that
_^
was in several particulars a prodigy
a mind which included among its special
ities
_^
manifestations
_^
the lawyer’s gift of detecting traps laid by the adversary in cunning and treacherous arrangements of seemingly innocent words
the orator’s gift of eloquence
the advocate’s gift of presenting a case in clear and
compact
_^
concise
_^
form