The Complete Novels of Mark Twain and the Complete Biography of Mark Twain (289 page)
Read The Complete Novels of Mark Twain and the Complete Biography of Mark Twain Online
Authors: A. B. Paine (pulitzer Prize Committee),Mark Twain,The Complete Works Collection
Well, it was a most exciting time, take it all around, and Tom got cords of glory. The judge took the di'monds, and stood up in his pulpit, and cleared his throat, and shoved his spectacles back on his head, and says:
"I'll keep them and notify the owners; and when they send for them it will be a real pleasure to me to hand you the two thousand dollars, for you've earned the money—yes, and you've earned the deepest and most sincerest thanks of this community besides, for lifting a wronged and innocent family out of ruin and shame, and saving a good and honorable man from a felon's death, and for exposing to infamy and the punishment of the law a cruel and odious scoundrel and his miserable creatures!"
Well, sir, if there'd been a brass band to bust out some music, then, it would 'a' been just the perfectest thing I ever see, and Tom Sawyer he said the same.
Then the sheriff he nabbed Brace Dunlap and his crowd, and by and by next month the judge had them up for trial and jailed the whole lot. And everybody crowded back to Uncle Silas's little old church, and was ever so loving and kind to him and the family and couldn't do enough for them; and Uncle Silas he preached them the blamedest jumbledest idiotic sermons you ever struck, and would tangle you up so you couldn't find your way home in daylight; but the people never let on but what they thought it was the clearest and brightest and elegantest sermons that ever was; and they would set there and cry, for love and pity; but, by George, they give me the jim-jams and the fan-tods and caked up what brains I had, and turned them solid; but by and by they loved the old man's intellects back into him again, and he was as sound in his skull as ever he was, which ain't no flattery, I reckon. And so the whole family was as happy as birds, and nobody could be gratefuler and lovinger than what they was to Tom Sawyer; and the same to me, though I hadn't done nothing. And when the two thousand dollars come, Tom give half of it to me, and never told anybody so, which didn't surprise me, because I knowed him.
ERSONAL
R
ECOLLECTIONS OF
J
OAN OF
A
RC
By
Mark Twain
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC CONTENTS
Chapter 1 When Wolves Ran Free in Paris
Chapter 2 The Fairy Tree of Domremy
Chapter 3 All Aflame with Love of France
Chapter 4 Joan Tames the Mad Man
Chapter 5 Domremy Pillaged and Burned
Chapter 6 Joan and Archangel Michael
Chapter 7 She Delivers the Divine Command
Chapter 8 Why the Scorners Relented
Chapter 2 The Governor Speeds Joan
Chapter 3 The Paladin Groans and Boasts
Chapter 4 Joan Leads Us Through the Enemy
Chapter 5 We Pierce the Last Ambuscades
Chapter 6 Joan Convinces the King
Chapter 7 Our Paladin in His Glory
Chapter 8 Joan Persuades Her Inquisitors
Chapter 9 She Is Made General-in-Chief
Chapter 10 The Maid's Sword and Banner
Chapter 11 The War March Is Begun
Chapter 12 Joan Puts Heart in Her Army
Chapter 13 Checked by the Folly of the Wise
Chapter 14 What the English Answered
Chapter 15 My Exquisite Poem Goes to Smash
Chapter 16 The Finding of the Dwarf
Chapter 17 Sweet Fruit of Bitter Truth
Chapter 18 Joan's First Battle-Field
Chapter 19 We Burst In Upon Ghosts
Chapter 20 Joan Makes Cowards Brave Victors
Chapter 21 She Gently Reproves Her Dear Friend
Chapter 22 The Fate of France Decided
Chapter 23 Joan Inspires the Tawdry King
Chapter 24 Tinsel Trappings of Nobility
Chapter 26 The Last Doubts Scattered
Chapter 27 How Joan Took Jargeau
31 France Begins to Live Again
34 The Jests of the Burgundians
35 The Heir of France is Crowned
41 The Maid Will March No More
5 Fifty Experts Against a Novice
6 The Maid Baffles Her Persecutors
9 Her Sure Deliverance Foretold
10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits' End
11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination
12 Joan's Master-Stroke Diverted
14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies
15 Undaunted by Threat of Burning
16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack
19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail
22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer
THE PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC
(her page and secretary)
Freely translated out of the ancient French into modern English from the original unpublished manuscript in the National Archives of France
By Jean Francois Alden
Authorities examined in verification of the truthfulness of this narrative:
J. E. J. QUICHERAT, Condamnation et Rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc.
J. FABRE, Proces de Condamnation de Jeanne d'Arc.
H. A. WALLON, Jeanne d'Arc.
M. SEPET, Jeanne d'Arc.
J. MICHELET, Jeanne d'Arc.
BERRIAT DE SAINT-PRIX, La Famille de Jeanne d'Arc.
La Comtesse A. DE CHABANNES, La Vierge Lorraine.
Monseigneur RICARD, Jeanne d'Arc la Venerable.
Lord RONALD GOWER, F.S.A., Joan of Arc. JOHN O'HAGAN, Joan of Arc.
JANET TUCKEY, Joan of Arc the Maid.
To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours. Judged by the standards of one century, the noblest characters of an earlier one lose much of their luster; judged by the standards of to-day, there is probably no illustrious man of four or five centuries ago whose character could meet the test at all points. But the character of Joan of Arc is unique. It can be measured by the standards of all times without misgiving or apprehension as to the result. Judged by any of them, it is still flawless, it is still ideally perfect; it still occupies the loftiest place possible to human attainment, a loftier one than has been reached by any other mere mortal.
When we reflect that her century was the brutalest, the wickedest, the rottenest in history since the darkest ages, we are lost in wonder at the miracle of such a product from such a soil. The contrast between her and her century is the contrast between day and night. She was truthful when lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honesty was become a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a promise was expected of no one; she gave her great mind to great thoughts and great purposes when other great minds wasted themselves upon pretty fancies or upon poor ambitions; she was modest, and fine, and delicate when to be loud and coarse might be said to be universal; she was full of pity when a merciless cruelty was the rule; she was steadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had forgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when men believed in nothing and scoffed at all things; she was unfailingly true to an age that was false to the core; she maintained her personal dignity unimpaired in an age of fawnings and servilities; she was of a dauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of her nation; she was spotlessly pure in mind and body when society in the highest places was foul in both—she was all these things in an age when crime was the common business of lords and princes, and when the highest personages in Christendom were able to astonish even that infamous era and make it stand aghast at the spectacle of their atrocious lives black with unimaginable treacheries, butcheries, and beastialities.
