or warmer friend, than Andrew Lang. They were at one on most

literary subjects, and especially so in their admiration of the life

and character of Joan of Arc. Both had written of her, and both

held her to be something almost more than mortal. When, therefore,

Anatole France published his exhaustive biography of the maid of

Domremy, a book in which he followed, with exaggerated minuteness

and innumerable footnotes, every step of Joan's physical career at

the expense of her spiritual life, which he was inclined to cheapen,

Lang wrote feelingly, and with some contempt, of the performance,

inviting the author of the Personal Recollections to come to the

rescue of their heroine. "Compare every one of his statements with

the passages he cites from authorities, and make him the laughter of

the world" he wrote. "If you are lazy about comparing I can make

you a complete set of what the authorities say, and of what this

amazing novelist says that they say. When I tell you that he thinks

the Epiphany (January 6, Twelfth Night) is December 25th--Christmas

Day-you begin to see what an egregious ass he is. Treat him like

Dowden, and oblige"--a reference to Mark Twain's defense of Harriet

Shelley, in which he had heaped ridicule on Dowden's Life of the

Poet--a masterly performance; one of the best that ever came from

Mark Twain's pen.

Lang's suggestion would seem to have been a welcome one.

****

1202

The Letters Of Mark Twain, Complete