Joan of Arc

by Mark Twain

none are so ready to find fault with others as those who do things worthy of blame themselves.”

She would sacrifice herself—and her best self; that is, her truthfulness—to save her cause; but only that: she would not buy her life at that cost;

“When God fights it is but small matter whether the hand that bears His sword is big or little.

Instead of setting a military commission to find out if this valorous little soldier could win victories, they set a company of holy hair-splitters and phrasemongers to work to find out if the soldier was sound in her piety and had no doctrinal leaks. The rats were devouring the house, but instead of examining the cat’s teeth and claws, they only concerned themselves to find out if it was a holy cat. If it was a pious cat, a moral cat, all right, never mind about the other capacities, they were of no consequence.

There is no way of accounting for people. You have to take them as they are.

But we are all that way: when we know a thing we have only scorn for other people who don’t happen to know it.

Yes, one might say that her motto was “Work! stick to it; keep on working!” for in war she never knew what indolence was. And whoever will take that motto and live by it will be likely to succeed. There’s many a way to win, in this world, but none of them is worth much without good hard work back of it.

Whatever thing men call great, look for it in Joan of Arc, and there you will find it.

I believed these, for I was young and had not yet found out the littleness and meanness of our poor human race, which brags about itself so much, and thinks it is better and higher than the other animals.

“If I be not in a state of Grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in it, I pray God keep me so.”

not even this pretty picture, so simply drawn, of the wounded girl-soldier hanging her toy harness there in curious companionship with the grim and dusty iron mail of the historic defenders of France.

“It had borne the burden, it had earned the honor.”1

She was reproached with doing man’s work in the wars and thus deserting the industries proper to her sex. She answered, with some little touch of soldierly disdain— “As to the matter of women’s work, there’s plenty to do it.”

Doubt was cast upon the authenticity of her mission because of the ignorance and simplicity of the messenger chosen. Joan smiled at that. She could have reminded these people that Our Lord, who is no respecter of persons, had chosen the lowly for his high purposes even oftener than he had chosen bishops and cardinals; but she phrased her rebuke in simpler terms: “It is the prerogative of Our Lord to choose His instruments where He will.”

I have a good Master who is our Lord and to Him I will submit all.”

The difference between Cauchon and cochon1 was not noticeable in speech, and so there was plenty of opportunity for puns: the opportunities were not thrown away.

“I will tell you nothing more than I have told you; no, not even if you tear the limbs from my body. And even if in my pain I did say something otherwise, I would always say afterwards that it was the torture that spoke and not I.”

“Let come what may, here I take my stand and will abide.”

Jehanne.

Yes, she was gone from us: Joan of Arc! What little words they are, to tell of a rich world made empty and poor!