Autobiography of Mark Twain (52 page)

Insert this remark
.

2. Taking into account, as I have suggested before, all the circumstances
her origin,
youth, sex, illiteracy, early environment,
and
_^
together with
_^
the obstructing conditions under which she
exploited
_^
demonstrated
_^
her high gifts and made her conquests in the field
and
_^
no less than
_^
before the courts that tried her for her life,
she is by far the most extraordinary person the human race has
ever
_^
yet
_^
produced
_^
, nor does there exist in any language so remarkable a history as the official record of Jeanne d’Arc’s trial and rehabilitation.

3. I have studied the career of Jeanne d’Arc for years past; I have, moreover, written and published a story of her life: but I am ever ready, as now, to break another lance in honour of the Maid.
_^

The Letter.

Dear Mr. X:

I find on my desk the first two pages of Miss Z’s Translation, with your emendations marked in them. Thank you for sending them.

I have examined the first page of my amended Introduction, and will begin, now, and jot down some notes upon your corrections. If I find any changes which shall not seem to me to be improvements, I will point out my reasons for thinking so. In this way I may chance to be helpful to you, and thus profit you, perhaps, as much as you have desired to profit me.

NOTES.

S
ECTION
I.
First Paragraph
.

“Jeanne d’Arc.” This is rather cheaply pedantic, and is not in very good taste. Joan is not known by that name among plain people of our race and tongue. I notice that the name of the Deity occurs several times in the brief instalment of the Trials which you have favored me with; to be consistent, it will be necessary that you strike out “God” and put in “Dieu.” Do not neglect this.

First line
. What is the trouble with
“at the”?
And why
“Trial”?
Has some uninstructed person deceived you into the notion that there was but one, instead of half a dozen?

Amongst
. Wasn’t
“among”
good enough?

Next half-dozen Corrections
. Have you failed to perceive that by taking the word
“both”
out of its proper place you have made foolishness of the sentence? And don’t you see that your smug
“of which”
has turned
that
sentence into reporter’s English?
“Quite.”
Why do you intrude that shop-worn favorite of yours where there is nothing useful for it to do? Can’t you rest easy in your literary grave without it?

Next Sentence
. You have made no improvement in it; did you change it merely to
be
changing something?

Second Paragraph
. Now you have begun on my punctuation. Don’t you realize that you ought not to intrude your help in a delicate art like that, with your limitations? And do you think you have added just the right smear of polish to the closing clause of the sentence?

Second Paragraph
. How do you know it was his “own” sword? It could have been a borrowed
one. I am cautious in matters of history, and you should not put statements in my mouth for which you cannot produce vouchers. Your other corrections are rubbish.

Third Paragraph
Ditto.

Fourth Paragraph
. Your word “directly” is misleading; it could be construed to mean “at once.” Plain clarity is better than ornate obscurity. I note your sensitive marginal remark:
“Rather unkind to French feelings—referring to Moscow.”
Indeed I have not been concerning myself about French feelings, but only about stating the facts. I have said several uncourteous things about the French—calling them a “nation of ingrates,” in one place,—but you have been so busy editing commas and semicolons that you overlooked them and failed to get scared at them. The next paragraph ends with a slur at the French, but I have reasons for thinking you mistook it for a compliment. It is discouraging to try to penetrate a mind like yours. You ought to get it out and dance on it. That would take some of the rigidity out of it. And you ought to use it sometimes; that would help. If you had done this every now and then along through life, it would not have petrified.

Fifth Paragraph
. Thus far, I regard this as your masterpiece! You are really perfect in the great art of reducing simple and dignified speech to clumsy and vapid commonplace.

Sixth Paragraph
. You have a singularly fine and aristocratic disrespect for homely and unpretending English. Every time I use “go back” you get out your polisher and slick it up to “return.” “Return” is suited only to the drawing-room—it is ducal, and says itself with a simper and a smirk.

Seventh Paragraph
. “Permission” is ducal. Ducal and affected.
“Her”
great days were
not
“over;” they were only half over. Didn’t you know that? Haven’t you read anything at all about Joan of Arc? The truth is, you do not pay any attention; I told you on my very first page that the public part of her career lasted two years, and you have forgotten it already. You really must get your mind out and have it repaired; you see, yourself, that it is all caked together.

Eighth Paragraph
. She “rode away
to
assault and capture a stronghold.” Very well; but you do not tell us whether she succeeded or not. You should not worry the reader with uncertainties like that. I will remind you once more that clarity is a good thing in literature. An apprentice cannot do better than keep this useful rule in mind.
Closing Sentences
. Corrections which are not corrections.

Ninth Paragraph
. “Known” history. That word is a polish which is too delicate for me; there doesn’t seem to be any sense in it. This would have surprised me, last week.

Second Sentence
. It cost me an hour’s study before I found out what it meant. I see, now, that it is intended to mean what it meant before. It really does accomplish its intent, I think, though in a most intricate and slovenly fashion. What was your idea in re-framing it? Merely in order that you might add this to your other editorial contributions and be able to say to people that the most of the Introduction was your work? I am afraid that that was really your sly and unparliamentary scheme. Certainly we do seem to live in a very wicked world.

Closing Sentence
. There is your empty
“however”
again. I cannot think what makes you so flatulent.

II. I
N
C
APTIVITY
. “Remainder.” It is curious and interesting to notice what an attraction a fussy, mincing, nickel-plated artificial word has for you. This is not well.

Third Sentence
. But she
was
held to ransom; it wasn’t a case of “should have been.” And it wasn’t a case of
’if
it had been offered;” it
was
offered, and also accepted, as the second paragraph shows. You ought never to edit except when awake.

Fourth Sentence
. Why do you wish to change that? It was more than “demanded,” it was
required
. Have you no sense of shades of meaning, in words?

Fifth Sentence
. Changing it to “benefactress” takes the dignity out of it. If I had called her a braggart, I suppose you would have polished her into a braggartess, with your curious and random notions about the English tongue.

Closing Sentence
. “Sustained” is sufficiently nickel-plated to meet the requirements of your disease, I trust. “Wholly” adds nothing; the sentence means just what it meant before. In the rest of the sentence you sacrifice simplicity to airy fussiness.

Second Paragraph
. It was
not
blood-money, O unteachable ass, any more than is the money that buys a house or a horse; it was an ordinary business-transaction of the time, and was not dishonorable. “With her hands, feet and neck
both
chained,” etc. The restricted word “both” cannot be applied to three things, but only to two.
“Fence:”
You “lifted” that word from further along—and with what valuable result? The next sentence—after your doctoring of it—has no meaning. The one succeeding it—after your doctoring of it—refers to nothing, wanders around in space, has no meaning and no reason for existing, and is by a shade or two more demented and twaddlesome than anything hitherto ground out of your strange and interesting editorial-mill.

Closing Sentence
. “Neither” for “either.” Have you now debauched the grammar to your taste?

Third Paragraph
. It was sound English before you decayed it. Sell it to the museum.

Fourth Paragraph
. I note the compliment you pay yourself, margined opposite the closing sentence:
“Easier translation.”
But it has two defects. In the first place it is a
mis
translation, and in the second place it translates half of the grace out of Joan’s remark.

Fifth Paragraph
. Why are you so prejudiced against fact, and so indecently fond of fiction? Her generalship was
not
“that of a tried and trained military experience,” for she hadn’t had any, and no one swore that she had had any. I had stated the facts, you should have reserved your fictions.
Note:
To be intelligible, that whole paragraph must consist of a single sentence; in breaking it up into several, you have knocked the sense all out of it.