New-York tribune., 1896-05-31
ILL.,.
ROMANCE AND ITS OPPORTUNITY.

III.
ROMANCE AND IT'S OPPORTUNITY.
If a scholar like Mr. Lowell cannot erect suit
able chamber TO the only shrine In French
history, If a woman with sympathies as Keen as
Mrs. Ophants fail utterly to seize the
woma nliness in the unmistakable saint or
France, who shall bring the reader nearer TO the
secret of her power? Enough has been said TO
show that neither the historian nor the romancer
can hope to perform that service without dis
| couragjnr limitations But the chances Of sue
cess such as they are belong more TO the novel,
ist than to his more exact and patient rival The
latter is forbidden by the laws of his art to rise
with his subject too buoyantly. on wings or too
wide a sweep There is always the truth Of his
tory to remember But Jeanne Arc stands in
sphere where the truth of history flows into the
truth of Imagination. the imperishabl" ana unan-
swerable truth Of things spiritual, imponderabe'
beyond analysis. Here lies the novelsts oppor-
I tunty still more the chance OF the man who sees
into the heart of things. the rare chance or the
poet II Is when the novelist has something or
the poet in him that he wins nearest to the goal.
Had Mark Twain possessed streak Of poetic
genius his Personal Recollectons OF the Maid
would have beer a masterpiece. AS 1t is. the work
Is a wonderfully spontaneous exercise in the art
Of waking speech from lips long dead Here and
other than the authors before the supposlttious
writer of the record Is accepted absolutely. 1t Is
useless to pretend that the Sieur Louis de Conte
ever alluded to a speech of La Hires with the OBJ
servation that ii broke Joan all up" That kind
OF idiom s 50 intensely modern. so intensely Mark
Twain that II destroys the illusion at once. Docu-
ments might be presented proving that fifteenth
century French contained similar phrases. Never
theless all sense OF vcrismilitude would vanish
whenever the reader encountered the words TO
which reference Is made.
1t must be admitted however. that the author
of the Personal Recollectons' sins but rarely.
The very title OF his book shows how he has
sought the root Of the matter in the elaboration
OF his theme. The personal point OF view s his
point Of view; the only one. as cannot be too
frequently repeated. from which Jeanne dare
can be studied with any hope Of unveiling her
mystery. Mark Twain has endeavored to re-
create her actual presence through re-creating her
environment and comrades. This vivid back
ground, this living crowd OF human fig
ures In which he places the Maid. is some
thing OF Itself servceable and important. For
sheer human reality and sentiment there Is
nothing In the literature OF Jeanne dare
more valuable than those passages in which
Mark Twain presents her with "the raladin"
in full force under the same roof, the latter tell
ing to an enraptured gathering the stppendous
lies for which the author gives us TO understand
he had an extraordinary gift There IL n chapter
In this volume. the fifteenth Of the second book.
which begins I'VE Of the personal staff were In
fairyland" but to share In Its mirth until the
Maid herself enters and bursts into laughter Is
to be- not in fairyland. but in Boucher's house
at Orleans with living Frenchmen merrily elbow
Ing another.
The inspiration Of Jeanne dare, the infinite
spirituality of her genius. has escaped Mark
Twain, but everything else he has captured and
placed between the covers OF his book. He has
caught the movement of the time. reproduced
It's color. revealed the shabbiness which accom-
panied its fairest pageant. The clangor OF the
field Is in the battle scenes, and II now and then
there is too decided an echo Of that orchestral
crash which denotes an artificial treatment Of
the noises Of war. the imagination soon RECEIVERS
Itself and travels on eagerly with the march of
the story. 1t is long tale as this author tells
it. and yet not too long. The natural progress
OF the narrative Is OF It's strongest quail
ties. one Of the qualities which do most to make
the Sieur Louis de Contes a tangible figure. 1t
seems a pity that the novelist who could
compsh this much. who could put himself in
the Pages place and speak as though he had
seen the Maid. should yet have failed to preserve
the crowning touch which would have
brought the Maid herself upon the scene In her
immortal guise. There is unucky resem-
blance between Mark Twain and the man upon
whom he has fathered his story. Louis de Con-
tes is believed to have left Jeanne dare after
her disastrous attempt upon Paris, some time
before she fell into the hands Of Jean de Luxem-
bourg; and while Mark Twain cannot be charged
with infdellty to the Maid. his loyalty being one
of the conspicuous traits in his book 1t is
doubtedly true that there is an hiatus in his
connection with Jeanne dare. there Is In the
Pages. The latter is recognized as one Of her
intimates until he abandons her standard be-
meath the walls Of the French capital. and
Mark Twain is accepted as one who knew her
WELL until he touches upon the radiance in
which she walked, the strong upward movement
OF poetic excitement. tine something that made
her more than n woman and removed her from
the common gaze. Then the narra tive fails to
ring true.