tale of Joan never died. On his seventy-third birthday,
when all of his important books were far behind him, and he could judge
them without prejudice, he wrote as his final verdict:

Nov. 30, 1908

I like the Joan of Arc best of all my books; & it is the best; I know it
perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure
afforded me by any of the others: 12 years of preparation & a years of
writing. The others needed no preparation, & got none.

MARK TWAIN.

CXCVI

MR. ROGERS AND HELEN KELLER

It was during the winter of '96, in London, that Clemens took an active
interest in the education of Helen Keller and enlisted the most valuable
adherent in that cause, that is to say, Henry H. Rogers. It was to Mrs.
Rogers that he wrote, heading his letter:

For & in behalf
of Helen Keller,
Stone blind & deaf,
& formerly dumb.

DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--Experience has convinced me that when one
wished to set a hard-worked man at something which he mightn't
prefer to be bothered with it is best to move upon him behind his
wife. If she can't convince him it isn't worth while for other
people to try.

Mr. Rogers will remember our visit with that astonishing girl at
Lawrence Hutton's house when she was fourteen years old. Last July,
in Boston, when she was 16 she underwent the Harvard examination for
admission to Radcliffe College. She passed without a single
condition. She was allowed only the same amount of time that is
granted to other applicants, & this was shortened in her case by the
fact that the question-papers had to be read to her. Yet she scored
an average of 90, as against an average of 78 on the part of the
other applicants.

It won't do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from
her studies because of poverty. If she can go on with them she will
make a fame that will endure in history for centuries. Along her
special lines she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages.

There is danger that she must retire from the struggle for a college
degree for lack of support for herself & for Miss Sullivan (the
teacher who has been with her from the start--Mr. Rogers will
remember her). Mrs. Hutton writes to ask me to interest rich
Englishmen in her case, & I would gla