ct and compact and cumulative as could have been prepared by a
trained legal mind of the highest order, and it has the added advantage
of being the utterance of a human soul voicing an indignation inspired
by human suffering and human wrong. By no means does it lack humor,
searching and biting sarcasm. The characterization of Professor Dowden's
Life of Shelley as a "literary cake-walk" is a touch which only Mark
Twain could have laid on. Indeed, the "Defense of Harriet Shelly," with
those early chapters of Joan at Florence, maybe counted as the beginning
for Mark Twain of a genuine literary renaissance. It was to prove a
remarkable period less voluminous than the first, but even more choice,
containing, as it would, besides Joan and the Shelley article, the
rest of that remarkable series collected now as Literary Essays; the
Hadleyburg story; "Was it Heaven or Hell?"; those masterly articles on
our national policies; closing at last with those exquisite memories, in
his final days.

The summer of 1894 found Mark Twain in the proper frame of mind for
literary work. He was no longer in a state of dread. At Etretat,
a watering-place on the French coast, he returned eagerly to the
long-neglected tale of Joan--"a book which writes itself," he wrote
Mr. Rogers"--a tale which tells itself; I merely have to hold the pen."
Etretat, originally a fishing-village, was less pretentious than to-day,
and the family had taken a small furnished cottage a little way back
from the coast--a charming place, and a cheap one--as became their
means. Clemens worked steadily at Etretat for more than a month,
finishing the second part of his story, then went over to Rouen to visit
the hallowed precincts where Joan dragged out those weary months that
brought her to the stake. Susy Clemens was taken ill at Rouen, and they
lingered in that ancient city, wandering about its venerable streets,
which have been changed but slowly by the centuries, and are still full
of memories.

They returned to Paris at length--to the Brighton; their quarters of the
previous winter--but presently engaged for the winter the studio home
of the artist Pomroy at 169 rue de l'Universite, beyond the Seine. Mark
Twain wrote of it once:

It was a lovely house; large, rambling, quaint, charmingly furnished
and decorated, built upon no particular plan, delightfully uncertain
and full of surprises. You were always getting lost in it, and
finding nooks and corn