nor. He
regarded it as his best book, and this was an opinion that did not
change. Twelve years later--it was on his seventy-third birthday--he
wrote as his final verdict, November 30, 1908:

"I like the Joan of Arc best of all my books; and 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; twelve years of
preparation and two years of writing. The others needed no
preparation and got none.
MARK TWAIN."

The public at first did not agree with the author's estimate, and the
demand for the book was not large. But the public amended its opinion.
The demand for "Joan" increased with each year until its sales ranked
with the most popular of Mark Twain's books.

The new stories of Tom and Huck have never been as popular as the earlier
adventures of this pair of heroes. The shorter stories are less
important and perhaps less alive, but they are certainly very readable
tales, and nobody but Mark Twain could have written them.

Clemens began some new stories when his travel book was out of the way,
but presently with the family was on the way to Switzerland for the
summer. They lived at Weggis, on Lake Lucerne, in the Villa Buhlegg--a
very modest five-franc-a-day pension, for they were economizing and
putting away money for the debts. Mark Twain was not in a mood for work,
and, besides, proofs of the new book "Following the Equator," as it is
now called--were coming steadily. But on the anniversary of Susy's death
(August 18th) he wrote a poem, "In Memoriam," in which he touched a
literary height never before attained. It was published in "Harper's
Magazine," and now appears in his collected works.

Across from Villa Buhlegg on the lake-front there was a small shaded
inclosure where he loved to sit and look out on the blue water and lofty
mountains, one of which, Rigi, he and Twichell had climbed nineteen years
before. The little retreat is still there, and to-day one of the trees
bears a tablet (in German), "Mark Twain's Rest."

Autumn found the family in Vienna, located for the winter at the Hotel
Metropole. Mrs. Clemens realized that her daughters must no longer be
deprived of social and artistic advantages. For herself, she longed only
for retirement.

Vienna is always a gay city, a center of art and culture and splendid
social functions. From the moment of his arrival, Mark Twain and his
family we