National Catholic Register has a good book review by Father Steven Reilly, LC, on Mark Twain’s little known masterpiece on the life of Joan of Arc. I am not sure whether or not one of Samuel Clemen’s daughters converted to the Catholic Faith, but she did attend a convent school, and she did contemplate becoming Catholic. The story, as it was related to me about thirty years ago, was that she asked her father what he would think if she became a Catholic. He replied with words to this effect, “Well, if you’re going to ‘get religion’ that would be the best one to ‘get.’ ” It took Twain twelve years to write the life of the great saint. He finished it in 1896, fourteen years before he died. This is the centenary year of his death. Let’s hope that this gifted writer, who loved Joan of Arc so much, responded with grace before death. Here’s a clip from the review:
As for faith, generally he believed in an afterlife, but often it was conflicted and frequently wavering (“Faith is believing in what you know ain’t so.”). Still, Catholics may be impressed to know that Twain said that he liked his 1896 Personal Recollections of 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.” Yes, the author of Huckleberry Finn, a book that frequently vies for “Great American Novel” status, held Joan of Arc in higher esteem. What was the source of this feeling?
