By Tim Rohr
May 30 was the Feastday of (aside from St. Francis) Catholicism's now-most fabled saint: JOAN OF ARC.
The burning at the stake of 19 year old girl, who had just done what no other man had dared to do (read her history) has captured the imaginations of many, including a certain "Mark Twain" (which we'll get to in a bit).
How pathetic (but pathetically predictable) that Joan, in this self-absorbed age, is now being cast as an icon for the "trans" generation:
So Joan was burned at the stake for being a cross-dresser. SMH. What a mess.
Returning to Twain.
Twain wasn't a particularly religious man. So it's peculiar that he spent 17 years of his precious time researching Joan. And somewhere along the line between Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Twain produced what he considered his finest work:
"She was truthful when lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honest was become a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a promise was expected of no one; ... she was full of pity when a merciless cruelty was the rule; she was steadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had forgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when men believed in nothing and scoffed at all things; she was unfailingly true in an age that was false to the core; ... she was of a dauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of her nation..."
----Mark Twain in his book, "Joan of Arc"
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