e._, of Arc--but _Darc_. Now it happens sometimes that, if
a person whose position guarantees his access to the best information
will content himself with gloomy dogmatism, striking the table with his
fist, and saying in a terrific voice, "It _is_ so, and there's an
end of it," one bows deferentially, and submits. But, if, unhappily for
himself, won by this docility, he relents too amiably into reasons and
arguments, probably one raises an insurrection against him that may
never be crushed; for in the fields of logic one can skirmish, perhaps,
as well as he. Had he confined himself to dogmatism, he would have
intrenched his position in darkness, and have hidden his own vulnerable
points. But coming down to base reasons he lets in light, and one sees
where to plant the blows. Now, the worshipful reason of modern France
for disturbing the old received spelling is that Jean Hordal, a
descendant of La Pucelle's brother, spelled the name _Darc_ in
1612. But what of that? It is notorious that what small matter of
spelling Providence had thought fit to disburse amongst man in the
seventeenth century was all monopolised by printers; now, M. Hordal was
_not_ a printer.]
What is to be thought of _her_? What is to be thought of the poor
shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that--like the
Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judea--rose suddenly
out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration,
rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies,
and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings? The Hebrew
boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an _act_, by a victorious
_act_, such as no man could deny.
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