Besides being a keen judge of manuscript—as, indeed, he had need to be—Mr. Bentley wrote very pleasant prose himself. His reading was extensive and his comments thereon lucid and thoughtful. In 1883 he printed for private circulation among his friends a little green covered volume called “After Business.” A copy of this work, presented to Miss Corelli a fortnight after Mr. Bentley first met her, lies before us. There are seven chapters, whose nature can be divined from their titles: I. An Evening with Erasmus. IV. How the World Wags. V. An Afternoon with Odd Volumes—and so forth. A peaceful, soothing little book is this. Here is the final passage of the “Odd Volumes” chapter. It affords a happy example of the book’s literary flavor, of its truly “After Business” characteristics:
“Let us say good-bye to these dear old volumes, and step down-stairs, that Lawrence’s sister may give us one of his favorite melodies. God provides good things for men in music and books and flowers, and when His fellow-men disappoint Him, or die around Him, it is something to be able to enjoy the melody of Mozart and to live with the grand old ghosts who, disembodied, flit about the old library.”
The influence of the kindly advice George Bentley dealt out to the young novelist cannot be overestimated. Was she upset by a criticism, he came to her aid with good humored badinage and sympathy; was she despondent, he laughed away the mood and bade “Thelma” be herself again! Always, indeed, he urged her to be herself—to embody in her books the message so nobly delivered by a poet:
“Stand upright, speak thy thought, declare
The truth thou hast, that all may share;
Be bold, proclaim it everywhere;
They only live who dare.”
CHAPTER VIII
“BARABBAS”—A “PASSION PLAY” IN PROSE
“Why should women’s writings be in any respect inferior to that of men if they are only willing to follow out the same method of self-education?” asked Charles Kingsley. This was of the nature of a prophecy, for had Kingsley lived until to-day he would have seen the verification of his words. Women, as a rule, do not self-educate themselves. They will not try to walk alone. They understand only just the easy verse and rhyme of existence. Some few understand to-day a higher phase by self-conviction. Marie Corelli is certainly one.
To write prose, perfect prose; to stir the heart and move the soul, is the highest phase of mental reasoning. It is the air and melody of spiritual conception, the so-called “supernatural.” All our lives we can talk prose, but to grasp tersely your brain’s creation, to fix upon your different dream characters and embody them with life, with passion, and with naturalness—the naturalness which has existed from creation—is the highest prose, for it is poetry and prose hand-in-hand, an achievement, a oneness of the two.
This was Marie Corelli’s idea in penning “Barabbas.” Setting her mind hard and fast to face creeds and defy criticism; true to the instincts which permeated her mind throughout her pristine works, she went on following her soul impression, her inspiration to see “good” in most things, nobility in men and women who might be scourged by the world. And thus “Barabbas,” though a robber, might have had some strong points, and though of an evil nature must certainly, from scriptural evidence, have had the sympathy of the populace. That sympathy gave the author the keynote to produce the human drama, which is lived over and over again to-day and forever,—and which is aptly called A Dream of the World’s Tragedy.
Marie Corelli, true to her colors in this later work, still adheres to poetic spirituality, the “ideal,” the sublime, the free, the sympathetic, mingled with the rendering of a forcible and traitorous character in that of “Judith” (the heroine of the book) in its full strength of weakness and evil, and in its final magnificent revulsion from a past to the glory of a holy repentance and in finding the King, in the symbol of the cross. Take this scene, where after madness and despair, she meets her death:
“The sun poured straightly down upon her,—she looked like a fair startled sylph in the amber glow of the burning Eastern noonday. Gradually an expression of surprise and then of rapture lighted her pallid face,—she lifted her gaze slowly, and, with seeming wonder and incredulity, fixed her eyes on the near grassy slope of the Mount of Olives, where two ancient fig-trees twining their gnarled boughs together made an arch of dark and soothing shade. Pointing thither with one hand, she smiled,—and once more her matchless beauty flashed up through form and face like a flame.