Marie Corelli: The Writer and the Woman

by Thomas F. G. Coates; R. S. Warren Bell

“Come out with me!” continued Manuel, his accents vibrating with a strange compelling sweetness, “come out and see the poor lying at the great gates of St. Peter’s—the lame, the halt, the blind—come and heal them by a touch, a prayer! You can, you must, you shall heal them!—if you will! Pour money into the thin hands of the starving!—come with me into the miserable places of the world—come and give comfort! Come freely into the courts of kings, and see how the brows ache under the crowns!—how the hearts break beneath the folds of velvet and ermine! Why stand in the way of happiness, or deny even emperors peace when they crave it? Your mission is to comfort, not to condemn! You need no throne! You want no kingdom!—no settled place—no temporal power! Enough for you to work and live as the poorest of all Christ’s ministers,—without pomp, without ostentation or public ceremonial, but simply clothed in pure holiness! So shall God love you more! So shall you pass unscathed through the thick of battle, and command Brotherhood in place of Murder! Go out and welcome Progress!—take Science by the hand!—encourage Intellect!—for all these things are of God, and are God’s gifts divine! Live as Christ lived, teaching the people personally and openly;—loving them, pitying them, sharing their joys and sorrows, blessing their little children! Deny yourself to no man;—and make of this cold temple in which you now dwell self-imprisoned, a home and refuge for the friendless and the poor! Come out with me!

“Come out with me and minister with your own hands to the aged and the dying!” pursued Manuel, “and so shall you grow young! Command that the great pictures, the tapestries, the jewels, the world’s trash of St. Peter’s, be sold to the rich, who can afford to place them in free and open galleries where all the poorest may possess them! But do not You retain them! You do not need them—your treasure must be sympathy for all the world! Not one section of the world,—not one form of creed,—but for all!—if you are truly the Dispenser of Christ’s Message to the earth! Come—unprotected, save by the Cross! Come with no weapon of defense—‘heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils! Freely ye have received, freely give! Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your purse,’—come, and by your patience—your gentleness—your pardon—your love to all men, show that ‘the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ Walk fearless in the thick of battles, and your very presence shall engender peace! For the Holy Spirit shall surround and encompass you; the fiercest warriors shall bend before you, as they never would if you assumed a world’s throne or a world’s sovereignty! Come, uncrowned, defenseless;—but strong in the Spirit of God! Think of all the evil which has served as the foundation for this palace in which you dwell! Can you not hear in the silence of the night, the shrieks of the tortured and dying of the Inquisition? Do you never think of the dark days, ten and twelve hundred years after Christ, when no virtue seemed left upon the earth?—when the way to this very throne was paved by poison and cold steel?—when those who then reigned here, and occupied Your place, led such infamous lives that the very dogs might have been ashamed to follow in their footsteps!—when they professed to be able to sell the Power of the Holy Ghost for so much gold and silver? Remember the words, ‘Whoso shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, either in this world or in the world to come.’ Look back upon the Past—and look out upon the Present! Try to understand the suffering of the forsaken people!—the pain—the bewilderment—the groping for life in death!—and come out with me! Come and preach Christ as He lived and died, and was, and is!

“Come out with me ... for there are wonderful things in the world to-day!—wonderful, beautiful, and terrible! Take your share in them, and find God in every glory! For with all the wisdom and the splendor,—with all the flashing light of Heaven poured out upon the darkness of the Sorrowful Star, its people are weary,—they are lost in the confusion and clamor of their own desires—they would fain serve God, but know not where to find Him, because a thousand, ay a million churches stand in the way! Churches, which are like a forest of dark trees, blocking out the radiance of the Sun! God, who manifests His power and tenderness in the making of the simplest leaf, the smallest bird, is lost to the understanding and affection of humanity in the multitude of Creeds! Come out with me,—simple and pure, gentle and strong! Tell all the lost and the wandering that there never was, and never will be but one God supreme and perfect, whose name is Love, whose work is Love!—and whose Messenger, Christ, pronounced the New Commandment Love, instead of Hate! Come out with me while it is yet day, for the night cometh when no man can work! Come and lift up the world by your very coming! Stretch out your hands in benediction over kings and beggars alike!—there are other roses to give than Golden ones to Queens! There are poor women who share half they earn with those still poorer—there are obscure lives which in their very obscurity, are forming the angel-nature, and weaving the angel’s crown,—look for these in the world—give them your Golden Roses! Leave rulers and governments alone, for you should be above and beyond all rulers and governments! You should be the Herald of peace, the Pardoner of sin, the Rescuer of the fallen, and the Refuge of the distressed! Come out with me, and be all this to the world, so that when the Master comes He may truly find you working in His vineyard!

“Come out with me ... or if you will not come,—then beware!... beware of the evil days which are at hand! The people are wandering to and fro, crossing all lands, struggling one against the other, hoarding up useless gold, and fighting for supremacy!—but ‘the day of the Lord shall come like a thief in the night, and blessed is he who shall be found watching!’ Watch! The hour is growing dark and full of menace!—the nations are as frightened children, losing faith, losing hope, losing strength! Put away,—put away from you the toys of time!—quench in your soul the thirst for gold, for of this shall come nothing but corruption! Why trifle with the Spirit of holy things? Why let your servants use the Name of the Most High to cover hypocrisy? Why crave for the power of temporal things, which passes away in the dust of destroyed kingdoms? For the Power of the Spirit is greater than all! And so it shall be proved! The Spirit shall work in ways where it has never been found before!—it shall depart from the Churches which are unworthy of its Divine inspiration!—it shall invest the paths of science!—it shall open the doors of the locked stars! It shall display the worlds invisible;—the secrets of men’s hearts, and of closed graves!—there will be terror and loss and confusion and shame to mankind,—and this world shall keep nothing of all its treasures but the Cross of Christ! Rome, like Babylon, shall fall!—and the Powers of the Church shall be judged as the Powers of Darkness rather than of Light, because they have rejected the Word of their Master, and ‘teach for doctrine the commandments of men’! Disaster shall follow swift upon disaster, and the cup of trembling shall be drained again to its last dregs, as in the olden days, unless,—unless perchance—You will come out with Me!”

This address has such an effect on the Pope that at its conclusion he falls senseless. Bonpré and Manuel, the former now without a friend left at the Vatican, take their departure, and shortly afterwards it is deemed expedient for them to leave Rome for shelter in England, the idea being intimated that the authorities of the Church were determined to make a prisoner of the Cardinal, and inflict upon him some undefined evil.

So far as the book is concerned apart from its central theme, the interest is held by the light touches of the loves of some charming people, and also of a very frivolous roué, the Marquis Fontenelle. This very “up-to-date” French nobleman is ultimately, to the relief of every one and the regret of few, killed in a duel with his own brother, the great actor Miraudin. To make this melodramatic incident as striking as possible the author kills both the brothers. The Marquis is a character who says and does what would seem to be impossible things. Notwithstanding his immoral propensities he has a certain pleasing fascination that almost inclines one to regard his faults with tolerance. His faults are many, but let it be said to his credit at least that he recognizes them. His views of men and women and love are extraordinarily callous and cynical, yet it is an absolute fact that the prototype of the Marquis Fontenelle exists, and holds and openly expresses the views to which in this book he is made to give utterance. And, evil as he is, he also is conquered at the last by the true character of a sweet, pure, womanly woman. It is such who conquer all evil.

The Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein, an altogether delightful lady, marries Aubrey Leigh and leaves the Church of Rome. The story of her doing so, of the struggles of the Romish priesthood to retain her and her wealth, and of the methods by which they endeavored to attain that end, is in itself a stirring narrative.

Marie Corelli is altogether pleasing, not only to those who approve the mission of her book, but to many of her most severe critics, in her account of the life which Leigh in younger days had led in a Cornish fishing village, working as one of themselves amongst the rugged, true-hearted, brave men who with all their roughness of character are perhaps stauncher in a simple faith in God than many of those who ostentatiously worship in fine churches. She pens, too, many delightful, humorous, and pathetic pictures of the French peasantry.

Quite another story is the love, or, rather, two loves, of Angela Sovrani. When we first make her acquaintance—a woman, yet one of the finest artists in the world—she is betrothed to Florian Varillo, a man with a character of almost impossible evil. We wish we could regard the character as absolutely impossible. Varillo is also an artist, handsome, unprincipled, egotistical to the worst degree, believing himself great and holding the view—once generally held, but now to a large extent exploded—that woman’s work cannot be equal to masculine effort. Angela has for years been engaged upon a picture which she hopes will be a masterpiece. No person—not even father or lover—has been permitted to gaze upon the canvas. A date for the uncovering and inspection of the picture is fixed. Alone in her studio the evening before, Florian begs admittance in order that he may inspect the picture that night, owing to a journey which he must take early on the morrow. Angela consents. “Come and see.” The concealing curtain is removed and Florian recoils with an involuntary cry, and then remains motionless and silent, stricken dumb and stupid by the magnificent creation which confronts him.

“The central glory of the whole picture was a figure of Christ.... Kingly and commanding.” Near by are seen the faces of many pre-eminent in the history of the time. The Pope is shown fastening fetters of iron round a beautiful youth called Science. The leader of the Jesuits is counting gold. The forms of men representing every description of Church-doctrine are beheld trampling underneath them other human creatures.