Marie Corelli seems to think that the present generation is one in which hypocrisy cumbers the face of the globe. “Never,” she says, “was the earth so oppressed with the weight of polite lying, never were there such crowds of evil masqueraders, cultured tricksters, and social humbugs, who, though admirable as tricksters and humbugs, are wholly contemptible as men and women. Truth is at a discount, and if one should utter it the reproachful faces of one’s so-called ‘friends’ show how shocked they are at meeting with anything honest.” That is a very sweeping assertion for which Marie Corelli has been abused. If the world had in it more sincerity than sham, the truth of her condemnation of present systems and practices would have been frankly admitted. Because what she says is true to an unhappy degree. The authoress is severe in her criticisms of the marriage “bargains” which are, we think, mainly the possession of what she would call “smart” society. The Divorce Court record is certainly a proof that a good many of the weddings that are “arranged” are certainly not made in Heaven. Marie Corelli thinks, indeed, that many women have forgotten what marriage is, and she declares it to be an absolute grim fact that in England many women of the upper classes are not to-day married, but merely bought for a price.
“Marriage is not the church, the ritual, the blessing of clergymen, or the ratifying and approving presence of one’s friends and relations at the ceremony; still less is it a matter of settlements and expensive millinery. It is the taking of a solemn vow before the throne of the Eternal—a vow which declares that the man and woman concerned have discovered in each other his or her true mate; that they feel life is alone valuable and worth living in each other’s company; that they are prepared to endure trouble, poverty, pain, sickness, death itself, provided that they may only be together; and that all the world is a mere grain of dust in worth as compared to the exalted passion which fills their souls and moves them to become one in flesh as well as in spirit. Nothing can make marriage an absolutely sacred thing except the great love, combined with the pure and faithful intention of the vow involved.”
Amongst all classes a very large number of marriages mean all that. Amongst the poorer classes—not the lowest classes—the proportion is probably the largest, and amongst the middle and higher classes it is so to a large though diminishing degree. Nevertheless, Marie Corelli states, and we agree, that it is the cash-box that governs the actions of far too many in entering upon the most serious duty of life; and if the man and wife do not realize the importance and sacredness of the tie, the result must be, as the novelist says, that the man and wife will drag down rather than uplift each other.
In a magazine article which Marie Corelli wrote some time ago, she drew a delightful picture of an artist and his wife in Capri who live on £100 a year in perfect bliss. When one views the picture she draws of their life it is easy to think one has found something like the lost paradise. Still, if we all tried love on £100 a year in Capri the housing problem would soon become as serious a matter there as it is to-day in our great cities. Love on £100 a year, or less or more, must be tried by most of us under less favorable geographical circumstances; but under whatever circumstances true it is, as Miss Corelli insists, that God’s law of love will make of marriage a successful and happy undertaking.
Marriage on very moderate means is not attractive. And why? According to Marie Corelli, because Love is not sufficient for the average girl; because in the rush of our time we are trampling sweet emotions and true passion under foot, marriages being too seldom the result of affection nowadays. They are too often merely the carrying out of a settled scheme of business. Mothers teach their daughters to marry for a “suitable establishment”; fathers, rendered desperate as to what they are to do with their sons in the increasing struggle for life and the incessant demand for luxuries which are not by any means actually necessary to that life, say: “Look out for a woman with money.” The heir to a great name and title sells his birthright for a mess of American dollar-pottage;—and it is a very common, every-day business to see some Christian virgin sacrificed on the altar of matrimony to a money-lending, money-grubbing son of Israel. Bargain and sale,—sale and bargain,—it is the whole raison d’être of the “season,”—the balls, the dinners, the suppers, the parties to Hurlingham and Ascot,—even on the dear old Thames, with its delicious nooks fitted for pure romance and heart betrothal, the clatter of Gunter’s luncheon-dishes and the popping of Benoist’s champagne-corks remind the hungry gypsies who linger near such scenes of river revelry that there is not much sentiment about,—only plenty of money being wasted. Marie Corelli well says that there can be nothing more hideous—more like a foretaste of hell itself—than the life position of a man and woman who have been hustled into matrimony, and who, when the wedding fuss is over and the feminine pictorial papers have done gushing about the millinery of the occasion, find themselves alone together, without a single sympathy in common, with nothing but the chink of gold and the rustle of the bank-notes for their heart music, and with a barrier of steadily increasing repulsion and disgust rising between them every day.
We have seen something of such a picture in Marie Corelli’s character of “Sybil Elton”; that it is no more nor less than a crime to enter upon marriage without that mutual supreme attraction and deep love which makes the union sacred, may be, in fact, allowed. The question is, how to avoid such evils? Marie Corelli gives the answer in this advice: “In a woman’s life one love should suffice. She cannot, constituted as she is, honestly give herself to more than one man. And she should be certain—absolutely, sacredly, solemnly certain, that one man is indeed her preelected lover, her chosen mate; that never could she care for any other hand than his to caress her beauty, never for any other kiss than his to rest upon her lips, and that without him life is but a half-circle waiting completion.... Love is the last of all the mythical gods to be tempted or cajolled by lawyers and settlements, wedding-cake, and perishable millinery. His domain is nature and the heart of humanity,—and the gifts he can bestow on those who meet him in the true spirit are marvelous and priceless indeed. The exquisite joys he can teach,—the fine sympathies,—the delicate emotions,—the singular method in which he will play upon two lives like separate harps, and bring them into resounding tune and harmony, so that all the world shall seem full of luscious song,—this is one way of Love’s system of education. But this is not all—he can so mould the character, temper the will, and strengthen the heart, as to make his elected disciples endure the bitterest sorrows bravely,—perform acts of heroic self-sacrifice and attain the most glorious heights of ambition,—for, as the venerable Thomas à Kempis tells us,—‘Love is a great thing, yes, a great and thorough good; by itself it makes everything that is heavy, light—and it bears evenly all that is uneven. For it carries a burden which is no burden, and makes everything that is bitter sweet and tasteful. Though weary it is not tired,—though pressed it is not straightened,—though alarmed it is not confounded, but as a lively flame and burning torch it forces its way upward and securely passes through all. Is not such divine happiness well worth attaining?’”
The answer to that rests with the women mainly, and to them Marie Corelli says:
“I want you to refuse to make your bodies and souls the traffickable material of vulgar huckstering,—I want you to give yourselves, ungrudgingly, fearlessly, without a price or any condition whatsoever, to the men you truly love, and abide by the results. If love is love indeed, no regret can be possible. But be sure it is love,—the real passion, that elevates you above all sordid and mean considerations of self,—that exalts you to noble thoughts and nobler deeds,—that keeps you faithful to the one vow, and moves you to take a glorious pride in preserving that vow’s immaculate purity,—be sure it is all this,—for if it is not all this you are making a mistake and you are ignorant of the very beginnings of love. Try to fathom your own hearts on this vital question—try to feel, to comprehend, to learn the responsibilities invested in womanhood, and never stand before God’s altar to accept a blessing on your marriage if you know in your inmost soul that it is no marriage at all in the true sense of the word, but merely a question of convenience and sale. To do such a deed is the vilest blasphemy,—a blasphemy in which you involve the very priest who pronounces the futile benediction. The saying ‘God will not be mocked’ is a true one; and least of all will He consent to listen to or ratify such a mockery as a marriage-vow sworn before Him in utter falsification and misprisal of His chiefest commandment,—Love. It is a wicked and wilful breaking of the law,—and is never by any chance suffered to remain unpunished.”
Marie Corelli is a great friend of children, loving them and beloved of them. It may be regarded as probable that the children of those who form the ideal unions which the novelist so eloquently describes will be sure to train their own offspring on good and intelligent lines. But there are others—so many of them. There is much in the writings of Marie Corelli that bears upon the question, and her text is the dedication of the “Mighty Atom”—“To those self-styled ‘Progressivists’ who by precept and example assist the infamous cause of education without religion, and who, by promoting the idea, borrowed from French atheism, of denying to the children in Board schools and elsewhere, the knowledge and love of God, as the true foundation of noble living, are guilty of a worse crime than murder.” That is her view. She regards the teaching of simple Christian truths—the love of God, and the instruction which is the basis of all Christian creeds, i. e., to do unto others as you would be done by—as an essential element in the education of children. She would regard it as the most heinous of crimes to take from our English elementary schools that religious instruction which was agreed to in the 1870 Compromise, the Compromise which happily has survived a violent attack made upon it not long since in the elementary educational Parliament of London, the Metropolitan School Board.