When the aged poet died, and his adopted child, broken-hearted at his loss, and feeling herself utterly alone in the world, knew not how to endure the weary days following immediately on his death, she suddenly bethought herself of the “pilgrimage” she and the dear one she had loved so well had arranged to make together. She determined to carry out the plan, and her friend Miss Vyver (who lost her mother in the same year as that of Dr. Mackay’s death) accompanied her, as did her stepbrother, Mr. Eric Mackay. With sorrow as well as interest, she went over every scene her early teaching had made her familiar with, and was so charmed with Warwickshire, and Stratford in particular, that she was anxious to leave London then at once, and take up her residence in Shakespeare’s town. This was in 1890, when only four of her books had been published.
Her wishes in this respect, however, she subordinated to those of her stepbrother, who preferred London; but from that time she always cherished the memory of Stratford-on-Avon, and hoped she would be able to return thither. Finally, in 1898, when Eric Mackay’s death deprived her of her last remaining link with her childhood, save her ever-faithful friend Miss Vyver, and when she was extremely ill from the effects of long sickness, followed by the nervous shock of Eric’s sudden end, she turned her thoughts to the old town again, and decided to take a furnished house there, to see if the place agreed with her health. She rented “Hall’s Croft” for a few months, then “Avon Croft” (where the “Master-Christian” and “Boy” were finished), and, finding that the soft, mild air did wonders for her, and gradually reestablished her strength, she decided to remain.
The only house available in the town for a permanency was “Mason Croft,” a very old place
The Elizabethan Watch Tower, Mason Croft
in a sad state of disrepair, its last “restoration” bearing the date of 1745, but, as it was all there was to be had, she risked taking it on trial. Gradually improving and restoring it, she has now brought it back to look something like it must have been in the fifteenth century, when it was quite an important house, requiring a “watch-tower,” wherein a watchman was set to guard the property, and which still stands in the garden, having been transformed into a cozy summer “study” for the novelist. Every month sees some new addition to the charming oak-panelled rooms, which are essentially home-like, and Miss Corelli’s love of flowers, which amounts to a passion, shows itself in the mass of blossom which in winter, equally as in the summer, adorns her “winter-garden,” leading out from the drawing-room.
She is very fond of the home she has made, and fond of the town in which it stands, and her reason for living in Stratford arises simply out of the old cherished sentiment of her childhood’s days when she was taught to consider the little town as the real “Heart of England,” where the greatest of poets had birth, and where her idolized stepfather had promised to “pass many happy days with her.” She takes the keenest interest in all the joys and sorrows of Stratford’s townspeople, and grudges neither trouble nor expense in anything that may bring them pleasure or good.
It is well-known that she thinks it regrettable that the Memorial Theatre should be so little used, owing to the high fees asked for it, and that good actors should find it impossible to risk going down to perform there, unless their expenses are guaranteed, particularly as it is the only “self-endowed” theatre in England! She possesses an interesting letter from the late Charles Flower, who gave the largest share of the money required to build the place, in which it is plainly set forth that his idea of the theatre was to let it at a merely “nominal fee,” in order that the best actors might go to Stratford and play Shakespeare’s works, in the best manner, to the Stratford townspeople, who were only to be asked “popular” prices for admission. But, since that estimable benefactor’s death, things have not been exactly on the footing he thus suggested, and for more than half the year the theatre is empty and useless, which seems a pity. “How much better,” says Miss Corelli, “it would be to see the theatre full, and the public-houses empty!” In which most people will agree with her. But though her opinions are very strong on these and other points concerning some matters at Stratford, she never interferes or puts forward any suggestions that she considers might be resented. The only time she did put her foot down was when Sir Theodore Martin wanted to break into the antique sanctity of Shakespeare’s resting-place in the Church of the Holy Trinity, and in that campaign all the world was with her, as well as Stratford itself. She does all the good she can in the neighborhood; she has quite revivified the Choral Society; she gives short, simple addresses to workmen and schoolchildren; she opens bazaars and sales of work, and by her presence at such functions brings much-needed pecuniary help to institutions which always feel, to a greater or less extent, the pinch of poverty.
The desire to do good to one’s fellow-creatures must animate every writer whose work is not solely the product of intellect. When there is “heart” in a book, there must be a heart that can throb for others in the author of it. Pass the lives of eminent authors before you in rapid mental review, and you will find that most of these authors were constantly performing kindly actions. The great souls of Dickens and Thackeray—of the latter especially—prompted them to do many generous things. It is said that when, as an editor, Thackeray found a letter with a manuscript telling a tale of pathetic circumstances, he would sometimes (when obliged to return the manuscript) scribble out a check on his own account and send it back with the rejected story. Turning to women writers, has not Mrs. Gaskell, in her touching life of Charlotte Brontë, told us how she and the poor Yorkshire clergyman’s daughter paid sundry afternoon calls in the Haworth district, and how welcome was the novelist’s “quiet presence” in many humble homes? Ruskin’s kindness and open-handed charity, as one who visited him has told us, were proverbial in the Brantwood neighborhood. The history of Dr. Johnson’s home life proves amply the tenderness which lay behind his pompous and dictatorial manner. Poor Goldsmith’s generosity amounted almost to a vice, for he would borrow a guinea to give to a friend in need and empty his pockets for a whining mendicant. His philanthropy was wholesale, and quite lacked any sense of proportion. Scott worked himself to death to pay off the debts of the publishing firm in which he was concerned;—turn where you will, you find that the men and women whose work in life has been the making of songs and dramas and novels, have ever been keenly alive to the distress prevalent among their fellow-creatures, and have seldom been guilty of anything approaching selfishness.