What manner of woman is this most popular novelist of the hour, who has the reading world at her feet, and who has conquered the hearts of millions? Until lately she was thought to be a mystery. One has only to know her to marvel why. For Marie Corelli does not shroud herself in obscurity, does not affect the life of the recluse, does not pretend to be other than she is—a winsome, warm-hearted, sunny-natured woman, who enjoys life to the full, and would have others enjoy theirs, who has ideals and tries to live up to them, and who asks only to be freed from vulgar intrusion and the slanderous shafts of unseen enemies. In her delightful Stratford home she lives in a serene atmosphere; she regards the spot as hallowed; she has the artist’s love of the beautiful Warwickshire scenery, and the woman’s tenderness for all around her; the cottagers know her charity, and all good causes enjoy her aid and patronage. Here she dwells in a happy environment, and works with ardor, for her day’s labor begins at sunrise; yet she has always a spare hour for a friend, or a spare afternoon in which to act the gracious hostess towards visitors.
What first strikes one on meeting Miss Corelli is her intensely sympathetic nature. She will be found in all probability amid her choice flowers in the spacious Winter Garden, and her face irradiates as she advances to meet you with outstretched hands and smiling lips. A small creature, with a mass of waving golden hair—“pale gold such as the Tuscan’s early art prefers”—with dimpled cheeks and expressive eyes, almost childlike at first glance but with immense reserves of energy—that is Marie Corelli; but her chief charm is perhaps the liquid softness of her voice. She began life as a singer and musician, and as one hears her speak it is easy to understand that had she not been a force in literature she might have been a controlling influence in the world of song. In the hall her harp still stands, but more often her fingers stray over the notes of a piano, perchance making the instrument give forth a melody of her own composing.
A visitor is soon quite at ease. Formality is dispensed with. The keynote in Miss Corelli’s house is Sincerity. She is a brilliant conversationalist, but a good listener too. She talks freely and without conscious effort, and one’s faith in her is speedily inspired. What does she talk about? Just enough about herself to make her auditor wish for more; yet, with a condescension that is all grace, she is eager to hear all that her visitor has to say on the subjects nearest his own heart. Particularly does she like the theme to be the old loved authors, and whatever one has to tell of Dickens, or Thackeray, or Tennyson—and even if one should have a theory about Shakespeare—in Miss Corelli he will find not only the ardent listener but a woman whose quick and well-stored mind enables her to take up readily a debatable point, to help to resolve some doubt or mystery, or to add profitably to one’s own stock of knowledge. No one can converse with her for an hour and come away unenriched.
Yes, she not only writes enchantingly, but she herself enchants. In her presence you are under a spell. “There’s witchcraft in it.” Her youth and her artlessness disarm you—you are left wondering how this fair young creature could have fought her way alone in the world (her life has been a battle), how she could have conquered opposition, and how she could have attained to her present supremacy. It may verge upon extravagance to say it, but there is something to marvel at in the fact that at an age long before that at which George Eliot had written her first story Miss Corelli had given us a dozen remarkable and original romances of world-wide fame, and there is no guessing what achievements yet lie before her and what position she may gain. Her powers are waxing rather than waning, and a month or two ago when the last two chapters of “Temporal Power” were in her hand, we heard her say she hoped that in this book she had reached a higher stage than in any she had previously written.
But it is not only as a writer, as a necromancer with a magic pen, that one may admire Marie Corelli. She is a very woman, too, with a woman’s likes and dislikes, a woman’s feelings, a woman’s impulses, a woman’s preferences and prejudices—and she is quite frank concerning all. You like her the better for being so purely human. She is never happier than when arranging a maypole dance for the children or organizing Christmas festivities for the poor and helpless. Look round her charming rooms, and behold the evidence of the feminine hand there. Observe the taste of her dress—dress, by the way, which, with all its elegance, does not come from France, is not the “creation” or the “confection” of a Paris costumer, but is English in every detail. For there is no truer, more loyal, more patriotic soul than Marie Corelli, and she will tell you, with a touch of quiet pride, that every servant she has about her is English, that the cloth she wears is English, that the furniture of her rooms is English, and that she will endure none but an English workingman about her house. “England for the English” is her motto, and she lives up to it herself, and loses no opportunity of trying to get others to adopt it.
There are some who imagine that Miss Corelli is nothing if not caustic and critical, and they imagine that she is always running atilt against some person or other. Never was a greater delusion. Her chief fault is that she is too generous and her good nature too easily imposed upon. She will spend an afternoon in writing her name for the autograph-hunters; she will gladly address a gathering at a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon service; she will distribute prizes to children and make a felicitous speech; she will open a Flower Show; or she will lecture a huge throng in a public building on questions of the day. Yet she does these things at some sacrifice, too, for wondrously calm as she may be at the critical moment of action, her nerves are sorely shaken both before and afterwards. She taxes her memory greatly also. It may perhaps scarcely be credited that the address she delivered at Glasgow, which occupied an hour and a half, was learned off by heart and spoken without a slip.
But it is not our intention to reveal further of her private life; we know full well it would be displeasing to herself if we did so, and an unwarrantable breach of confidence. She is no notoriety-hunter. She does not cultivate the personal paragraph, and would no more tolerate the prying busybody than she does the camera-fiend who waylays her in the hope of obtaining snapshots. Why, she asks, should the veil be lifted merely to satisfy a vulgar and idle curiosity? Her private life is as sacred as that of any other person, and it is merely pandering to a depraved modern taste to lay bare “the poet’s house,” as Browning put it.
Outside should suffice for evidence:
And whoso desires to penetrate
Deeper, must dive by the spirit-sense.
One remark only need be added: Miss Corelli has been the victim of much misunderstanding in the past, of some injustice, and—alas, that it should have to be said—of deliberate malevolence. Those who are privileged to enjoy her friendship best know her admirable qualities, and entertain none but the kindest sentiments towards her and the best wishes for her continued triumphs. Her influence is vast and far-reaching. She writes with a purpose, she has used her gifts as she best knows how, and her fiery crusade, stern and determined as that of John Knox, against social evils and human follies, must make for lasting good. May this valiant woman, standing alone, battling for the right, yet add to her conquests!
Here, then, let us leave her, with the parting benediction which fell from the lips of Mr. Gladstone: “It is a wonderful gift you have, and I do not think you will abuse it. There is a magnetism in your pen which will influence many. Take care always to do your best. As a woman, you are pretty and good; as a writer, be brave and true. God bless you, my dear child! Be brave! You’ve got a great future before you. Don’t lose heart on the way!”