Again, there are such pretty fancies as:

and

There are scores of passages like these. The great gifts displayed in the volume certainly afforded some justification a few years afterwards for the strenuous efforts which Marie Corelli made to get her stepbrother made Poet Laureate.

The “Love-Letters of a Violinist,” great as was their success as poems, did not prove lucrative. Miss Corelli had provided for the first issue; afterwards Mr. Eric Mackay made a free gift of the book to the publishers of the Canterbury Poets series. The sales have since been considerable, but the arrangement made by Mr. Mackay was one which, of course, did not benefit him financially.

Shortly after the publication of “The Love-Letters of a Violinist,” there were serious developments in Dr. Charles Mackay’s illness. He was stricken down with paralysis, and the pinch of poverty was being felt, for there was very little coming into the home. Marie Corelli had now a great responsibility upon her young shoulders. The completion of her musical training it was impossible to afford. What should she do? She determined to try to write a novel. More articles and essays were contributed anonymously to newspapers and magazines; and, meanwhile, the plan of “A Romance of Two Worlds” had been prepared and the book was being written. Finally it was submitted to and accepted by a great publisher, who came to see Miss Corelli, and stared with amazement to find that the young lady to whom he was introduced as the author was a personal friend of his. Yet so it was, and the story of the publication and reception of the book is instructive.

CHAPTER III

“A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS”

In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred an author’s first long manuscript is a poor and immature thing, which, owing to its inflammatory nature, were best devoted to fire-lighting purposes. But the aspiring scribbler, not being—from this point of view, at any rate—a utilitarian in his views, would as lief lose his right hand as behold his precious pages being put to the base wooing of wood and coals. Instead, he spends several pounds on having it typewritten, and then sends it forth upon its travels round the publishing houses. It comes back to him with exasperating regularity, until the author, at last realizing that his book does not appeal to publishers’ readers quite as vividly as it does to its creator, either (if he be wise) consigns it to the dust-bin, or (if he be unwise) pays one of the shark publishing firms to bring it out. Did he know that the wily fellows to whom he entrusts his work simply print enough copies for review purposes and a few more to put on their shelves, charging him the while for a whole edition, he would not part with his good money so readily! As it is, he has the satisfaction of seeing his story between covers, of sending it to his friends, of beholding his name in the “Books Received” corner of the daily papers, of knowing for certain that a copy, wherever else it may not be found, will always be supplied to students of fiction at the British Museum; and that is all.

It is needless to say this was not the course of procedure adopted by Miss Marie Corelli. She wrote voluminously in her school-days, and was as successful as most young girls are when they are serving their literary apprenticeship. She scribbled poetry, and was no doubt happy—as every youthful scribe should be—when she was rewarded for her labors by the mere honor of print.

But the time came—as come it always does to those who have the real gift of literary creativeness—when the young artist set a large canvas upon her easel and sturdily went about the task of filling it.

Of ideas, at such an age, there is an abundant flow. Meals are irksome and many hours are stolen from slumber; it is late to bed and early to rise; it is a hatred of social duties, and a period when everything else but the dream of fame is forgotten. Although we may take the foregoing to be fairly applicable to the average girl-author, Miss Corelli denies that the writing of “A Romance of Two Worlds” ever caused her to become “æsthetically cadaverous.” Her methodical habits may account for the fact that, in spite of much desk toil and hard thinking, she has always managed to keep a well-balanced mind in corpore sano.

“I write every day from ten in the morning till two in the afternoon, alone and undisturbed.... I generally scribble off the first rough draft of a story very rapidly in pencil; then I copy it out in pen and ink, chapter by chapter, with fastidious care, not only because I like a neat manuscript, but because I think everything that is worth doing at all is worth doing well.... I find, too, that in the gradual process of copying by hand, the original draft, like a painter’s first sketch, gets improved and enlarged.”

The “Romance,” then, according to this salubrious programme, entered quietly into a state of being. Miss Corelli was doubtful whether it would ever find a publisher: her first notion was to offer it to Arrowsmith, as a railway-stall novelette. Possibly the success of “Called Back” suggested the Bristol publisher, the title she first fixed upon, “Lifted Up,” being eminently suggestive of a shilling series. However, the manuscript never went westwards—a matter which good Mr. Arrowsmith has excellent cause to regret—for, in the interim, as a kind of test of its merit or demerit, Miss Corelli sent it to Bentley’s. The “readers” attached to that house advised its summary rejection. Moved by curiosity to inspect a work which his several advisers took the trouble to condemn in such singularly adverse terms, Mr. George Bentley decided to read the manuscript himself, and the consequence of his unprejudiced and impartial inspection was approval and acceptance.

Letters were exchanged, terms proposed and agreed upon. “I am glad that all is arranged,” wrote Mr. Bentley; “nothing now remains but to try to make a success of your first venture. The work has the merit of originality, and its style writing will, I think, commend it.”

A later letter from him says: “I expect our rather ‘thick’ public will be slow in appreciating the ‘Romance,’ but if it once takes, it may go off well.”

These extracts are interesting as showing the view taken by a veteran publisher—one who had been dealing with books and authors since early manhood—of a work by an absolutely unknown writer. His opinion of Miss Corelli’s powers is represented by a further letter dispatched to her in February, 1886: “I shall be perfectly ready to give full consideration to anything which proceeds from your pen, all the more readily, too, because I see you love wholesome thought, and will not lend yourself to corrupt and debase the English mind.... I have no greater pleasure than to bring to light a bright writer like yourself. After all, the Brightness must be in the author, and so the sole praise is to her.”

After his first visit to Miss Corelli, in July of that year, Mr. Bentley wrote as follows: “The afternoon remains with me as a pleasant memory. I am so glad to have seen you. I little expected to see so young a person as the authoress of works involving in their creation faculties which at your age are mostly not sufficiently developed for such works.”

Miss Corelli was allowed to retain her copyright, a fact which, though regarded by her as of slight import at the time, has since proved of some pecuniary advantage, seeing that the “Romance” is now in its twentieth edition.

The wise old publisher saw nothing attractive, explanatory, or salable in such a name as “Lifted Up,” so a new title was asked for. Scott once said there was nothing in a name, and certainly it did not matter what such a magician as he was, called a book, any more than it matters what name any firmly established author fixes upon; but a new writer can seldom afford to despise the gentle art of alliteration or the appellation which appeals to the eye, ear, and imagination.

Both Dr. Charles Mackay and his son George Eric were appealed to by the young beginner in that literary career to which they were both accustomed. Both demanded a reading of the manuscript that they might be guided by its contents as to the title. But Marie refused to show her manuscript to any one. She told her stepfather that he would only “laugh at her silly fancies.” She would not let George Eric read it, because she wanted to surprise him by quoting some of his poetry in the book from the “Love-Letters of a Violinist,” which title she, by-the-bye, had suggested. She said her story was “about this world and the next,” whereupon Dr. Mackay, who happened to be reading Lewis Morris’s “Songs of Two Worlds” at the time, suggested “A Romance of Two Worlds.”

So, as “A Romance of Two Worlds,” the book appeared. Up to this time Miss Corelli had naturally had no experience with reviewers. She had heard of them, of course, being a member of a literary household, and she had every reason to suppose that they would, in the ordinary course of events, write criticisms upon the “Romance.” In this expectation, however, she was doomed to disappointment. It received only four reviews, all brief and distinctly unfavorable. It may not be uninteresting, at this distance of time, to quote the criticism which appeared in a leading journal, as it is a very fair sample of the rest:

“Miss Corelli would have been better advised had she embodied her ridiculous ideas in a sixpenny pamphlet. The names of Heliobas and Zara are alone sufficient indications of the dulness of this book.”

Less could hardly have been said. Had the paper been a provincial weekly, and the writer a junior reporter to whom the book had been flung with a curt editorial order to “write a par about that,” the review could not have been more innocent of any attempt at criticism. It is highly apparent that the critic in question was not employed on the elbow-jogging terms known as “on space.”

As for the names, it would have been equally absurd to call a Chaldæan—descended directly from one of the “wise men of the East”—and his sister, by the Anglo-Saxon Jack and Jill; or, indeed, to apply to them European nomenclature of any description. The “Romance,” to quote its writer’s own description, was meant to be “the simply-worded narration of a singular psychical experience, and included certain theories on religion which I, personally speaking, accept and believe.”

What name, then, would this reviewer have chosen for the electric healer who is the principal male character in the work? Although he lived in Paris, it would hardly have been fair to christen him Alphonse, a name, by the way, strongly suggestive of a French valet. Clearly the critic here was unreasonable as well as idle.

With regard to the allegation as to dulness, we imagine that Miss Corelli’s most bitter detractors have never accused her of this most unpardonable crime in a maker of books. Her imagination may take flights exasperating in their audacity to the stay-at-home mind of Wellington Street; she may occasionally state her opinions a thought too didactically for people who are themselves opinionated; when she cries shame on vice and humbug, her pen may coin denunciations somewhat too hot-and-strong for the easy-going and the worldly; but, whatever she is, or whatever she does, she is never dull.

In spite of the meagre allowances in the review way dealt out by the press to “A Romance of Two Worlds,” the book prospered exceedingly. It is absurd to deny the power of the press—either for well or for ill—and Miss Corelli’s career is a striking proof of the soundness of this statement. The public recognized the power of the new writer, and the “Romance” sold by thousands; the press went out of its way to condemn the works that followed it, and thereby advertised them. “If you can’t praise me, slate me,” said an author once to an editor; and he spoke sagely. Luke-warm reviews are the worst enemies a writer can have; favorable reviews impress a certain number of book-buyers, book-sellers, and librarians; but bitingly hostile criticisms—tinged, if possible, with personal spite—are frequently quite as helpful as columns of eulogy.

In the case of “A Romance of Two Worlds,” the press did not help one way or the other, however. The public discovered the book for themselves, and letters concerning its theories began to pour in from strangers in all parts of the United Kingdom. At the end of its first twelve months’ run, Mr. Bentley brought it out in one volume in his “Favorite” series. Then it started off round the world at full gallop.

It was, as Miss Corelli has already related in a very frank magazine article, a most undoubted success from the moment Bentleys laid it on their counter. It was “pirated” in America; chosen out and liberally paid for by Baron Tauchnitz for the popular and convenient little Tauchnitz series; and translated into various Continental languages. A gigantic amount of correspondence flowed in upon the authoress from India, Africa, Australia, and America; and it may be added that the more recent editions of the “Romance” have contained very representative excerpts from this epistolary bombardment. One man wrote saying that the book had saved him from committing suicide; another that it had called a halt on his previous driftings towards Agnosticism; others that the book had exercised a comforting and generally beneficent influence over them. To quote only one correspondent: “I felt a better woman for the reading of it twice; and I know others, too, who are higher and better women for such noble thoughts and teaching.”

Now, if a book—however one may object to the writer’s convictions or disagree with them—has an undoubted influence for good; if it drives from some minds the black spectre of Doubt, makes good men better, bad men less bad, and all men think, then has not that book won a brave excuse for its existence? may it not be considered, as a work of art, infinitely the superior of a picture or a play or another book that leaves beholders or readers exactly where it found them?

Many people condemn Marie Corelli without reading her, on the old Woolly West principle of “First hang, then try!”

She has a big public, but it would be a thousand times bigger if only scoffers and doubters would really read these books by the authoress whom they hang without trial. Let them take a course of Marie Corelli during the long winter evenings, passing on from book to book—from the “Romance” to “Vendetta,” thence to “Thelma,” “Ardath,” “Wormwood,” “The Soul of Lilith,” and so on—in the order in which they were written. For the idle and listless, for the frivolous, for the irreligious, for the purse-proud, for the down-hearted and distressed, she will prove a veritable “cure,” for she is at once a moralist and a tonic. And whereas she is a literary sermon in herself to those who listen to other preachers without profit, so will she prove a profitable and restorative change of air to the busy, the honestly prosperous, the “godly, righteous, and sober” of her students. She is for all, and, where funds are scarce and shillings consequently precious, Free Libraries bring her within reach of everybody.

At a time when our leading dramatists and novelists drag their art in the mud for the sake of the lucre that may be found down there in plenty, it is refreshing and hope-inspiring to find that the writer with the largest public in the world, whose work has penetrated to every country and is thus not restricted to Anglo-Saxondom any more than a new type of rifle is, has ranged herself on the side of Right! Thus, owing to the wide-spread interest in her work, she is enabled to preach the gospel of her beliefs in all corners of the globe;—this, too, in spite of the fact that she is comparatively a newcomer in literature.

“My appeal for a hearing,” wrote Miss Corelli, when describing, in the pages of the Idler, the appearance of her first book, “was first made to the great public, and the public responded; moreover, they do still respond with so much heartiness and good-will, that I should be the most ungrateful scribbler that ever scribbled if I did not” (despite press “drubbings” and the amusing total ignoring of my very existence by certain cliquey literary magazines) “take up my courage in both hands, as the French say, and march steadily onward to such generous cheering and encouragement. I am told by an eminent literary authority that critics are ‘down upon me’ because I write about the supernatural. Neither ‘Vendetta,’ nor ‘Thelma,’ nor ‘Wormwood’ is supernatural. But, says the eminent literary authority, why write at all, at any time, about the supernatural? Why? Because I feel the existence of the supernatural, and, feeling it, I must speak of it. I understand that the religion we profess to follow emanates from the supernatural. And I presume that churches exist for the solemn worship of the supernatural. Wherefore, if the supernatural be thus universally acknowledged as a guide for thought and morals, I fail to see why I, and as many others as choose to do so, should not write on the subject.... But I distinctly wish it to be understood that I am neither a ‘Spiritualist’ nor a ‘Theosophist’.... I have no other supernatural belief than that which is taught by the Founder of our Faith....”

The plot of the story with which Miss Corelli won her spurs is simple in the extreme. The plot indeed, is a secondary matter, the main strength of the book being the Physical Electricity utilized by Heliobas—the medicine man of Chaldæan descent who has neither diploma nor license—in his cure of the young improvisatrice whose nerves have been shattered by over-devotion to musical study and whose vitality has been reduced to an alarmingly low ebb by her inability to recuperate, even in the soothing climate of the Riviera. An artist who has been saved from self-destruction and restored to absolute health by Heliobas, advises her to seek out this “Dr. Casimir” (as Heliobas is called in Paris) and put herself in his hands. This she does, with astounding results; for, from a miserable, woe-begone creature, all “palpitations and headaches and stupors,” Casimir’s potions and electrical remedies change her into an absolutely healthy woman, “plump and pink as a peach.” In Casimir’s house lives the physician’s sister, Zara, who, by means of the same medical and electrical properties, retains, at thirty-eight, the complexion and supple health of a girl of seventeen, being ever “as fresh and lovely as a summer morning.” During her stay with him, Heliobas expounds his “Electric Creed” to the young musician, and by her own wish, and by means of his extraordinary hypnotic powers—combined with a fluid preparation which he causes her to take—throws her into a trance, in the course of which “strange departure,” her soul is temporarily separated from her body and floats from the earth to other spheres. Guided by the spirit Azùl, it wanders to the “Centre of the Universe,” and, after being permitted to gaze upon the wonders and glories of the supernatural, returns to earth and once more takes its place in the work-a-day body from which it had been temporarily released. After Casimir has afforded the girl further explanations of his theories, she is admitted to the small circle of adherents to the Electric Creed. As a result of Casimir’s treatment she eventually finds herself not only in possession of complete health, but also equally perfected in her work; so much so, indeed, that while her improved looks are a delight to her friends, her playing fills them with wonder and delight.

The story ends pathetically. Just as the heroine is about to go forth into the world again, armed with new bodily vigor and tenfold her previous talent, her friend, the ever-youthful Zara, is killed by a flash of lightning. After attending the burial of his sister in Père-la-Chaise, Heliobas takes leave of his patient, and proceeds to Egypt to accustom himself to the solitude to which his sister’s death has condemned him. The reader is given to understand, however, that Heliobas and the young musician meet again later on under more cheerful conditions.

Such is a mere outline of this popular story, which is told throughout with admirable restraint and dignity, the language being moderate, and the arguments pithily expressed. The half-dozen minor characters are touched in with all the skill of an experienced novelist; and yet, when Miss Corelli set to work on this “Romance,” she was younger than her heroine is represented to be.

The actual penmanship occasioned by the writing of the book must have been as nothing compared with the very arduous thought and study connected with the mental generation of the views held by Heliobas and his fellow-believers. That the theories here exploited are well worth the consideration of all thoughtful persons, is proved by the intense interest the book has aroused in so many widely different and widely separated areas of civilization.

It ought to be remembered, too, that, at the time the “Romance” was published, the wonders of the X-rays had not been demonstrated, nor had wireless telegraphy become a fait accompli. Yet these were distinctly foretold in Marie Corelli’s first book, as also the possible wonders yet to be proved in certain new scientific theories of Sound and Color. It may instruct many to know that the theory of God’s “Central World” with which all the universe moves, is a part of the authoress’s own implicit belief in a future state of being.

CHAPTER IV

“VENDETTA” AND “THELMA”

That Mr. Bentley’s prophecy was fulfilled is clearly indicated in a letter addressed by him to the authoress on October 22d of the same year: “I have very great pleasure in sending the enclosed, because I should have been mortified beyond expression if the public had not responded to the marked power of your story. I believe you will come now steadily to the front, and I am very curious to read your new story".... “I shall yield to no reader of your works,” he again wrote, some time afterwards, “in a very high opinion of such scenes as the supper scene in ‘Vendetta’—as good as if Bulwer had written it....”

As the preface to “Vendetta” tells us, the book’s chief incidents are founded on an actual and fatal blunder which was committed in Naples during the cholera visitation of 1884. “Nothing,” says the authoress, “is more strange than truth;—nothing, at times, more terrible!” “Vendetta” is, then, practically, a true story, and certainly a very terrible one, of a Neapolitan nobleman who, being suddenly attacked by the scourge that was decimating this fair southern city, fell into a coma-like state so closely resembling death that he was hurried into a flimsy coffin, and deposited in his family vault as one deceased. Awaking from his deep swoon, the frenzied strength which would naturally come to a man finding himself in such an appalling situation, enabled him to break the frail boards of his narrow prison and escape from the vault. In the course of his wanderings, ere he found an outlet, he became acquainted with the fact that a band of brigands had utilized the mausoleum as a store-house for their ill-gotten valuables. Having helped himself liberally to a portion of the plunder, the count—with hair turned white by his harrowing experiences—retraced his steps to his house, only to find his most familiar friend consoling his supposed widow for the loss of her husband in a manner which plainly gave evidence that the amours of the guilty couple were by no means of recent origin. Fired by a desire for revenge, and materially assisted by the bandits’ secret hoard, the wronged nobleman, instead of making known his resurrection to his wife or anybody else, quitted Naples for a while. On his reappearance, six months later—well disguised by his white hair and a pair of smoked spectacles—he represented himself to be an elderly and wealthy Italian noble, lately returned from a long but voluntary exile from his native land. Playing his rôle to perfection, he soon succeeded in striking up a friendship with his wife and her lover, his ire increasing as he found that they were both supremely indifferent to the memory of the man whom they imagined to be lying in the tomb of his ancestors.

From this point the reader is compelled to pass rapidly from chapter to chapter in following out the injured husband’s scheme of retaliation. With remarkable ingenuity the novelist depicts the manner in which the elderly nobleman, making free use of his abundant means, wormed himself into the confidence of his supposed widow as well as his traitorous friend, and how he finally manœuvred the latter into a duel which proved fatal to the doer of evil, and the former into a second marriage with himself. The curtain falls on a midnight adventure which proved fatal to the twice-wed wife.

Miss Corelli appears to be thoroughly at home at Naples and among the Neapolitans. Her descriptions of the place and its people are admirable. She is well-versed in the art of painting a pretty picture, only, for the purposes of her plot, to destroy it with a great ugly dab across the smiling canvas. For the story opens as daintily as you please. Left, while still a youth, an ample fortune, Count Fabio Romani dwelt “in a miniature palace of white marble, situated on a wooded height overlooking the Bay of Naples.” His pleasure grounds “were fringed with fragrant groves of orange and myrtle, where hundreds of full-voiced nightingales warbled their love-melodies to the golden moon.”

One can imagine that a young nobleman, who, though athletic and fond of the open air, was at the same time of a bookish and dreamy disposition, might, in such a pleasant retreat, have lingered on, a bachelor, until the discretion of the thirties would have befriended him in selecting a suitable mate. As it was, he saw but few women, and did not seek their society; but, when only a few years had passed since his accession to the title, Fate cast in his way a face “of rose-tinted, childlike loveliness,” it dazzled him. And “of course I married her.”

The fair canvas is not blurred over too soon, for following the marriage come several years of bliss undimmed by any cloud. The false friend’s infidelity remains unexposed and all is peace at the Villa Romani, the husband doting and believing himself to be doted upon, and a girl-babe, “fair as one of the white anemones” which abounded in the woods surrounding the home, arriving to add pride to his love. Then the bolt falls. The cholera descends upon Naples, and with inexorable clutch claims victim after victim.

Count Fabio, strolling down to the harbor one hot early morn, comes upon a lad stricken by the dread malady, and tends him. Within an hour he is himself convulsed with excruciating agony, and, whilst stretched on a bench in a humble restaurant, loses consciousness—to awake in his coffin.

The horrors of such a restoration to life are depicted with extraordinary force, and with equal power is described the revulsion of feeling—the intoxicating delight—experienced by the unfortunate man as, having regained his liberty, he stands rejoicing in the morning light and listens to the song of a boatman who is plying his oars on the smooth surface of the Bay. It was a happy fancy to set down the words of the sailor’s carol—a gentle touch of human gladness ere the demon of vengeance whispers “Vendetta!”

With astonishing cleverness the outraged husband maps out his plan of requital; his patience, his self-control, his constant alertness are described by himself—the story is told in the first person—with a deliberation that is almost diabolical in its cold-blooded intensity.

Count Fabio scorns the idea of divorce or even an ordinary duel; his revenge must partake of nothing so prosaic as an action at law or ten minutes’ rapier play. The matter does, indeed, come to a fight at last, but even here the injured nobleman gives his rival no chance; for, by removing his smoked spectacles, and disclosing his eyes for the first time to his one-time friend, he so unnerves his opponent that the latter fires wildly and merely grazes the count’s shoulder, while Fabio’s bullet finds a vital spot in the breast of the man who in a mere prosaic action for divorce would be referred to as the co-respondent.

The count intended to kill his man, and, if his action were unsportsmanlike, he would doubtless have excused it on the ground that a vendetta wots not of fair play, the idea being that one person has to bring about the death of another, by means fair or foul. The count found it necessary to his programme to make the duel appear a perfectly fair one; but as a matter of fact he never for a moment, owing to the precautions he took, had any misgivings as to which combatant would prove successful.

In the event of this book being dramatized, the most thrilling situation will undoubtedly be pronounced the scene in the vault when Fabio, having remarried his wife, takes her to what he describes as the house where he keeps his treasure. When retreat is impossible the guilty woman discovers that he has lured her into the Romani mausoleum. In this noisome place of sepulture, amidst the bones of bygone Counts Romani, he discloses his identity, and points to his own coffin, broken asunder—a ghastly proof of the fact that his story is true. This is his night of triumph: here ends his revenge. “Trick for trick, comedy for comedy.” His once familiar friend lies dead in a grave distant but a few yards from the vault in which, held fast in a ruthless snare, stands the wife whose love had strayed from her husband to the silent one yonder.

Her first fright over, she shows resource even in these dire straits: she flees, but a locked gate bars her exit, and then she almost succeeds in stabbing her jailer. But nothing avails against his vigilance and iron strength, and her terrible surroundings turn her brain. Mad, she breaks into song—an old melody that at last, when too late, touches the heart of her husband, and he resolves to remove her from the charnel-house. But ere his new-found compassion can take action, while she is crooning over the bandits’ hoard of jewels and decking her fair arms and neck with blazing gems, a sudden upheaval of Nature, not uncommon in those parts, shakes a ponderous stone out of the vault’s roof and silences her song forever.

The conclusion is fittingly brief. The once proud noble flees from Naples to the wild woodlands of South America, where, with other settlers, he ekes out a bare existence by the rough and unremitting toil inseparable from such surroundings.

It is a relief to turn from these scenes of black and tempestuous passion to the gracious and winning personality of the Norwegian girl Thelma, whose name adorns the title-page of Miss Corelli’s third novel. Here is no pestilence, for the opening chapters seem to breathe health and strength and well-being, so redolent is the setting of all that is good and sweet.

Miss Corelli’s publisher was delighted with the manuscript. “I have read all,” wrote Mr. Bentley, on March 22d, 1887; “what a nuisance space is! Here are three hundred miles separating us, and I feel I could say what I have to say fifty times better by word of mouth than with this pen.... ‘Thelma,’ as long as it is Norwegian, is a lovely dream—a romance full of poetry and color. ‘Thelma’ in London (I speak of the book) I cannot like. Of course the contrast, if not too deep, is effective.... How glad I was to get back to Norway! The death of Olaf is very picturesquely painted, and little Britta is a charming little brick.” In a previous letter, written when he had perused up to “page 1017,” he said: “The character of Sigurd I consider a most beautiful creation. I hardly like to write what I really think of it, since either it is of the very highest order, or I have no claim to critical ability of any sort. His whole career, his half-thought-out, half-uttered exclamations, the poetry of his thoughts, his passion so noble and so pitiful, the grand and highly dramatic close of his life, must give you a position which might be denied for ‘Vendetta’ as melodrama. Here there is nothing of that sort of life—here one is in the world which held Ariel. The Bonde I like much, and Lorimer. How necessary are some defects to a perfect liking! How we are in touch with poor Humanity through its weak side! This is, I suppose, why we do not sympathize as we ought with Christ. We feel sad for ourselves, and I can only truly pity those who need it,—the sort of cry in our hearts for the lost perfection.... I could write several sheets about the novel, but I forbear. Don’t write too fast. One who can write as well as you can, can write better, and in the long run will stand better on financial grounds.”

Here is advice from one possessing great experience and much worldly wisdom. How helpful such sound and friendly counsel proved to the young novelist can readily be imagined.

“The death of Sigurd, and that also of Olaf,” wrote Mr. Bentley, on March 28th, 1887, “are far ahead in literary excellence and truth of anything in ‘She’".... “I confess I hate perfect people,” he remarks in a subsequent letter, “and that is why, on the contrary, I love Thelma’s father, have a strong sympathy with poor Sigurd as well as with many of the other characters in the story, and with that pretty little side picture of the plucky little waiting maid. I congratulate you on your next idea. It is in the Spirit of the age to pierce into the mysteries of the unseen world, and I look forward to some interesting speculations from your enquiring mind.”

Various passages in other letters testify to Mr. Bentley’s genuine appreciation of the book. “A clever lady, a great friend of mine whose opinion I value, is charmed with ‘Thelma.’ This lady was a friend of Guizot, is a keen critic, and hates our modern novels.” And again: “There is a rich imagery in ‘Thelma,’ which makes me believe you capable of becoming our first novelist, and there is a versatility which bodes well.... But God sends what is best for His children—may His best be for you!”

“Thelma” is, in truth, for some considerable way through its numerous pages, a very pretty story: by many readers, as has been said, it is counted Miss Corelli’s best achievement, albeit the authoress, in her heart of hearts, sets “Ardath” above everything that has come from her pen.

“Thelma” is quaintly unorthodox from its very start, for the two principal characters meet each other in the unconventional manner so dear to the heart of the romance-lover. A wave-lapped beach, at midnight, in the Land of the Midnight Sun—a handsome English aristocrat—a wonderful maid, who can claim direct descent from the old Vikings—some slight assistance required in the launching of a boat—are not these particulars sufficient to whet the appetite for what is bound to follow? Favored by circumstances, this chance meeting ripens into a full-fledged friendship, whence to a wooing and a wedding is no far cry in the hands of a skilful novelist.

The main theme of the story, of course, is English society as viewed by a girl who, though naturally refined and carefully educated, is, as regards the world and its ways, a child. Thelma, having become Lady Bruce-Errington, is gradually introduced to her husband’s social equals, the result being as diverting as it is pathetic; for she has to go through a process of disillusionment whereby she learns with no little pain that an invitation to dinner is not necessarily a genuine expression of regard any more than a woman’s kiss betokens the slightest affection or even liking for the woman upon whom it is bestowed.

Having imbibed all the accomplishments of the schoolroom, Thelma finds that the vanity of the world is a study which brings much bitterness of soul in the mastering. At first the young bride’s astonishing frankness is taken for a supreme effort of art; then, when the truth dawns upon her associates, her success in society advances by leaps and bounds, and she becomes what is called “the rage.” Naturally her large nature soon sickens of such adulation, and induces a strange weariness which gives place to blank despair and unutterable misery when the machinations of certain evily-disposed persons lead her to believe that her husband has bestowed his affections upon a burlesque actress. So great is her selflessness that the poor girl makes excuses for her husband’s (alleged) infidelity, and actually blames herself for not having proved sufficiently fascinating to keep him by her side. In bitter weather she quietly leaves London—bound for home. She crosses the rough seas in a cargo-boat, and arrives in Norway to find that her father is just dead. Her husband follows her by a perilous route, and, surviving the many dangers of the journey, gains her bedside in time to save her life and reason. And thereafter all is well.

In a book containing six hundred and fifteen closely-printed pages, there must of necessity be a long roll of characters. It is often the case that characters, increasing in number as a book progresses in the writing, demand more and more space for their exploitation. Hence such voluminous works as “Thelma.” In the first part of the novel the persons introduced are mainly of the bachelor kind, and, though useful in filling chairs at the literary repast, are not absolutely necessary to the plot’s working. In Book II.—“The Land of Mockery”—a new set of people is introduced, society people mostly, and their servants. In Book III.—“The Land of the Long Shadow”—the reader is taken to Norway in the winter, the novelist appropriately and strikingly making Nature’s moods harmonize with those of her pen-and-ink creations.

Miss Corelli lays on her colors with an unsparing brush—there is nothing half-and-half in her characterization. There are four “principals” in this play. Lady Winsleigh, as opposed to Thelma, fills a rôle full of wrongful possibilities in that she portrays “a woman scorned,” than whom, as we are asked to believe, Hell hath no fury whose malevolence is of a worse description. Sir Francis Lennox is, in wrong-doing, her masculine counterpart; and to balance him we have Thelma’s husband, an excellent fellow who makes a fool of himself in a truly bewildering manner. His behavior in endeavoring to bring about a reconciliation between his secretary and his secretary’s wife—the actress already referred to—is the weak spot in the book.

Much, however, that displeases the critical sense—which is fortunately not the predominating mental attribute of the novel-reading public—is obliterated by Thelma’s womanliness and attractively gentle nature. She is born to love and to suffer, and still to love, without murmur or reproach, “for better for worse, for richer for poorer,” the husband of her heart’s choice. She is a human flower, well pictured by the lines from Rossetti quoted by the authoress:

CHAPTER V

“ARDATH”—THE STORY OF A DEAD SELF—THE WONDERFUL CITY OF AL-KYRIS—THE MISSION OF THE BOOK

That the authoress has a quick and appreciative eye for the picturesque, her most bitter detractor will not care to deny; she loves to write of birds and flowers, field and forest, golden sunshine and blue waters. She exhibits a passion for the bygone—in architecture and in man. In her interesting miscellany, “A Christmas Greeting,” she reproves those who would take from the charming old-worldliness of Shakespeare’s birthplace by erecting in Stratford-on-Avon ugly villas and shops suggestive of Clapham or Peckham Rye. She would—as we all would—have Stratford kept as much as possible like Stratford was when Shakespeare wandered by Avon’s banks or brooded over the fire in his home near to the old Guild Church.

“Ardath” was written in a hot glow of inspiration. Its theme is drawn from the Book of Esdras, one of the apocryphal Jewish writings which, while not used for “establishment of doctrine,” are held to be of value for historical purposes and for “instruction of manners.” Like a constantly recurring refrain in a musical composition, the passage in Esdras chosen by the authoress for her text greets the reader ever and anon as he turns the pages: “So I went my way into the Field which is called ‘Ardath,’ and sat among the flowers.”

On this passage Miss Corelli built her romance, and so successfully did she work out her ideas that “Ardath” drew letters from all sorts and conditions of men—letters discussing the theories propounded in her writings, and asking for information and advice of encyclopædic character. Amongst the