“You know now,” he tells Angela Sovrani, “because your wise men are beginning to prove it, that you can in very truth send a message to heaven. Heaven is composed of millions of worlds. ‘In My Father’s house are many mansions!’ And from all worlds to all worlds, and from mansion to mansion, the messages flash! And there are those who receive them, with such directness as can admit of no error! And your wise men might have known this long ago if they had believed their Master’s word, ‘Whatsoever is whispered in secret shall be proclaimed on the housetops.’ But you will all find out soon that it is true, and that everything you say, and that every prayer you utter, God hears.”
“My mother is in Heaven,” said Angela wistfully, “I wish I could send her a message!”
“Your very wish has reached her now!” said Manuel. “How is it possible that you, in the spirit, could wish to communicate with one so beloved and she not know it? Love would be no use then, and there would be a grave flaw in God’s perfect creation.”
“Then you think we never lose those we love? And that they see us and hear us always?”
“They must do so,” said Manuel, “otherwise there would be cruelty in creating the grace of love at all. But God Himself is Love. Those who love truly can never be parted—death has no power over their souls. If one is on earth and one in heaven, what does it matter? If they were in separate countries of the world they could hear news of each other from time to time,—and so they can when apparent death has divided them.”
“How?” asked Angela with quick interest.
“Your wise men must tell you,” said Manuel, with a grave little smile, “I know no more than what Christ has said,—and He told us plainly that not even a sparrow shall fall to the ground without our Father’s knowledge. ‘Fear not,’ He said, ‘Ye are more than many sparrows.’ So, as there is nothing which is useless, and nothing which is wasted, it is very certain that love, which is the greatest of all things, cannot lose what it loves!”
It is worthy of note that, on account of “The Master Christian,” in spite of the teachings in it such as we have quoted, the author has been labeled an “atheist.”
Of many interesting incidents which mark the Cardinal’s stay in Paris, the most sensational is the sermon of the Abbé Vergniaud and the extraordinary scene at its close.
Marie Corelli gives a wonderfully realistic word-picture of the scene in the famous church on a notable occasion. The Abbé’s sermon, which appears in its entirety, is scathingly sarcastic. In it he bitterly denounces the hypocrisy alike of people and of churches, especially the Roman Catholic Church, which he attacks for the ban it places upon many things, even discussion; he declares that all the intellectual force of the country is arrayed against priestcraft, and that the spirit of an insolent, witty, domineering atheism and materialism rules us all. “But what I specially wish to advise you—taking myself as an example—is, that none of you, whether inclined to virtue or to vice, should remain such arrant fools as to imagine that your sins will not find you out.”
And then the Abbé makes open confession, before the congregation, of his past life.
“I was a priest of the Romish Church as I am now; it would never have done for a priest to be a social sinner! I therefore took every precaution to hide my fault;—but out of my lie springs a living condemnation; from my carefully concealed hypocrisy comes a blazonry of truth, and from my secret sin comes an open vengeance....”
The report of a pistol shot sounds through the church as the last words are uttered. A young man has fired at the preacher. It is the son seeking his vengeance at last. Manuel prevents the bullet from reaching Vergniaud, who immediately announces to the astonished congregation that he will not make a charge: “I decline to prosecute my own flesh and blood. I will be answerable for his future conduct,—I am entirely answerable for his past! He is my son!”
It is upon the persecution of Cardinal Bonpré in consequence of the attitude he adopts towards the Abbé Vergniaud after this sensational incident that Marie Corelli builds her chief indictment of the Vatican executive. An agent of the Vatican, then in Paris, is Monsignor Moretti. He calls at the Sovrani Palace. There he has an interview with the Cardinal, the Abbé, and the latter’s son Cyrillon. Moretti upbraids Vergniaud for his conduct, correctly describing him as a faithless son of the church, and meets with the retort, “The attack on the Church I admit. I am not the only preacher in the world who has so attacked it. Christ Himself would attack it if He were to visit this earth again!” The remark is characterized as blasphemy, but, on the Cardinal being appealed to, the good Bonpré states his failure to perceive the alleged blasphemy of “our unhappy and repentant brother.”
“In his address to his congregation to-day he denounced social hypocrisy, and also pointed out certain failings in the Church which may possibly need consideration and reform; but against the Gospel of Christ or against the Founder of our Faith I heard no word that could be judged ill-fitting. As for the conclusion which so very nearly ended in disaster and crime, there is nothing to be said beyond the fact that both the persons concerned are profoundly sorry for their sins.... Surely we must believe the words of our Blessed Lord, ‘There is more joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-and-nine just persons which have no need of repentance.’”
This forgiveness of sin which Christ preached and which Marie Corelli claims that the Romish Church does not practice, is the basis of the differences of Cardinal Bonpré with Moretti, and afterwards with the Pope. Vergniaud, still unrebuked by Cardinal Bonpré, declares to Moretti that there is a movement in the world which all the powers of Rome are unable to cope with, the movement of an ever-advancing and resistless force called Truth, and that God will shake down Rome rather than that the voice of Truth should be silenced.
The Abbé’s declarations, as the Vatican emissary points out, mean his expulsion from the Church. Before the interview closes there comes the declaration by Cyrillon Vergniaud, the son of the Abbé, that he is “Gys Grandit,” a powerful writer of essays that are the creed of a “Christian Democratic” party—that advocate of Truth to which the Abbé had referred. The announcement is startling to all three clerics, the more so as the young man proceeds to utter his views, a stern denunciation of the Church’s practices, with such rebukes as: “Does not the glittering of the world’s wealth piled into the Vatican,—useless wealth lying idle in the midst of hideous beggary and starvation,—proclaim with no uncertain voice, ‘I know not the Man’?” with the added declaration that there is no true representative of Christ in this world—either within or without the Romish Church—though even sceptics, while denying Christ’s Divinity, are forced to own that His life and His actions were more Divine than those of any other creature in human shape that has ever walked the earth!
In the further argumentative passes between Moretti and Gys Grandit, the former holds that the Church of Rome is a system of moral government, and that it is proper to thrust out of salvation heretics who are excommunicate, and that if our Lord’s commands were to be obeyed to the letter it would be necessary to find another world to live in. These propositions the Christian Democrat absolutely denies, and urges, on the other hand, that it may be possible that we may be forced to obey Christ’s commands to the letter or perish for refusing to do so. For permitting such remarks to go unreproved, Moretti, as the interview closes, intimates that, in reporting the matter to the Pope, the attitude of Cardinal Bonpré will be explained. Further offense is given by the appearance of Manuel upon the scene, and by some remarks the lad makes upon the subject under discussion.
Clouds are gathering heavily over the horizon of the saintly Bonpré, who, accompanied by Manuel, proceeds to Rome after this most unpropitious preliminary to an audience at the Vatican. He is further troubled, immediately after his arrival at the palace of his brother-in-law, Prince Sovrani, by being informed of the “miracle” of Rouen—the recovery of Fabien Doucet, of which he now hears for the first time, though all Rome has been talking loudly of it. Bonpré is decidedly in bad repute at the Vatican, and it is determined that he shall be made to suffer for his defense of Vergniaud. He adds to his offenses by denying all knowledge of the Rouen lad’s cure.
Manuel and Bonpré visit St. Peter’s, which does not please them, and at last they are received by the Pope. Here all Marie Corelli’s criticism of the Romish Church is concentrated in the appeal which is made by the child-Christ to His Holiness. He asks him why he stops at the Vatican all alone.
“You must be very unhappy!... To be here all alone, and a whole world outside waiting to be comforted! To have vast wealth lying about you unused, with millions and millions of poor, starving, struggling dying creatures, near at hand, cursing the God whom they have never been taught to know or to bless!...
“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.
“And over all this blackness and chaos the supernal figure of the glorious Christ was aerially poised,—one Hand was extended, and to this a Woman clung—a woman with a beautiful face made piteous in its beauty by long grief and patient endurance. In her other arm she held a sleeping child—and mother and child were linked together by a garland of flowers partially broken and faded. Her entreating attitude,—the sleeping child’s helplessness—her worn face,—the perishing roses of earth’s hope and joy,—all expressed their meaning simply yet tragically; and as the Divine Hand supported and drew her up out of the universal chaos below, the hope of a new world, a better world, a wiser world, a holier world, seemed to be distantly conveyed. But the eyes of the Christ were full of reproach, and were bent on the Representative of St. Peter binding the laurel-crowned youth, and dragging him into darkness,—and the words written across the golden mount of the picture, in clear black letters, seemed to be actually spoken aloud from the vivid color and movement of the painting. ‘Many in that day will call upon Me and say, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name cast out devils, and done many wonderful works?’
“‘Then will I say to them, I never knew you! Depart from Me all ye that work iniquity!’”
And what of Angela and Florian? Painter and sweetheart regard the work. Varillo’s first remark is, “Did you do it all yourself?” That is the first verbal stab. Others follow, killing the joy of Angela. And the verbal stabs are but the prelude to one with steel; for Varillo, maddened by jealousy, determines to kill Angela and then to persuade the world that he has painted the picture. Angela, happily, is not killed. Varillo, who escapes, enters into a conspiracy to declare and maintain that the great picture is his. He is got out of the world and out of the book by perishing in a fire at a monastery to which he had been taken. Such treachery it is almost impossible to conceive. Yet those who condemn the incident should remember some of Marie Corelli’s own personal experiences, with which the world has now to some extent become acquainted. Angela subsequently marries Gys Grandit.
Throughout the book there are a good many discourses by Aubrey Leigh and Gys Grandit on the subject of Christian Democracy. What seems to be the main desire of this party is “a purified Church—a House of Praise to God, without any superstition or Dogma.” We must confess, however, that we recognize the truth of the remark made by Gherardi—one of the Roman prelates—“You must have Dogma. You must formulate something out of a chaos of opinion”; and neither through Manuel, Aubrey Leigh, nor Gys Grandit does Marie Corelli tell us how she would build up this simple universal church of which she speaks so much. We may, however, expect in a further book to have Miss Corelli’s constructive conceptions on the subject. The basis of it all is, at any rate, that the main feature of all worship should be praise of the Almighty and His Divine Son; and, as a true believer and an artist, she would have the churches not only essentially houses of Praise, but buildings worthy of the high purpose for which they are erected. In “The Master Christian” she gives us her stepfather’s poem as indicating Aubrey Leigh’s ideal on the subject:
In the closing of the story we find Cardinal Bonpré threatened by the Pope with severe punishment unless he parts with Manuel, and the Cardinal’s dignified and argumentative reply. The two part, but it is not at the bidding of the Pope. There is a beautiful description of the last night on earth of the Cardinal and of a vision beheld by him—a Dream of Angels, “Of thousands of dazzling faces, that shone like stars or were fair as flowers!”
So the Cardinal passes away to his eternal rest:
“And when the morning sun shone through the windows ... its wintry beams encircled the peaceful form of the dead Cardinal with a pale halo of gold,—and when they came and found him there, and turned his face to the light—it was as the face of a glorified saint, whom God had greatly loved!”
* * * * * *
And of the “Cardinal’s foundling”—what of Him? Many wondered and sought to trace Him, but no one ever heard where he had gone.... Some say He has never disappeared,—but that in some form or manifestation of wisdom, He is ever with us, watching to see whether His work is well or ill done,—whether His flocks are fed, or led astray to be devoured by wolves—whether His straight and simple commands are fulfilled or disobeyed. And the days grow dark and threatening—and life is more and more beset with difficulty and disaster—and the world is moving more and more swiftly on to its predestined end—and the Churches are as stagnant pools, from whence Death is far more often born than Life. And may we not ask ourselves often in these days the question,—
“When the Son of Man cometh, think ye He shall find faith on earth?”
That is the question that Marie Corelli asks the world through “The Master Christian.”
This, Marie Corelli’s latest work, appeared on August 28th, 1902, the first edition totalling up to the unprecedented number of 120,000 copies. We understand that, since the primary issue, a further 30,000 copies have been printed. Thus it comes about that in spite of all the newspaper invective of which she has been the victim and the verbal floodgates that have been opened upon her, Marie Corelli has with her latest production broken the bookselling record for a six-shilling volume on its first appearance.
“Temporal Power” is not an inviting name. As a schoolmiss would say, “It sounds dry.” It has not the mystery-suggesting flavor of “The House on the Marsh” or the thrilling and adventuresome qualities of a title like “Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea”; yet “Temporal Power,” despite its appellation, is, at the time of writing, the most-talked-about book in the world.
“For,” to quote Marie Corelli, “it must be borne in mind that ‘Temporal Power’ are the two dazzling words which forever fascinate the Pope, and are the key-notes of every attempt at supremacy. ‘Temporal Power’ is the desire of kings, as of commoners. There is nothing really prosaic about such a title, unless the thing itself be deemed prosaic, which, if this were proved, would make out that all the work of the world was useless and that nothing whatever need be done except fold one’s hands and sit down in unambitious contentment.”
“Temporal Power” was not issued to the Press for review, but no less than three hundred and fifty journals—big and little—paid Miss Corelli the compliment of purchasing the book in order to comment on its plot and characteristics. Conning the mass of critical matter which is the outcome of this action on the part of the newspapers, it would seem that the attitude of the Press towards the authoress is growing less hostile than of yore, for quite a number of the reviews are couched in distinctly favorable language.
From Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, September 21st, 1902, we cull the following notice, which will serve as a brief resumé of the plot—no doubt already familiar to the majority of our readers—and at the same time as an example of how an entire stranger to the novelist—as the author of this article was—can disregard the prejudice which has arisen with respect to our subject, and write as he thinks, combining, as it appears to us, a happy knack of lucid expression with a calm and temperate judgment.
A text from St. Paul as follows, “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places,” prefaces and in a measure explains this very remarkable book. The hero of the story is a king reigning in these latter days over a Christian country that never once throughout the book receives a name. The omission, however, is not likely to be very early noticed by the reader, so intense is the interest aroused by the narrative, so rapid and sustained is its action. The king, married to a beautiful but cold consort who has borne him three sons, suddenly awakes to the fact that he is not doing his duty to his people, and resolves to go amongst them to see things for himself. He accordingly does so in disguise, and actually joins a society of Socialists. Hearing what is said about his Ministers he tests them and vetoes a declaration of war which is being brought about in the interests of certain capitalists and through the agency of a corrupt Press. Another conspiracy he contends with and defeats is a Jesuit one, during which an attempt is made upon his life, an attempt foiled by a beautiful woman of the people, who receives the knife-thrust in his place. One of the main themes of the book is the love of the king’s eldest son Humphry for Gloria, a poor but beautiful girl. He has secretly wedded her, and the fact coming to the king’s knowledge he upbraids his son and tells him that, the marriage with Gloria being of necessity morganatic, he must make a speedy alliance with a princess of a neighboring state. Then ensues a fine scene in which the young prince firmly refuses to abandon Gloria, or to commit bigamy by another marriage. It is one of those scenes in which Miss Corelli is seen at her best. There is deep scorn in the prince’s utterance when he declines the other marriage: “Three or four Royal sinners of this class I know of who for all their pains have not succeeded in winning the attachment of their people, either for themselves or their heirs.” He further emphatically assures his royal father that he will, if needful, “make it a test case, and appeal to the law of the realm. If that law tolerates a crime in princes which it would punish in commoners, then I shall ask the People to judge me!” The whole book throughout is so arranged that Miss Corelli is everywhere enabled to give utterance to the views of life she holds, and to attack the things she considers wrong. This she does in every instance with eloquent vehemence, and there will be many who must feel that she usually has right on her side. “Of things temporal there shall be no duration—neither Sovereignty nor Supremacy, nor Power; only Love, which makes weak the strongest, and governs the proudest.” The end of the book is the abdication and death of the king, his son and Gloria sailing to happier climes, rejoicing in a pure love. In its scope and imagination this is one of the most striking volumes Miss Corelli has given us.
From this exceedingly able summing-up of the work we will now turn to the article on “Temporal Power” which was published in The Review of Reviews.
To begin with, it needs to be explained that Mr. Stead first of all wrote a private letter to Miss Corelli telling her that it was “by far the strongest book she had yet written.” He then went on to suggest that she meant her characters for certain living Royalties and celebrities. Miss Corelli wrote back to him at once, stating that he was entirely in error. He having made the suggestion that she had described Queen Alexandra as the cold and irresponsive Queen of “Temporal Power,” Miss Corelli referred him to her “Christmas Greeting,” published at the end of the previous year, for the description of the Queen as seen in “The Soul of Queen Alexandra.” The general tone of Mr. Stead’s review was to accuse Miss Corelli of “disloyalty” (though he himself, Miss Corelli complains, had long expressed views that were distinctly Pro-Boer), and to inquire sarcastically how it happened that she was invited to the Coronation? It may be stated that she was invited to the Coronation because the King knows her personally, and, knowing her, is perfectly aware that he has no more loyal subject—a conviction that is not likely to be disturbed by the casual statement even of an experienced reviewer like Mr. Stead. From certain letters and messages Miss Marie Corelli has received from both the King and Queen (if she cared to make them public), it is very evident that she is thoroughly appreciated by the Royal Family, and that they are the last people in the world to believe the numerous adverse statements circulated about her merely on account of her brilliant success.
It was in the September (1902) Review of Reviews that Mr. Stead devoted four pages to his criticism of “Temporal Power,” which was described as “a tract for the guidance of the King.”
“The fact” (continued Mr. Stead) “that her pages reflect as in a glass darkly, in an exaggerated and somewhat distorted shape, the leading personages in the English Court, and in contemporary politics, may be one of those extraordinary coincidences which occur without any intention on the part of the authoress of the book.”
The King and the Queen are then described, and attention is drawn to the position of the Heir Apparent after he has contracted what is known as a morganatic marriage.
The King and Queen (proceeds the review) insist upon ignoring the marriage, and try to compel their son to commit bigamy by marrying a woman of the royal caste. The Prince, however—and in this Marie Corelli departs from the old legend which appears to have suggested this episode—has an unconquerable repugnance to the demand that he should commit bigamy for the good of the State.
The King, at the time when the story opens, has as his Prime Minister an aged Marquis, who is a dark, heavy man of intellectual aspect, whose manner is profoundly discouraging to all who seek to win his sympathy, and whose ascendancy in his own Cabinet is overshadowed by that of a Secretary of State, who bears an extraordinary resemblance to a certain Secretary of State who shall be nameless. This “honorable statesman” is hand-in-glove with an alien journalist, who is described here and there in terms which fit more or less loosely to one or two proprietors of journals of very large circulations in London town. With the aid of this supreme embodiment of the mercenary journalism of our latter day, the Secretary of State conceives the idea of working up a war for the annexation of a small State, whose conquest was certain to increase the value of various shares in which the Secretary and his friends had largely speculated, and further, to extricate them from various political difficulties in which they had found themselves involved.
We have Miss Corelli’s authority for stating, with all possible emphasis, that “Temporal Power” was written without the least intention on the part of the author to introduce living personalities under a romantic disguise. As touching the character of the defaulting Secretary of State, Carl Perousse, with which a large number of writers (including Mr. Stead) have sought to identify Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, it may be pointed out that if the author had any prominent European statesman at all in view, it was a well-known Italian minister, now deceased, as any one with judgment and knowledge of Italian affairs could testify—though Perousse is made tall and thin in the book, with the express object that he shall escape association with the said Italian minister, who was short and fat. Nothing has astonished the novelist more than the numerous letters she has received from members of Mr. Chamberlain’s party in which it is stated that the villainous Perousse is “exactly like” their leader. We have only to refer such correspondents to Miss Corelli’s public speeches in Edinburgh and Glasgow to prove that she has always spoken in high praise of the Colonial Secretary.
The King of the book is no more intended to be a suggested picture of Edward the Seventh than of Haroun Alraschid. The performances of the latter potentate are certainly “impossible” and “outrageous”—to quote press diatribes on “Temporal Power”—but they live, and their forgotten writer is not branded with lèse-majestè. This romance of Marie Corelli’s was written to show how a King, in spite of modern surroundings, can still be a hero. Marie Corelli’s king is the best man in the whole story, and is represented as winning the love of all his people.
The authoress readily admits that an attack on Jesuitism is contained in the book, nor is she the only one who has waylaid that persuasion. She is strenuously opposed to the political and educational system of Jesuitry, and believes that the whole civilized world is with her.
The much-discussed question of “royal bigamy” as condemned by the action of Miss Corelli’s young Prince Humphry and his love for “Gloria,” is a matter that has nothing to do with one Royal Family more than another. Our author’s ideas are, that if any crime is a crime in commoners, it should not be excused in persons of Royal birth; moreover, she thinks that many a Royal Prince has been made hopelessly miserable, and the springs of his life poisoned at their very fount, by his being forced to wed where he does not love, merely for “Reasons of State.” The Pope has quite recently condemned Royal alliances between cousins; and as all Royal Families are at the present day very closely allied, Miss Corelli thinks it will soon be necessary for heirs to thrones to enjoy the same honest freedom of purpose in their loves and marriages as the simplest gentlemen in the land.
The novelist has been told that she has made enemies among the “extra-loyal” and “Imperialistic” party. She presumes the “extra-loyal” means the “extra-toadies.” If the “Imperialistic” party is a party which seeks to curtail and restrict the rights of the People, then she goes with the People against all political parties whatsoever. But she takes no side in party politics: she is a stickler for Justice and Right for the great majority.
Two apparent attempts in journals catering specially for the book trade, were made to quash the success of the novel. One of these journals plainly stated that “Temporal Power” had not obtained the triumph claimed for it. The publishers, Messrs. Methuen and Co., instantly taxed the paper in question with having misstated the case, with the result that the following retractation was published: “With reference to our statement last month, regarding the sales of ‘Temporal Power,’ we learn that, so far from the repeat orders not comparing favorably with those of ‘The Master Christian,’ they have established a record even in the gigantic sales of Marie Corelli’s novels. Up to the present, during the same period, the sales of ‘Temporal Power’ have exceeded those of ‘The Master Christian,’ by over twenty thousand, and some idea of the demand for the book, even after the first rush, may be obtained from the fact that all the retail book-sellers, with one exception, in Brighton, sent large repeat orders within a few weeks of publication, while a single repeat order from one retail bookseller alone in another part of the country was for seven hundred and twenty-eight copies.”
The other periodical, after making one or two attempts to stem the great wave of “Temporal Power,” printed the following somewhat halfhearted comment: “Although few reviewers have spoken kindly of this novel, its sale has reached a figure which it is unnecessary to repeat here; whether its merits deserve such popularity we must refrain from discussing.”
In some quarters it has been boldly alleged that “Temporal Power” is like “The Eternal City.” There are absolutely no points of resemblance. Miss Corelli has never read “The Eternal City” or any of Mr. Hall Caine’s books except “The Christian.” She declares, however, that she searched in vain for a real follower of Christ in that work. It is interesting to note, by the way, that although the two novelists met years ago at a social function, they are practically strangers to one another, and are probably content to remain so.
From a book containing scores of powerful passages which would well bear reproduction independently of the context, we only propose to make a single quotation. The following extract concerns one of the most touching events of the story, i. e., the rejection of the King’s offered love by “Lotys,” woman of the people: