My Contemporaries In Fiction Read online

  XI.--MISS MARIE CORELLI

  In an article intended for this series and set under this lady's name(an article now suppressed, and therefore to be re-written), I fell intoan error which appears to have been shared by several of the criticswho dealt with what was then the latest of her books, 'The Sorrows ofSatan,' I assumed Miss Corelli to have drawn her own portrait, as shesees things, in the character of 'Mavis Clare.' This belief has beenexpressed--so it turns out--by other people, and I learn that MissCorelli has authoritatively denied it 'She objects very strongly,' sosays an inspired defender, 'to a notion which was started by one ofthe most distinguished of her interviewers, and absolutely denies theassertion that she described herself as "Mavis Clare" in "The Sorrowsof Satan."' Miss Corelli, of course, knows the truth about this matter,and nobody else can possibly know it, but it is at least permissible toexamine the evidence which led many separate people to the same falseconclusion. 'Mavis Clare' and Marie Corelli own the same initials, anduntil the fact that this was a mere fortuitous chance was made clear byMiss Corelli herself it seemed natural to suppose that an identity wascoyly hinted at. 'Mavis Clare' is a novelist, and so is Miss Corelli.'Mavis Clare' is _mignonne_ and fair, 'is pretty, and knows how to dressbesides,' is a 'most independent creature, too; quite indifferent toopinions,' All these things, as we learn from many sources, are true ofMiss Corelli also. It is said of Miss Corelli herself that 'dauntlesscourage, a clear head, and a tremendous power of working hard withouthurting herself have helped her to make a successful use of her greatgift. She is not afraid of anything. She "insists on herself," and isunique,' It is to be noted that all this is said by Miss Corelli of'Mavis Clare,' Miss Corelli is at war with the reviewers. So is 'MavisClare,' Miss Corelli's books circulate by the thousand. So do 'MavisClare's.' 'Mavis Clare' is utterly indifferent to outside opinion. So isMiss Corelli. In point of fact, if anybody thought Miss Corelli a womanof astonishing genius, and wrote an honest account of her, he woulddescribe her precisely as Miss Corelli has described 'Mavis Clare.'

  There is, in fact, a point up to which 'Mavis Clare' and Miss Corelliare not to be separated. There are a score of things in any descriptionof the one which are indubitably true of the other. But when MissCorelli writes of 'Mavis Clare' in such terms as are now to be quoted webegin to see that she is and must be indignant at the supposition thatshe is still writing of herself: 'She is too popular to needreviews. Besides, a large number of the critics--the "log-rollers"especially--are mad against her for her success, and the public know it.Clearness of thought, brilliancy of style, beauty of diction--all theseare hers, united to consummate ease of expression and artistic skill.The potent, resistless, unpurchasable quality of Genius. She wrote whatshe had to say with a gracious charm, freedom, and innate consciousnessof strength. She won fame without the aid of money, and was crowned sobrightly and visibly before the world that she was beyond criticism.'

  But is it not just within the bounds of possibility that Miss Corellibegan with some idea of depicting herself, and, discarding that idea,took too little care to obliterate resemblances? Even here she trenchestoo closely upon the truth to escape the calumnious supposition that sheis writing of herself. She _is_ too popular to need reviews. She is atwar with the critics, and she has induced a very large portion of thepublic to believe that 'a number of the critics--the "log-rollers"especially--are mad against her for her success.'

  Were I, the present writer, to invent a fictional character, to give himfor the initials of his name the letters D. C. M., to describe himas awkward and burly, with an untidy head of grey hair, to make him anovelist, a Bohemian and a wanderer, and then to paint him as a man ofgenius and an astonishing fine fellow, I should expect to be told thatI had been guilty of a grave insolence. If I could honestly say that theresemblances had never struck me, and that the egregious vanity of thepicture was a wholly imaginary thing, I should, of course, desire to bebelieved, and I should, of course, deserve to be believed. But I shouldencounter doubt, and I should not be disposed to wonder at it. If I wereannoyed with anybody I should be annoyed with myself for having givensuch a handle to the world's ill-nature.

  Accepting Miss Corelli's disclaimer, one is still forced to theconclusion that she has fallen into a serious indiscretion.

  In 'The Murder of Delicia' we are made acquainted with anotherlady-writer who enjoys all the popularity of Miss Corelli and of 'MavisClare,' who has the genius and the eyes and the stature and the hairof both. 'As a writer she stood quite apart from the rank and file ofmodern fictionists.' 'The public responded to her voice, and clamouredfor her work, and as a natural result of this, all ambitious andaspiring publishers were her very humble suppliants. Whatsoevermunificent and glittering terms are dreamed of by authors in theirwildest conceptions of a literary El Dorado were hers to command; andyet she was neither vain nor greedy.' One thanks God piously that yetshe was neither vain nor greedy; but one can't keep the mouth fromwatering. Ah! those wildest conceptions of a literary El Dorado!'Delicia' gets 8,000L. for a book. May it be delicately hinted that thissum is only approached in the receipts of one living lady-writer, andthat the lady-writer's name is ------? Wild horses shall not drag thispen further.

  Miss Corelli complains, in a preface to this recent work, that 'everylittle halfpenny ragamuffin of the press that can get a newspaper cornerin which to hide himself for the convenience of throwing stones,' peltsevery 'brilliant woman' with the word 'unsexed.' Honestly, I don'tremember the reproach being hurled at Mrs. Browning, or George Eliot,or Mrs. Cowden Clarke, or Charlotte Bronte, or Maria Edgeworth, or Mrs.Hemans. Miss Corelli tells us that the woman who is 'well-nigh strippedto man's gaze every night,' and who 'drinks too much wine and brandy,'is not subjected to this reproach, whilst if another woman 'prefers tokeep her woman's modesty, and execute some great work of art which shallbe as good or even better than anything man can accomplish, she will bedubbed "unsexed" instantly,' Where has Miss Corelli found the societyof which these amazing things are true? Does anybody else know it?And where are the better works of art from woman's hand than man canaccomplish? 'Aurora Leigh' and the Portuguese Sonnets are at the top offeminine achievement, and Shakespeare is not dethroned. And here is apearl of common sense: 'To put it bluntly and plainly, a great majorityof the men of the present day want women to keep them,' This is MissCorelli in her own person in her preface, and, 'to put it bluntly andplainly,' the statement is not true, or approximately true, or withinshouting distance of the truth. And what of the 'persons of highdistinction who always find something curiously degrading in payingtheir tradesmen'? Are they commoner than persons of high distinction whomeet their bills? Are they as common? Miss Corelli sweeps the board. Sheis angry because some people will not take her seriously, but whilsther pages are charged with this kind of matter, she cannot fairly blameanybody but herself. She burns to be a social reformer. It would beunjust to deny her ardour. But when she tells the tale of a pennilessnobleman who lives on his wife's money and breaks her heart, and assuresus that 'there are thousands of such cases every day,' she undoes herown sermon by one rampant phrase of nonsense There are such men, more'sthe pity, and they are the social satirist's honest game There havebeen foolish people who thought that women unsexed themselves by doingartistic work, but they died many years ago, for the most part. Thereare men who want to marry rich women, and live lazy lives, but they arenot 'a great majority.' Miss Corelli knows these things, of course,for they are patent to the world; but she allows zeal to run away withjudgment. The rules for satire are the rules for Irish stew. You mustn't_empty_ the pepper-castor, and the pot should be kept at a gentle bubbleonly. There is reason in the profitable denunciation of a wicked world,as well as in the roasting of eggs.

  But Miss Corelli has hit the public hard, and it is the self-imposedtask of the present writer to find out, as far as in him lies, whyand how she has done this. Miss Corelli's force is hysteric, but it issometimes very real. A self-approving hysteria can do fine things undergiven conditions. It has been
the motive power in some work which theworld has rightly accepted as great. In the execution of certain formsof emotional art it is a positive essential. Much genuine poetry hasbeen produced under its influence. It is a sort of spiritual wind,which, rushing through the harp-strings of the soul, may make anextraordinary music. But the sounds produced depend not upon the impulseconveyed to the instrument, but on the quality and condition of theinstrument itself. Without the impulse a large and various mind may liequiescent. With the impulse a small and disordered spirit may makea very considerable sound. In the very loftiest flights of genius wediscern a sort of glorious dementia. All readers have found it in thelast splendid verse of 'Adonais.' It proclaims itself in Keats in thewild _naivete_ of the inquiry, 'Muse of my native land, am I inspired?'The faculty of the very greatest among the great lies in the existenceof this inrush of emotion, in strict subordination to the intellectualpowers. To be without it precludes greatness; to be wholly subject toits influence is to be insane. Miss Corelli experiences the inrushof emotion in great force, but, unfortunately for her work, and forherself, the sense of power which it inspires is not co-ordinate withthe strength of intellect which is essential to its control.

  Miss Corelli has ventured freely into the domain of spiritual things,and has dealt, with more daring than knowledge, with esoteric mysteries.The great reading public knows little of these matters, because, as arule, they have been expressed by writers whose works are too abstruseto catch the popular ear. It is only when they are handled by writersof imaginative fiction that they become popularly known at all. In 'TheSorrows of Satan' Miss Corelli has earned a reputation for originalityby advancing a theory which is older than many of the hills. It has beenfor ages a rooted religious belief, but it is wholly in conflict withthe theological ideas which are taught in our churches and chapels, andhas, therefore, a startling air of strangeness to the average church andchapel-goer.

  The theory is thus expressed in Mr. C. G. Harrison's lectures on 'TheTranscendental Universe': 'It is generally supposed that Satan is theenemy of spirituality in man; that he delights in his degradation, andviews with diabolical satisfaction the development of his lowernature and all its evil consequences. The wide, and almost universal,prevalence of this mediaeval superstition only makes it all the morenecessary to protest against it as a grotesque error.... It wouldprobably be much nearer the truth to say that the degradation andsuffering of mankind, for which the adversary of God is responsible,so far from affording him any satisfaction, afflict him with a sense offailure and deepen his despair of ultimate victory.'

  This is, of course, the root idea of 'The Sorrows of Satan,' and if thetheme had been handled with reserve and dignity a very noble book indeedmight without doubt have been built upon it. But Miss Corelli has nothad the power to confine herself within the limits of the severe andlofty conception of the old Theosophists. Her sorrowful Satan growsfirst melodramatic and then absurd. The notion that the great sadadversary of Almighty Goodness is settled in a modern London hotel,with a private cook of his own, and a privately engaged bath of hisown, carries the reader away from the original conception to theburlesque--vulgar and flagrant--of the mystery-plays of the MiddleAges; and the devotion of supernatural power to the preparations for asuburban garden-party is purely ludicrous. Miss Corelli has seized theTheosophic thought, which in itself is far nobler and more poetic thanthe Miltonic, but she has not been strong enough to use it. She hasfallen under the weight of her chosen theme, and the result is thather demoniac hero is at one time presented as a majestic and sufferingspirit, and at another as a mere Merry Andrew.

  The curious and instructive part of all this is that, if Miss Corellihad been gifted with any power of self-criticism, her ardour wouldhave been damped, and any work she might have done would have sufferedproportionately. Her work has hit the public hard, and it has done sobecause, of its kind, her inspiration has been genuine. The wind doesnot blow through the strings of a well-ordered instrument, but _itblows_, and however grotesque the sound produced may sometimes be, it isof a sort which is not to be produced by any mere mechanism of the mind.To the critical ear the tunes played in 'Wormwood' and 'The Sorrows ofSatan' are not, and cannot be, agreeable. The writer, to speak in plainEnglish, and without the obscurity of symbols, is the owner of geniuson the emotional side, and is not the owner of genius, or anythingapproaching to it, even from afar, on the intellectual side. The resultof this disproportion between impulse and power is, to the criticalmind, disastrous; but it does not so make itself felt with the ordinaryreader. It is rather an unusual thing with him to come into contact witha real force in books. He has not read or thought enough to know thatthe ideas offered to him with such transcendental pomp are old andcommonplace. It is enough for him to feel that the writer understandsherself to be a personage.

  She succeeds in imposing herself upon the public because she has firstbeen convinced of her own authority. Her inward conviction of theauthority of her own message and her own power to deliver it is the onequalification which makes her different from the mob of writingladies. Even when she deals with purely social themes the same airof overwhelming earnestness sits upon her brow. In a little triflepublished in the November of 1896, and entitled 'Jane,' she goes to workwith a quite prophetic ardour to tell a story almost identical with thatrelated in a scrap of Thackeray's 'Cox's Diary.' The reader may find thetale in the second chapter of that brief work, where it is headed 'FirstRout.' Thackeray tells his version of it with a sense of fun and humour.Miss Corelli tells hers with the voice and manner of a Boanerges..Nothing is to be done without the divine afflatus, and plenty of it.The temperamental difference between the satirist and the scold is wellillustrated by a large handling and a little handling of the same theme.

  The point upon which it seems worth while to insist is this: That themass of the reading public is always ready to submit itself to theinfluence of sincerity. It does not seem much to matter what innercharacteristics the sincerity may have. In the case now under analysisthe quality seems to resolve itself into pure self-confidence. MissCorelli's method of capturing the public mind is not a trick whichanybody else might copy. It is the result of a real, though perilous,gift of nature--a gift which she possesses in something of a superlativedegree. Nobody could pretend to such a gift and succeed by virtue of thepretence. Miss Corelli is, at least, quite serious in the belief thatshe is a woman of genius. She is only very faintly touched with doubtwhen she thinks that the people who are laughing at her are writhingwith envy. She speaks, therefore, with precisely that air of authorityto which she would have a right if her ideas with regard to her ownmental power were based on solid fact.

  So far we arrive at little more than the long-established truth that theunthinking portion of the public is not only longing for a moral guide,but is ready to accept anybody who is conscious of authority. It wouldbe well if we could leave Miss Corelli here, but something remains to besaid which is not altogether pleasant to say. In 'The Sorrows of Satan'many pages are devoted to the bitter (and merited) abuse of certainfemale writers who deal coarsely with the sexual problem. But MissCorelli appears to think that she may be as frankly disagreeable as shepleases so long as she is conscious of a moral purpose. Whatever she mayfeel, and whatever estimable purposes may guide her, she has publishedmany things which run side by side with her denunciation of her sisterwriters, and are as offensive as anything to be found in the work of anyliving woman. Take as a solitary example the following passage:

  'I soon found that Lucio did not intend to marry, and I concluded thathe preferred to be the lover of many women, instead of the husband ofone. I did not love him any the less for this; I only resolved thatI would at least be one of those who were happy enough to share hispassion. I married the man Tempest, feeling that, like many women Iknew, I should, when safely wedded, have greater liberty of action. Iwas aware that most modern men prefer an amour with a married womanto any other kind of _liaison_, and I thought Lucio would have readilyyielded to the plan I had pre
conceived.'

  I do not know of any passage in any of the works so savagely assaultedby Miss Corelli which goes beyond this; and I think it the more, and notthe less, objectionable, because the lady who wrote it can see so veryplainly how sinful her offence is when it is committed by other people.