“ARDATH”--THE STORY OF A DEAD SELF--THE WONDERFUL CITY OF AL-KYRIS--THE
MISSION OF THE BOOK
In no work produced by her busy pen has Miss Corelli given such range to
her imagination, to her love of the beautiful and fantastic, as in
“Ardath.” This, her fourth book, abounds in wonderful accounts of a
strange people in a strange place. When she sets a scene of barbaric
splendor in the city of Al-Kyris, she reaches great descriptive heights;
she tells, indeed, a tale of beauty, of horror, and of extraordinary
amours, whose like can nowhere be found, look where you will. “Ardath”
stands alone--a prose poem and a startlingly vivid narrative in one. “I
have read it,” wrote Mr. Bentley (referring to the work in manuscript
form), “with wonder that one small head could hold it all.”
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
[Illustration: A BOATING PLACE ON THE AVON]
[Illustration: A FAVORITE REACH ON THE AVON]
correspondence were many flattering letters from men and women of light
and leading, not only in England, but abroad. The novel under notice,
which was issued in 1889, brought Miss Corelli a letter of praise from
Lord Tennyson. The work was indeed so remarkable a piece of imaginative
conception and picturesque writing that it appealed peculiarly to the
Laureate’s sense of the poetic and artistic.
Of the mission of the book, which was of serious character, we shall
speak anon. “Ardath” is one of the author’s finest efforts to further
the cause of true religion. A strange outcome of the book was the
proposed building, by some enthusiastic Americans, of a Corelli city in
Fremont County, Colorado, U. S. A., on the Arkansas River, and a
prospectus was actually issued explaining the project.
“Ardath” is divided into three parts. In the first is introduced a
sceptic poet, Theos Alwyn. In the Second Book, Theos is transplanted
into the city of Al-Kyris, in a bygone world, where he is supposed to
have led a previous existence five thousand years before Christ’s
advent. In the Third Book, Alwyn is back in London, amongst old
associates, with the knowledge of all these strange experiences within
him. The book has a sub-title, “The Story of a Dead Self,” and it is in
the city of Al-Kyris that the peculiar “Dead Self” experience comes to
Theos Alwyn, through whom Miss Corelli expounds lessons to all men--and
women.
The story opens in the heart of the Caucasus Mountains, where a wild
storm is gathering, and there is an early example of the descriptive
delights with which the book is adorned. Miss Corelli is unique, not
alone in her imaginings and in her treatment of them, but, too, in her
powerful pictures of scenery. Here,
“in the lonely Caucasus heights, drear shadows drooped and
thickened above the Pass of Dariel--that terrific gorge which like
a mere thread seems to hang between the toppling frost-bound
heights above, and black abysmal depths below. Clouds, fringed
ominously with lurid green and white, drifted heavily yet swiftly
across the jagged peaks where, looming largely out of the mist, the
snow-capped crest of Mount Kazbek rose coldly white against the
darkness of the threatening sky.... Night was approaching, though
away to the west a broad gash of crimson, a seeming wound in the
breast of heaven, showed where the sun had set an hour since. Now
and again the rising wind moaned sobbingly through the tall and
spectral pines that, with knotted roots fast clenched in the
reluctant earth, clung tenaciously to their stony vantage ground;
and mingling with its wailing murmur, there came a distant hoarse
roaring as of tumbling torrents, while at far-off intervals could
be heard the sweeping thud of an avalanche slipping from point to
point on its disastrous downward way. Through the wreathing vapors
the steep, bare sides of the near mountains were pallidly visible,
their icy pinnacles, like uplifted daggers, piercing with sharp
glitter the density of the low-hanging haze, from which large drops
of moisture began presently to ooze rather than fall. Gradually the
wind increased, and soon with sudden fierce gusts shook the
pine-trees into shuddering anxiety,--the red slit in the sky
closed, and a gleam of forked lightning leaped athwart the driving
darkness. An appalling crash of thunder followed almost
instantaneously, its deep boom vibrating in sullenly grand echoes
on all sides of the Pass; and then--with a swirling, hissing rush
of rain--the unbound hurricane burst forth alive and furious. On,
on!--splitting huge boughs and flinging them aside like straws,
swelling the rivers into riotous floods that swept hither and
thither, carrying with them masses of rock and stone and tons of
loosened snow--on, on! with pitiless force and destructive haste,
the tempest rolled, thundered, and shrieked its way through
Dariel.”
It was such fine writing as this, doubtless, which caught Tennyson’s
fancy on casually opening the book to inspect and arrive at conclusions
concerning its contents for himself, regardless of anything reviewers
might have said previously in its disfavor. It was a sympathetic perusal
of its many pages that drew from him a letter of commendation which he
duly dispatched to its writer. It was the poetic conception of the city
of Al-Kyris which appealed to the lonely Man of Wight, pondering, in his
long island walks, on the strange romance of pre-Babylonian times set
down by a woman who had won the whole-hearted approval of his great
contemporary, William Gladstone.
Not unlike this majestic opening of “Ardath” are many of the poet’s own
sublime pen-pictures. A master of verse, standing high above all others
of his time as well as above most who had preceded him, the warm
encomiums that he deliberately awarded to Marie Corelli should surely
silence the snarls of envious Grub Street.
But to our story. Within the Monastery of Lars, “far up among the crags
crowning the ravine,” are seen a group of monks whose intonations
strangely stir a listener,--an Englishman,--Alwyn, whose musings on the
reverential exercises of the monks indicate the religious purpose that
underlies the story which follows. For Alwyn at the time is not only a
poet, but an egoist and an agnostic. What sort of fellows are these
monks, he muses,--fools or knaves? They must be one or the other, thinks
he, else they would not thus chant praises “to a Deity of whose
existence there is, and can be, no proof.” He is none the less conscious
that the ending of faith and the prevalence of what he regards as Truth,
would be a dreary result, destroying the beauty of the Universe. With
cold and almost contemptuous feelings he watches the proceedings of
these monks, and listens to the recital of their seven _Glorias_:
“Glory to God, the Most High, the Supreme and Eternal!” And with one
harmonious murmur of accord the brethren respond:
“Glory forever and ever! Amen!”
Vespers over, the monks leave their chapel, and immediately the agnostic
poet is face to face with one who is presumably chief of the Order--the
monk who had recited the _Glorias_. And who, indeed, is he? None other
than the mystic scientist, the Heliobas of “A Romance of Two Worlds,”
who has now adopted this secluded monastic life. To him Theos Alwyn
explains that he is miserable, and that, though an agnostic and searcher
after absolute and positive proof, he desires for a time to be deluded
into a state of happiness. So, the Parisian fame of Heliobas having
reached him, this modern poet does not hesitate to seek from him a peace
and happiness which neither his world of success nor his agnostic
opinions can give him. From Heliobas he learns that this strange monk
possesses a certain spiritual force which can overpower and subdue
material force--that he can release the poet’s soul--“that is, the Inner
Intelligent Spirit which is the actual You”--from its house of clay and
allow it an interval of freedom. Alwyn pleads--even demands--that
Heliobas will exercise this power at once; but the monk, amazed and
reproachful, declines.
“To-night!--without faith, preparation, or prayer,--you are willing
to be tossed through the realms of space like a grain of dust in a
whirling tempest? Beyond the glittering gyration of unnumbered
stars--through the sword-like flash of streaming comets--through
darkness--through light--through depths of profoundest
silence--over heights of vibrating sound--you--_you_ will dare to
wander in these God-invested regions--you, a blasphemer and a
doubter of God!”
Stranger than many of the marvels of the book is the scene that follows.
It is a contest of Will between Alwyn and Heliobas. The former,
concentrating all the powers of his mind upon the effort, declares that
Heliobas _shall_ release his soul:
“He felt twice a man and more than half a God ... what--what was
that dazzling something in the air that flashed and whirled and
shone like glittering wheels of golden flame? His lips parted--he
stretched out his hands in the uncertain manner of a blind man
feeling his way. ‘Oh, God!--God!’ he muttered, as though stricken
by some sudden amazement; then, with a smothered gasping cry he
staggered and fell heavily forward on the floor--insensible!...”
The soul of the poet had by a superhuman access of will managed to break
its bonds and escape elsewhere. “But whither? Into what vast realms of
translucent light or drear shadow?” Unable to answer the question, the
monk betakes himself to the monastery chapel, and prays in silence till
the heavy night had passed and the storm “had slain itself with the
sword of its own fury on the dark slopes of the Pass of Dariel.”
Theos for a time lies as one dead. Anon he awakes, seats himself at a
table, and writes. Sometimes he murmurs “Ardath,” but he goes on writing
for hours. Then Heliobas rejoins him. “I have been dreaming,” Theos
says. The monk points to the written manuscript as proof that the dream
has been productive, at any rate. Alwyn reads from the manuscript and
recites:
“With thundering notes of song sublime
I cast my sins away from me,
On stairs of sound I mount--I climb!
The angels wait and pray for me!”
But that, he remembers, is a stanza he had heard somewhere when he was a
boy. Why does he now think of it? “_She_ has waited,--so she
said,--these many thousand days!” And there was the key to the dream.
There was a woman in it; and an angel.
Theos explains his dream to Heliobas, tells how he had seemed to fly
into darkness, how in wild despair he cried “Oh, God, where art Thou?”
and heard a great rushing sound as of a strong wind beaten through with
wings, while a voice, grand and sweet as a golden trumpet blown suddenly
in the silence of night, answered, “_Here!--and Everywhere!_” And then
all was brightness, a slanting stream of opaline radiance cleft the
gloom, and Alwyn was uplifted by an invisible strength. And then he
hears some one call him by name, “Theos, my Beloved!” and a woman of
entrancing beauty appears, crowned with white flowers, and robed in a
garb that seems spun from midsummer moonbeams; ... a smiling
maiden-sweetness in a paradise of glad sights and sounds.
And this being, bidding Alwyn return to his own star, further directs
him to seek out the Field of Ardath, where she will meet him. And so
they part.
Theos Alwyn awakens from his dream madly in love with this vision of
loveliness, and determines, if a Field of Ardath there is, to go there
and keep the appointment. Heliobas shows him where the Field of Ardath
lies. It is mentioned in the Book of Esdras, in the Apocrypha, and is
described as situated four miles west of the Babylonian ruins. Alwyn
decides on journeying thither, first sending the poem he had written to
his London friend, Francis Villiers, with the request that as
“Nourhàlma; a Love Legend of the Past,” it shall be published in the
usual way.
By the waters of Babylon we next find Theos Alwyn, who is soon housed in
the Hermitage, near Hillah, with one Elzear of Malyana, to whom Heliobas
has supplied the traveler with a letter of introduction. So impatient is
this lover to prove the truth or falsity of his mystic vision at Dariel,
that, on the first night of his arrival at the Hermitage, he proceeds
shortly before midnight to search for the Field of Ardath which was
known to the Prophet Esdras. He sets forth, and the wondrous story of
his experiences immediately commences. “Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!
Kyrie eleison!” sung by full, fresh, youthful voices in clear and
harmonious unison, greets his ears; though whence comes the sound, and
from whom, there is nothing to show. “Was ever madman more mad than I,”
he murmurs. It is a sweet and fascinating madness none the less, for the
angel-lover is true to her promise. “Behold the field thou thoughtest
barren, how great a glory hath the moon unveiled!” quoth the Prophet
Esdras, and as Theos treads the Field of Ardath, which had appeared,
when first his eyes rested upon it, a dreary and desolate place, he
finds the turf covered with white blossoms, star-shaped and
glossy-leaved, with deep golden centres, wherein bright drops of dew
sparkled like brilliants, and whence puffs of perfume rose like incense
swung at unseen altars. And here he finds, moving sedately along through
the snow-white blossoms, a graceful girl. He no longer has eyes for the
flower-transfiguration of the lately barren land. “My name is Edris; I
came from a far, far country, Theos,--a land where no love is wasted and
no promise forgotten!” she tells him. More than that, she adds that she
has waited and prayed for him through long bright æons of endless glory,
and he recognizes in Edris at last the angel of his vision. She upbraids
him for his doubts and unhappiness, speaks slightingly of fame as a
perishable diadem; and crying “O fair King Christ, Thou shalt prevail!”
she leaves him, and as she goes Theos is told “prayers are heard, and
God’s great patience never tires;--learn therefore _from the perils of
the past, the perils of the future_.” Alwyn, falling senseless, drifts
into the dream wherein he is to learn the story of his new self.
The description of Theos’s dream fills over fifteen score of pages. The
reader is impelled on and on, finding in every step new subject for
wonder. The city of Al-Kyris is a feast of scenic splendors, the skill
of the writer providing fascinating word-pictures of incidents more
strange than were ever imagined in an Arabian Nights’ entertainment. And
through all runs a steady and strong undercurrent made up of the solid
lesson of the book, “_learn from the perils of the past, the perils of
the future_.”
Theos Alwyn could not tell how long he slept on the Field of Ardath, for
his awakening was confusing. He had a consciousness of his previous
life, its conditions, his position, and opinions. All now was changed.
He was before a gate leading into a walled city, the entrance to which
consisted of huge massive portals apparently made of finely moulded
brass, and embellished on either side by thick round stone towers from
the summits of which red pennons drooped idly in the air. Through the
portals was seen a wide avenue paved entirely with mosaics, and along
this passed an endless stream of wayfarers. A strange city and a strange
people. Fruit-sellers, carrying their lovely luscious merchandise in
huge gilded baskets, stood at almost every corner; flower-girls, fair as
their own flowers, bore aloft in their gracefully upraised arms wide
wicker trays overflowing with odorous blossoms tied into clusters and
wreaths. Theos understood the language spoken. It was perfectly familiar
to him--more so than his own native tongue. What was his native tongue?
Who was he? “Theos Alwyn” was all he could remember. Whence did he come?
The answer was direct and decisive. From Ardath. But what was Ardath?
Neither a country nor a city. And his dress!--he glanced at it, dismayed
and appalled--he had not noticed it till now. It bore some resemblance
to the costume of ancient Greece, and consisted of a white linen tunic
and loose upper vest, both garments being kept in place by a belt of
silver. From this belt depended a sheathed dagger. His feet were shod
with sandals, his arms were bare to the shoulder and clasped at the
upper part by two broad silver armlets richly chased. The men were for
the most part arrayed like himself, though here and there he met some
few whose garments were of soft silk, instead of linen, who wore gold
belts in place of silver, and who carried their daggers in sheaths that
were literally encrusted all over with flashing jewels.
“The costume of the women was composed of a straight clinging gown,
slightly gathered at the throat and bound about the waist with a
twisted girdle of silver, gold, and, in some cases, jewels; their
arms, like those of the men, were bare; and their small delicate
feet were protected by sandals fastened with crossed bands of
ribbon coquettishly knotted. The arrangement of their hair was
evidently a matter of personal taste, and not the slavish copying
of any set fashion. Some allowed it to hang in loosely flowing
abundance over their shoulders; others had it closely braided or
coiled carelessly in a thick, soft mass at the top of the head; but
all without exception wore white veils--veils long, transparent and
filmy as gossamer, which they flung back or draped about them at
their pleasure.”
Dazed and bewildered, Theos Alwyn gazed about him. Then, following the
crowd, he was borne along to a large square which bordered on the banks
of a river that ran through the city. A strange gilded vessel was seen
approaching. Huge oars, like golden fins, projected from the sides of
the vessel and dipped lazily now and then into the water, wielded by the
hands of invisible rowers. The ship sparkled all over as though it were
carved out of one great burning jewel. Golden hangings, falling in rich,
loose folds, draped it gorgeously from stem to stern; gold cordage
looped the sails. On the deck a band of young girls, clad in white and
crowned with flowers, knelt, playing softly on quaintly shaped
instruments; and a cluster of tiny, semi-nude boys, fair as young
cupids, were grouped in pretty, reposeful attitudes along the edge of
the gilded prow, holding garlands of red and yellow blossoms which
trailed down to the surface of the water.
Theos, gazing dreamily and wonderingly upon the scene, was suddenly
roused to feverish excitement, and with a smothered cry of ecstasy fixed
his straining eager gaze on one supreme, fair figure--the central glory
of the marvelous picture.
“A woman or a Goddess?--a rainbow Flame in mortal shape?--a spirit
of earth, air, fire, water?--or a Thought of Beauty embodied into
human sweetness and made perfect? Clothed in gold attire, and
girded with gems, she stood, leaning indolently against the middle
mast of the vessel, her great sombre dusky eyes resting drowsily on
the swarming masses of people, whose frenzied roar of rapture and
admiration sounded like the breaking of billows.”
Beauty-stricken, Theos was roughly brought back to a sense of his
position as a stranger in the city. Al-Kyris was given up to the worship
of a serpent, Nagâya. This woman who had passed was Nagâya’s High
Priestess, the chief power in the place. All the people worshiped her,
and Theos had not, with them, fallen down before her. Immediately he was
seized and roughly handled by the mob, who proclaimed him an infidel and
a spy. At this opportune moment the Poet Laureate of the Realm, one
Sah-Lûma, made his appearance. In Al-Kyris the Laureate was a great man,
next only indeed to Zephorânim, the King.
Sah-Lûma rebuked the crowd for their ill-treatment of the stranger; and
then, hearing that Theos was a poet from a far country, took him to his
own palace.
Probably no vainer person than Sah-Lûma ever existed, whether in a real
or imaginary world. They were very artistic in Al-Kyris. Nobody ever
seemed to work except the black slaves. Apparently there was no
necessity for that. The people, including the King, positively doted on
poets. No wonder Sah-Lûma was the Prince of Egoists, seeing that he was
the chief poet in Al-Kyris.
The Laureate explained the religion of Al-Kyris to his guest:
“We believe in no actual creed,--who does? We accept a certain
given definition of a supposititious Divinity, together with the
suitable maxims and code of morals accompanying that definition--we
call this Religion,--and we wear it as we wear our clothing, for
the sake of necessity and decency,--though truly we are not half so
concerned about it as about the far more interesting details of
taste in attire. Still, we have grown used to our doctrine, and
some of us will fight with each other for the difference of a word
respecting it,--and as it contains within itself many seeds of
discord and contradiction, such dissensions are frequent,
especially among the priests, who, were they but true to their
professed vocation, should be able to find ways of smoothing over
all apparent inconsistencies and maintaining peace and order. Of
course, we, in union with all civilized communities, worship the
Sun, even as thou must do,--in this one leading principle at least,
our faith is universal!
“‘And yet,’ he went on thoughtfully, ‘the well-instructed know
through our scientists and astronomers (many of whom are now
languishing in prison for the boldness of their researches and
discoveries) that the Sun is no divinity at all, but simply a huge
Planet,--a dense body surrounded by a luminous flame-darting
atmosphere,--neither self-acting nor omnipotent, but only one of
many similar orbs moving in strict obedience to fixed mathematical
laws. Nevertheless, this knowledge is wisely kept back as much as
possible from the multitude;--for, were science to unveil her
marvels too openly to semi-educated and vulgarly constituted minds,
the result would be, first Atheism, next Republicanism, and,
finally, Anarchy and Ruin. If these evils--which, like birds of
prey, continually hover about all great kingdoms--are to be
averted, we must, for the welfare of the country and people, hold
fast to some stated form and outward observance of religious
belief.’”
These views were strikingly similar to those held by Theos when he was
in the world, and he could thus endorse the further assertions of
Sah-Lûma, who deemed even a false religion better for the masses than
none at all, urging that men were closely allied to brutes. If the moral
sense ceased to restrain them they at once leaped the boundary line and
gave as much rein to their desires and appetites as hyenas and tigers.
And in some natures the moral sense was only kept alive by fear--fear of
offending some despotic invisible force that pervaded the Universe, and
whose chief and most terrible attribute was not so much creative as
destructive power. Thus Sah-Lûma again on the theology of Al-Kyris:
“To propitiate and pacify an unseen Supreme Destroyer is the aim of
all religions,--and it is for this reason we add to our worship of
the Sun that of the White Serpent, Nagâya the Mediator. Nagâya is
the favorite object of the people’s adoration;--they may forget to
pay their vows to the Sun, but never to Nagâya, who is looked upon
as the emblem of Eternal Wisdom, the only pleader whose persuasions
avail to soften the tyrannic humor of the Invincible Devourer of
all things. We know how men hate Wisdom and cannot endure to be
instructed; yet they prostrate themselves in abject crowds before
Wisdom’s symbol every day in the Sacred Temple yonder,--though I
much doubt whether such constant devotional attendance is not more
for the sake of Lysia, than the Deified Worm!”
Lysia, High Priestess of Nagâya, was the charmer of the God of Al-Kyris,
charmer of the serpent and of the hearts of men. “The hot passion of
love is to her a toy, clasped and unclasped so!--in the pink hollow of
her hand; and so long as she retains the magic of her beauty, so long
will Nagâya-worship hold Al-Kyris in check.” Otherwise,--who was to
know? Not Sah-Lûma and not Theos, though both were to learn later.
Already in Al-Kyris, it was explained to Theos by his new friend, there
were philosophers who were tired of the perpetual sacrifices and the
shedding of innocent blood that marked the worship of the city. There
was a Prophet Khosrûl who even denounced Lysia and Nagâya in the open
streets, and gave out the faith that was in him--that far away in a
circle of pure Light the true God existed,--a vast, all-glorious Being,
who, with exceeding marvelous love, controlled and guided Creation
towards some majestic end. Furthermore, Khosrûl held that thousands of
years thence (the times described in Al-Kyris are assumed to be 5000
B.C.) this God would embody a portion of His own existence in human
form, “and will send hither a wondrous creature, half God, half man, to
live our life, die our death, and teach us by precept and example the
surest way to eternal happiness.”
It is the prophet who gave out this faith against whom the King and the
people of Al-Kyris are mostly incensed. They prefer their worship of
Lysia, “The Virgin Priestess of the Sun and the Serpent,” who “receives
love as statues may receive it--moving all others to frenzy she is
herself unmoved.” So ’tis said. There is, however, the threatening
legend:
“When the High Priestess
Is the King’s mistress
Then fall Al-Kyris!”
And the fall of Al-Kyris is imminent.
To the splendors of the court of Zephorânim, King of Al-Kyris, Theos is
duly introduced by the Poet Laureate. He finds there that the poetic
muse is adored, and Sah-Lûma is scarcely less esteemed than the King,
who, indeed, his friend and devotee, would almost make the Poet supreme.
The government and religion of Al-Kyris is mainly humbug. They sin
freely and get absolution at an annual feast where a maiden is always
slaughtered and offered as a sacrifice to Nagâya.
Theos has some quaint experiences. His great friend Sah-Lûma enchants
the court with a poem--one that Theos faintly remembers he himself had
written in days of old. The poet and his friend, after a court function,
proceed to a reception at the Palace of Lysia. There they witness and
take part in marvelous scenes; and the garden of the Palace gives the
novelist an opportunity for those beautiful word-pictures that her pen
evolves so brilliantly. The poets attend a midnight reception and there
witness an extraordinary ballet which follows a banquet even more
astounding in its incidents and in its revelations of the real character
of this so-called Virgin Priestess. One, Nir-jalis, who had received
favors from Lysia, and who, filled and flooded with wine, was indiscreet
in his utterances, is given by her a cup of poison--the Chalice of
Oblivion--which he drinks, and before a laughing, bacchanalian crowd
dies a horrible death with the jeering words of Lysia in his ears, her
contemptuous smile upon him. Nobody cares. In Al-Kyris, and certainly in
Lysia’s Palace, they enjoy such scenes.
Theos, amazed, watches all. He, too, has another strange revelation
before the night is through. In the midst of the revelry he hears a
chime of bells, which reminds him of the village church of his earlier
years, and of odd suggestions of fair women who were wont to pray for
those they loved, and who believed their prayers would be answered. As
he meditates thereon he is suddenly seized and borne swiftly along till
in the moonlight he recognizes Lysia. Dramatic indeed is the scene that
follows. Theos makes a passionate declaration of love to her, and has
the promise from Lysia: “Thou shalt be honored above the noblest in the
land ... riches, power, fame, all shall be thine--_if thou wilt do my
bidding_.” The bidding is “_Kill Sah-Lûma_,” and it is Lysia who shows
Theos his sleeping friend and places in his hand the dagger with which
to strike. Horrified at the suggestion, Theos flings the weapon from
him, escapes from the Palace, and reaches the home of Sah-Lûma, where,
later, the Poet Laureate rejoins him.
The sands of Al-Kyris were fast running out, and events crowded one upon
the other in rapid succession. Theos was terrorized when Sah-Lûma
recited “the latest offspring of my fertile genius--my lyrical romance
‘Nourhàlma.’” Then the full title was proclaimed--“Nourhàlma: A
Love-Legend of the Past”; and we are given the first line of this
mysterious poem:
“_A central sorrow dwells in perfect joy._”
It was the poem written by Theos after the vision of Edris! He had to
hear Sah-Lûma proclaim it as his own; to praise it, too, as the work of
the other. Assuredly the cup of self-abnegation for Theos Alwyn was very
full. As they talked about the poem a great commotion was heard in the
streets. Theos and Sah-Lûma found themselves in the midst of a turbulent
crowd, who, for once, even disregarded the Poet Laureate. The Prophet
Khosrûl was predicting in the midst of excited multitudes the early
destruction of the city, and the coming of the Redeemer. Upon Theos was
again forced the knowledge which was his in the world whence he had been
transported to this pre-Christian age; and, suddenly roused to
excitement, he declared to these talented barbarians--“He HAS come! _He
died for us, and rose again from the dead more than eighteen hundred
years ago!_”
From the astonishment caused by this declaration the people had scarcely
been roused by words from Sah-Lûma, when King Zephorânim appeared.
Khosrûl, having delivered his last dread warning, fell dead; and his
decease was immediately followed by the collapse of the great obelisk of
the city. The people’s final terrors had begun. The last words of the
Prophet Khosrûl had been a reiteration of the old forgotten warning
regarding the relations of the High Priestess and the King, and the fall
of the city was foretold for _that night_.
Escaping the destruction caused by the fall of the obelisk, Sah-Lûma and
Theos returned to the Palace of the former, and there the Poet Laureate
for the first time showed real emotion on learning that his favorite
slave, Niphrâta, had left him forever. Soon Sah-Lûma and Theos were
summoned by Zèl, High Priest of the Sacrificial Altar, to take part in
the Great Sacrifice; for the people were terrified by the many strange
happenings and were about to join in solemn unison to implore the favor
of Nagâya and the gods. The Temple of Nagâya was magnificently decorated
for this New Year’s Festival. There Sah-Lûma found that the maiden to be
sacrificed was Niphrâta, and he made an impassioned demand, then an
appeal, for her life. Niphrâta was permitted her choice, but she
repudiated Sah-Lûma, appearing to be in love with some ghostly
representation of the Poet and to be unconscious of his material
existence. She had, she plaintively cried, waited for happiness so long;
and, the Sacrificial Priest calling for the victim, she rushed upon the
knife the Priest held ready for her. One second and she was seen
speeding towards the knife; the next--and the whole place was enveloped
in darkness. Fire broke out in every part of the Temple. A terrible
scene of destruction was enacted, and the terrified people rushed hither
and thither in the effort to save their lives;--efforts vain, because
the last day of the city had come,--Al-Kyris was doomed,--there was
rescue neither for people nor priests.
Sah-Lûma, death being certain, desired to die with Lysia, but his claim
was contested by the King. Sovereign and Poet then learned that they had
been rivals in love. The prophecy of Khosrûl was being fulfilled. The
barbarous Lysia, even in these last moments, was fierce in her hate,
and demanded of the King that he should kill Sah-Lûma. Her last order
was obeyed. She could secure the death of the Poet, but she could not
save herself. Her own death was one of the most terrible and appalling
scenes ever conceived or described. Nagâya, the huge snake that the
people of Al-Kyris had worshiped, claimed its own. Frightened by the
flames, in its fear it turned upon its mistress Lysia, and, with the
King vainly striving to drag her from the coils of the python, the High
Priestess, chief of the city of lies, atheism, and humbug, died a death
which she had many times remorselessly and gleefully decreed for others.
Theos, gazing at the funeral pyre, as it vaguely seemed to him, of a
wasted love and a dead passion, passed from the scene, taking with him
the dead body of his friend the Poet. And as he kept his steadfast gaze
on Sah-Lûma’s corpse, “the dead Poet’s eyes grew into semblance of his
own eyes, the dead Sah-Lûma’s face smiled spectrally back at him in the
image of his own face!--it was as though he beheld the Picture of
Himself, slain and ‘reflected in a magician’s mirror!’” Humbly he prayed
to God to pardon his sins and to teach him what he should know; and
again he heard soft, small voices singing _Kyrie Eleison_, and AWOKE to
find himself on the Field of Ardath, the dawn just breaking, and the
angel Edris near him. Then Edris told him that in the past he had been
Sah-Lûma, that in those days he would neither hear Christ nor believe in
Him, and that his talents had been misused; she also told Theos how his
future years should be spent. She promised that afterwards he should
meet her in the highest Heaven, but “not till then, _unless the longing
of thy love compels_.”
It is in that portion of the work called “Poet and Angel” that the
serious aim of Marie Corelli in writing this romance is clearly and
emphatically brought out. Theos Alwyn is himself once again; but he is a
very different self. Returning to London he is received warmly by his
friend Villiers, and hears that “Nourhâlma” has brought him much of fame
and profit. He had ceased to care for one or the other. He tells
Villiers he has become a Christian, anxious, so far as he is able, to
follow a faith so grand, and pure, and true. In his declarations on the
subject we hear what our author again and again urges in many
books--that Christianity and Religion are not determined by one sect or
the other. In the words of Theos:
“I am not a ‘convert’ to any particular set form of faith,--what I
care for is the faith itself. One can follow and serve Christ
without any church dogma. He has Himself told us plainly, in words
simple enough for a child to understand, what He would have us
do,--and though I, like many others, must regret the absence of a
true Universal Church where the servants of Christ may meet all
together without a shadow of difference in opinion, and worship Him
as He should be worshiped, still, that is no reason why I should
refrain from endeavoring to fulfil, as far as in me lies, my
personal duty towards Him. The fact is, Christianity has never yet
been rightly taught, grasped, or comprehended;--moreover, as long
as men seek through it their own worldly advantage, it never will
be,--so that the majority of people are really as yet ignorant of
its true spiritual meaning, thanks to the quarrels and differences
of sects and preachers. But, notwithstanding the unhappy position
of religion at the present day, I repeat I am a Christian, if love
for Christ and implicit belief in Him can make me so.”
This is the text on which many of Alwyn’s powerful arguments are based,
in dealing, both in and out of society, with those opinions of sceptics
and agnostics which had formerly commended themselves to him but which
he now combats with convincing clearness and strength. To emphasize his
position he quotes that terse rebuke of Carlyle’s, in “Sartor Resartus,”
as to the uselessness of Voltaire’s work:
“Cease, my much respected Herr von Voltaire,--shut thy sweet voice;
for the task appointed thee seems finished. Sufficiently hast thou
demonstrated this proposition, considerable or otherwise: That the
Mythus of the Christian Religion looks not in the eighteenth
century as it did in the eighth. Alas, were thy six-and-thirty
quartos and the six-and-thirty thousand other quartos and folios
and flying sheets of reams, printed before and since on the same
subject, all needed to convince us of so little! But what next?
Wilt thou help us to embody the Divine Spirit of that Religion in a
new Mythus, in a new vehicle and vesture, that our Souls, otherwise
too like perishing, may live? What! thou hast no faculty of that
kind? Only a torch for burning and no hammer for building?--Take
our thanks then--and thyself away!”
The theologian and the lay thinker alike must follow with keen interest
the arguments of Theos Alwyn against atheism, materialism, and, what
Miss Corelli calls, Paulism. Uncompromisingly should those writers be
denounced who take immorality for their theme, and achieve considerable
sales thereby. The declarations of Alwyn are of particular interest
because in them expression is given to many of Marie Corelli’s own views
on sacred things. The man or woman who is bewildered by the quarrels of
the religious sects of these days, and whose bewilderment is increased
by the teachings of the cynics, may well exclaim with Alwyn what a
howling wilderness this world would be if given over entirely to
materialism, and conclude with him that, if it were, scarce a line of
division could be drawn between man and the brute beasts of the field!
“I consider,” says the poet, “that if you take the hope of an after-joy
and blessedness away from the weary, perpetually toiling Million, you
destroy, at one wanton blow, their best, purest, and noblest
aspirations. As for the Christian Religion, I cannot believe that so
grand and holy a Symbol is perishing among us. We have a monarch whose
title is ‘Defender of the Faith,’--we live in the age of civilization
which is primarily the result of that faith,--and if, as it is said,
Christianity is exploded,--then certainly the greatness of this hitherto
great nation is exploding with it! But I do not think, that because a
few sceptics uplift their wailing ‘All is vanity’ from their
self-created desert of agnosticism, _therefore_ the majority of men and
women are turning renegades from the simplest, most humane, most
unselfish Creed that ever the world has known. It may be so, but, at
present, I prefer to trust in the higher spiritual instinct of man at
his best, rather than accept the testimony of the lesser Unbelieving
against the greater Many, whose strength, comfort, patience and
endurance, if these virtues come not from God, come not at all.”
To those who, through the atheistic views of some in the churches and of
the hosts outside, begin to feel doubt as to the truth of the Christian
faith, this book “Ardath” will be of enormous value. It will strengthen
their faith and aid greatly to carry conviction to those who pause,
unable to decide amid the chaotic teachings of conflicting theorists. We
praise this book more especially for its virtue as an antidote to the
pitiful writings of some female novelists whose vicious themes must do
much harm amongst the women of the day. “If women give up their faith,”
declares Alwyn to the Duchess de la Santoisie, “let the world prepare
for strange disaster! Good, God-loving women,--women who pray,--women
who hope,--women who inspire men to do the best that is in them,--these
are the safety and glory of nations! When women forget to kneel,--when
women cease to teach their children the ‘Our Father,’ by whose grandly
simple plea Humanity claims Divinity as its origin,--then shall we learn
what is meant by ‘men’s hearts failing them for fear and for looking
after those things which are coming on the earth.’ A woman who denies
Christ repudiates Him, Who, above all others, made her sex as free and
honored as everywhere in Christendom it is. He never refused woman’s
prayers,--He had patience for her weakness,--pardon for her sins,--and
any book written by woman’s hand that does Him the smallest shadow of
wrong is to me as gross an act as that of one who, loaded with benefits,
scruples not to murder his benefactor!”
The reading of “Ardath” will help many to the conviction of Theos
Alwyn--“God Exists. I, of my own choice, prayer, and hope, voluntarily
believe in God, in Christ, in angels, and in all things beautiful, and
pure, and grand! Let the world and its ephemeral opinions wither; I will
not be shaken down from the first step of the ladder whereon one climbs
to Heaven!”
Such is the teaching of this remarkable book “Ardath,” which inculcates
these lessons interwoven with a romantic story of fascinating interest.
Towards its close there occurs, again in the person and in the words of
Heliobas, a scathing comment upon “spiritualists,” for whom six tests
are suggested:
“_Firstly._--Do they serve themselves more than others?--If so,
they are entirely lacking in spiritual attributes.
“_Secondly._--Will they take money for their professed
knowledge?--If so, they condemn themselves as paid tricksters.
“_Thirdly._--Are the men and women of commonplace and thoroughly
material life?--Then, it is plain they cannot influence others to
strive for a higher existence.
“_Fourthly._--Do they love notoriety?--If they do, the gates of the
unseen world are shut upon them.
“_Fifthly._--Do they disagree among themselves, and speak against
one another?--If so, they contradict by their own behavior all the
laws of spiritual force and harmony.
“_Sixthly_ and lastly.--Do they reject Christ?--If they do, they
know nothing whatever about Spiritualism, there being _none_
without Him.”
There is a charming finale. Theos marries the angel Edris. An angel?
Yes; but an angel because _a woman, most purely womanly_. That is all,
and all women can be angels--“A Dream of Heaven made human!”