“THE SORROWS OF SATAN,”--AS A BOOK AND AS A PLAY,--THE STORY OF THE
DRAMATIZATION
The publication of “The Sorrows of Satan,” in 1895, caused a greater
sensation than had followed the appearance of any other work by Miss
Corelli. Many presumably competent judges of literature indulged in an
absolute orgie of denunciation. In the _Review of Reviews_, Mr. W. T.
Stead printed a column or so of sneers, though admitting that the
conception was magnificent, and that the author had an immense command
of language. Anxious, apparently, not to miss what would greatly
interest the public, a good twelve pages of his periodical were devoted
to extracts from the book. He knew, as all the critics knew, that all
the world would soon be reading it, and forming its own judgment. The
public must, in very truth, form an unflattering opinion of the fairness
of some of those who attempt to force their own opinions of a book upon
men and women who are not only fully capable of thinking for themselves,
but who, sometimes,--as in the case of Marie Corelli’s
publications,--insist upon doing so.
Most of the critics entirely missed the point of “The Sorrows of Satan.”
There is a notable character in the book--Lady Sibyl Elton. Now the idea
of Lady Sibyl was an allegorical one. She represented, to Marie
Corelli’s mind, the brilliant, indifferent, selfish, vicious
impersonation of _Society offering itself body and soul to the devil_.
This was completely lost sight of by most of those who criticised the
book, and who had not the imagination to see _beyond_ the mere _forms_
of _woman_ and _fiend_. _All_ the other characters are arranged to play
round this one central idea, so far as the “woman of the piece” was
concerned.
It utterly surprised the author to find that people imagined that she
had taken some real woman to portray, and had contrasted her badness
with Mavis Clare to advertise her own excellent character against the
other’s blackness. Facts, however, are facts. Marie Corelli considers
that the evils of society are wrought by women; hence the impersonation
of Lady Sibyl as a woman, courting the devil. Secondly, she considers
that the reformation of society must be wrought by women; hence the
impersonation of Mavis Clare, as a woman _repelling_ the devil.
“The Sorrows of Satan” is now in its forty-third edition. The book has
not only been read by representatives of all classes in all countries,
but is valued and loved by many thousands who, by the wonderful power of
this single pen, have been forced to _think_; and, by meditating upon
the problems which make the book, have found themselves better men and
women for the exercise.
“Thousands and tens of thousands throughout English-speaking
Christendom,” declared Father Ignatius, “will bless the author who has
dared to pen the pages of ‘The Sorrows of Satan’; they will bless Marie
Corelli’s pen, respecting its denunciation of the blasphemous verses of
a certain ‘popular British poet.’ Where did the courage come from that
made her pen so bold that the personality of God, the divinity of
Christ, the sanctity of marriage, the necessity of religious education
should thus crash upon you from the pen of a woman?”
Courageous, indeed, is any author or speaker who attacks the
selfishness, the materialism, the insincerity of much of our social life
and of many of our social customs. And what made the attack so
successful, what caused such bitter resentment on the part of those who
hate Marie Corelli for her exposures of shams and impostures, and her
valiant upholding of virtue and of truth, is the fact that the author
has not only the courage which her convictions give her, but that she
has the power that justifies her bravery! The book is a grand and
successful attempt to show how women who are good and true hold the
affection, the esteem, the devotion, the homage of men; it is an
incentive to women to be in men’s regard the Good Angels that men best
love to believe them; it is a lesson to women how to attain the noblest
heights of womanhood.
As Marie Corelli, in discussing the “Modern Marriage Market,” has said,
“Follies, temptations, and hypocrisies surround, in a greater or less
degree, all women, whether in society or out of it; and we are none of
us angels, though, to their credit be it said, some men still think us
so. Some men still make ‘angels’ out of us, in spite of our cycling
mania, our foolish ‘clubs,’--where we do nothing at all,--our rough
games at football and cricket, our general throwing to the winds of all
dainty feminine reserve, delicacy, and modesty,--and we alone are to
blame if we shatter their ideals and sit down by choice in the mud when
they would have placed us on thrones.”
The woman who reads and studies “The Sorrows of Satan” will desire to
attain the angel ideal; and the lesson will be the better learned by the
reading of this book because of the appalling picture of Lady Sibyl
Elton, whose callousness and whose _fin-de-siècle_ masquerading, lying,
trickery, atheism, and vice, make up an abomination in the form of Venus
that is a painting of many society beauties of the day,--soulless
beauties whose bodies are as deliberately sold in the marriage mart as
the clothes and jewels with which their damning forms are adorned.
And then in “The Sorrows of Satan” there is the unattractive personality
of Geoffrey Tempest, a man with five millions of money, one of whose
first declarations on the attainment of wealth is that he will give to
none and lend to none, and who pursues a life of vanity, selfishness,
and self-aggrandizement, until at last he repels the evil genius of the
story, Prince Lucio Rimânez--the devil.
In the opening chapter of “The Sorrows of Satan” we are introduced to
Mr. Geoffrey Tempest, at the moment a writer and a man of brains, but
starving and sick at heart through a hopeless struggle against poverty,
and railing against fate and the good luck of a “worthless lounger with
his pockets full of gold by mere chance and heritage.” He is in the
lowest depths of despair, having just had a book of somewhat lofty
thoughts rejected with the advice that, to make a book “go,” it is
desirable, from the publisher’s point of view, that it should be
somewhat _risqué_; in fact, the more indecent the better. It was pitiful
advice and wholly false, for the reason that the great majority of
publishers most carefully avoid works of the kind. Tempest’s case is bad
indeed. He must starve, because his ideas are “old-fashioned.” Moreover,
he cannot pay his landlady her bill. And just at this critical moment
two things happen. He receives £50 from an old chum and £5,000,000 from
Satan. But he is not aware of the real source from which proceeds the
latter sum. Presumably it comes from an unknown uncle whose solicitors
confide to the legatee that the old man had a strange idea “that he had
sold himself to the devil, and that his large fortune was one result of
the bargain.” But who, with five millions to his name, would worry about
an old man’s fancies? Certainly not Geoffrey Tempest. Probably no man.
On the very night that the intimation of his good fortune reaches him,
the newly made millionaire receives a call from Prince Lucio Rimânez,
whose person is beautiful, whose conversation is witty to brilliance,
whose wealth is unlimited, and whose age is mysterious. The meeting
takes place very suitably in the dark, and the hands of the pair meet in
the gloom “quite blandly and without guidance”; and we soon hear from
the lips of the Prince that it is a most beautiful dispensation of
nature that “honest folk should be sacrified in order to provide for the
sustenance of knaves!” and that the devil not only drives the world whip
in hand, but that he manages his team very easily.
Tempest and Rimânez forthwith become friends--even more, chums
inseparable; and soon we find Mr. Geoffrey Tempest very aptly playing
the part he had formerly rallied against--that of a worthless lounger
with his pockets full of gold, and gluttonously swallowing the evil and
corrupting maxims of his fascinating friend. He eats the best of food,
drinks the most expensive of wines, and rides in the most luxurious of
carriages; his book is published and advertised and boomed at his own
expense, and he has not a particle of sympathy for the poor or the
suffering. “It often happens that when bags of money fall to the lot of
aspiring genius, God departs and the devil walks in.” So asserts
Rimânez--who ought to know; and so it proves in the case of his rich and
ready disciple, Mr. Geoffrey Tempest. Nothing seems to disturb the
serenity of the multi-millionaire in the early days of his new-found
wealth and power--for the world bows before him--except a mysterious
servant of the Prince’s, a man named Amiel, who cooks mysterious meals
for his master and, imp of mischief, plays strange pranks upon his
fellow-servants.
Soon Tempest, through the instrumentality of his princely friend, makes
the acquaintance of the beautiful Lady Sibyl Elton. “No man, I think,
ever forgets the first time he is brought face to face with perfect
beauty in woman. He may have caught fleeting glimpses of many fair faces
often,--bright eyes may have flashed on him like starbeams,--the hues of
a dazzling complexion may now and then have charmed him, or the
seductive outlines of a graceful figure;--all these are as mere peeps
into the infinite. But when such vague and passing impressions are
suddenly drawn together in one focus, when all his dreamy fancies of
form and color take visible and complete manifestation in one living
creature who looks down upon him, as it were, from an empyrean of
untouched maiden pride and purity, it is more to his honor than his
shame if his senses swoon at the ravishing vision, and he, despite his
rough masculinity and brutal strength, becomes nothing but the merest
slave to passion.” Thus Geoffrey Tempest when the violet eyes of Sibyl
Elton first rest upon him.
The scene is a box at a theatre, the play of questionable character
about a “woman with a past.” The picture is complete with the lady’s
father--the Earl of Elton--bending forward in the box and eagerly
gloating over every detail of the performance. There is assuredly no
exaggeration in this portraiture. Such scenes can be witnessed every
night during the season. Nor does Marie Corelli go beyond the unpleasing
truth in asserting that novels on similar themes are popular amongst
women and are a sure preparation for the toleration and applause by
women of such plays.
The Earl of Elton is hard up, as his daughter knows, and she has been
trained to manœuvre for a rich husband. The idea of a marriage for love
is out of the question; she is too wary to brave “the hundred gloomy
consequences of the _res angusta domi_,” as old Thackeray puts it. She
is not the sort of girl who marries where her heart is, “with no other
trust but in heaven, health, and labor,”--to quote the same mighty
moralist.
As Prince Rimânez has explained to Tempest, Lady Sibyl is “for sale” in
the matrimonial market, and Tempest determines to buy her; or, in other
words, decides that he wants to marry her and that his millions will
enable him to achieve that object. Poor Lady Sibyl! A victim of
circumstances, it is impossible not to pity her! Cold, callous,
heartless, calculating, corrupt, she is what her mother has made
her--the mother herself being a victim of paralysis and sensuality, a
titled, worn-out _rouée_.
“Madame, we want mothers!” Napoleon once said truly to one who sorrowed
over the decadence of French manhood; and to the Countess of Elton might
have been applied, with more justice than to the less sinful sisters
from whom society sweeps its skirts, the name of wanton.
Tempest loses no time in pursuing what now becomes the main object of
his life--marriage with Lady Sibyl Elton, who is quite ready to be
wooed. Incidentally, the book contains stirring pictures of the times.
There is a visit of Tempest and Rimânez to an aristocratic
gambling-house, and Miss Corelli’s account of the scene there enacted is
but a true description of what is going on constantly “in the West.” How
often, when the Somerset House records of the wills of deceased men of
note are revealed, do people marvel that So-and-so, with his vast
income, was able to put by so little!
Very often it is the gaming-table that supplies the reason. For the
gambling fever is raging in the world of to-day from peers, statesmen,
lawyers, aye, and ministers, to the street-boys who stake their trifles
on a race or a game of shove ha’penny. There are book-makers who, as the
police records show, do not hesitate to accept penny bets on horse
races from boys. There are “swell” boardinghouses, we know, in secluded
country retreats, where _roulette_, _rouge et noir_, and baccarat are
played nightly all the year round, not for pounds, but for hundreds of
pounds, and the police of the districts concerned never disturb the
accursed play. There are luxurious flats in London where similar play
goes on, equally undisturbed by the police. And there are the gaming
hells, such as Miss Corelli describes, where often may be seen men of
distinction, whose names are familiar to every ear, destroying their
peace, their prosperity, the happiness of themselves and their families,
for the luck of the cards.
To such a place as this--where wealth and position were the only “open
sesames”--went Tempest and Prince Rimânez. Both, so rich that it
mattered not to them what resulted, play and win heavily, mainly from a
Viscount Lynton. Rimânez here stays one of the only good impulses that
came to Geoffrey Tempest after his accession to wealth. He would have
forgiven the Viscount his ruinous losses. And so the play goes on, and
then--a merry bet--Lynton plays with Rimânez at baccarat for a queer
stake--his soul. Of course he loses, and Rimânez has but a short time to
wait to collect the wager, for the mad young Viscount blows out his
brains that night. Such is the history--less only the last specific
bet--of many a young aristocrat’s suicide.
In the furtherance of his marriage scheme, Tempest purchases Willowsmere
Court, in Warwickshire, a place which, in his palmy days, the Earl of
Elton had owned, but which had subsequently got into the hands of the
Jews. Near to Willowsmere lives Mavis Clare, the good angel of the
story. It has been said “in print,” and it is popularly believed even
now, notwithstanding positive denial, that Mavis Clare was intended to
portray Miss Marie Corelli. It was an unwarrantable and unfair
suggestion, because it implied to Miss Corelli that gross libel, often
falsely attributed to her, of vanity and self-advertisement. In very
truth, if she were vain it would be a sin easy to condone in one who has
achieved so much. Yet, happily, she is so true a woman that vanity has
no part in her character, and she is incapable of deliberately applying
to herself the Mavis Clare description.
In the _Review of Reviews_ it was stated: “A leading figure in ‘The
Sorrows of Satan’ is none other than the authoress herself, Marie
Corelli, who, like Lucifer, the Son of Morning, also appears under a
disguise. But it is a disguise so transparent that the wayfaring man,
though a fool, could not fail in identifying it. Mavis Clare, whose
initials it may be remarked[B] are the same as those of the authoress,
represents Marie Corelli’s ideal of what she would like to be, but
isn’t; what in her more exalted moments she imagines herself to be. It
is somewhat touching to see this attempt at self-portraiture.” The
suggestion thus put forward, that Mavis Clare was a _deliberate_
portrait of Miss Marie Corelli, was at once accepted by the public--be
it said to the credit of the public, who, having read her books, must
have been instilled with the accurate idea that the talented author must
be good and true, like Mavis Clare. Color was naturally lent to the
suggestion of her deliberate self-portraiture by the similarity of the
initials, and also of the circumstances of Miss Corelli and the lady of
the story.
Nothing, however, was further from Miss Corelli’s thoughts or intentions
than this, and the similarity of the initials was purely accidental. The
name was written in the manuscript and appeared in the proofs as “Mavis
Dare” and not Mavis Clare. Not only just before the book went to press,
but actually whilst it was in the press, the second name was suddenly
altered, because it was pointed out to Miss Corelli that the name was
so very like the “Avice Dare” of another writer. When these facts were
brought to Mr. Stead’s notice he did Miss Corelli the justice to
apologize for the statement which had been made in the _Review of
Reviews_.
It is Lady Sibyl who suddenly and violently breaks the thin wall between
Tempest’s desire to marry her and the formal request that she shall
become his wife. She, with just enough glimmering of honor to detest the
“marriage by arrangement,” informs him of her knowledge that her charms
are for sale and that he, Tempest, is to be the accepted purchaser. Her
language is plain enough in very truth to demonstrate the hideousness of
the bargain, for this is the picture of the bride-to-be that she herself
draws for the edification of her future husband:
“I ask you, do you think a girl can read the books that are now
freely published, and that her silly society friends tell her to
read,--‘because it is so dreadfully _queer_!’--and yet remain
unspoilt and innocent? Books that go into the details of the lives
of outcasts?--that explain and analyze the secret vices of
men?--that advocate almost as a sacred duty ‘free love’ and
universal polygamy?--that see no shame in introducing into the
circles of good wives and pure-minded girls, a heroine who boldly
seeks out a man, _any_ man, in order that she may have a child by
him, without the ‘degradation’ of marrying him? I have read all
those books, and what can you expect of me? Not innocence, surely!
I despise men,--I despise my own sex,--I loathe myself for being a
woman! You wonder at my fanaticism for Mavis Clare,--it is only
because for a time her books give me back my self-respect, and make
me see humanity in a nobler light,--because she restores to me, if
only for an hour, a kind of glimmering belief in God, so that my
mind feels refreshed and cleansed. All the same, you must not look
upon me as an innocent young girl, Geoffrey, a girl such as the
great poets idealized and sang of. I am a contaminated creature,
trained to perfection in the lax morals and prurient literature of
my day.”
The unholy wedding of the selfish millionaire and Lady Sibyl Elton takes
place. Prince Rimânez acts as master of the ceremonies, and calls to his
aid a devil’s own army of imps who work marvelous musical and
picturesque effects--their identification as creatures of hell being, of
course, hidden. Even thunder and lightning are called down to add to the
remarkable scene. And so the marriage bargain is completed.
Disillusionment quickly follows, and we find the husband and wife
mutually disgusted with one another, and on the verge of hate. Lady
Sibyl, however, finds passion at last, passion for the husband’s friend,
Lucio Rimânez, Prince of Darkness.
To such an extent does this fever of love possess her that she seeks
out Rimânez one night and declares her love, only to be scorned by him:
“I know you love me,” (is his retort); “I have always known it!
Your vampire soul leaped to mine at the first glance I ever gave
you.” And he rejects her pleadings. “For you corrupt the
world,--you turn good to evil,--you deepen folly into crime,--with
the seduction of your nude limbs and lying eyes you make fools,
cowards, and beasts of men!” There is no limit to the degradation
of this evil wife. “Since you love me so well,” he said, “kneel
down and worship me!”
She falls upon her knees. And the scene thus continues:
“With every pulse of my being I worship you!” she murmured
passionately. “My king! my god! The cruel things you say but deepen
my love for you; you can kill, but you can never change me! For one
kiss of your lips I would die,--for one embrace from you I would
give my soul!...”
“Have you one to give?” he asked derisively. “Is it not already
disposed of? You should make sure of that first! Stay where you are
and let me look at you! So!--a woman, wearing a husband’s name,
holding a husband’s honor, clothed in the very garments purchased
with a husband’s money, and newly risen from a husband’s side,
steals forth thus in the night, seeking to disgrace him and pollute
herself by the vulgarest unchastity! And this is all that the
culture and training of nineteenth-century civilization can do for
you? Myself, I prefer the barbaric fashion of old times, when rough
savages fought for their women as they fought for their cattle,
treated them as cattle, and kept them in their place, never
dreaming of endowing them with such strong virtues as truth and
honor! If women were pure and true, then the lost happiness of the
world might return to it, but the majority of them are like
you--liars--ever pretending to be what they are not. I may do what
I choose with you, you say? torture you, kill you, brand you with
the name of outcast in the public sight, and curse you before
Heaven, if I will only love you! All this is melodramatic speech,
and I never cared for melodrama at any time. I shall neither kill
you, brand you, curse you, nor love you; I shall simply--call your
husband!”
After further passages of this description, concluding with some passes
with a dagger, the scene ends, the hidden but listening husband coming
forth and blessing the friend for his upright conduct. The inevitable
follows. Lady Sibyl commits suicide; and the husband, finding the corpse
seated in a chair before a mirror, carries out a plan for an awful
midnight interview with the dead, turning on a blaze of lamps, and
sitting down there in the death-chamber to read a document left by his
wife, in which she gives a pitiful picture of the training that has made
her character so repellent. She describes, in a remarkable and appalling
letter, of which an extract follows, how the death-giving poison is
taken and the agonizing thoughts of the last moments.
“Oh, God!... Let me write--write--while I can! Let me yet hold fast
the thread which fastens me to earth,--give me time--time before I
drift out, lost in yonder blackness and flame! Let me write for
others the awful Truth, as I see it,--there is No death!
None--none! _I cannot die!..._ Let me write on,--write on with this
dead fleshly hand, ... one moment more time, dread God!... one
moment more to write the truth,--the terrible truth of Death whose
darkest secret, Life, is unknown to men!... To my despair and
terror,--to my remorse and agony, I live!--oh, the unspeakable
misery of this new life! And worst of all,--God whom I doubted, God
whom I was taught to deny, this wronged, blasphemed and outraged
God EXISTS! And I could have found Him had I chosen,--this
knowledge is forced upon me as I am torn from hence,--it is shouted
at me by a thousand wailing voices!... too late!--too late!--the
scarlet wings beat me downward,--these strange half-shapeless forms
close round and drive me onward ... to a further darkness, ... amid
wind and fire!... Serve me, dead hand, once more ere I depart, ...
my tortured spirit must seize and compel you to write down this
thing unnamable, that earthly eyes may read, and earthly souls take
timely warning!... I know at last WHOM I have loved!--whom I have
chosen, whom I have worshiped!... Oh, God, have mercy!... I know
who claims my worship now, and drags me into yonder rolling world
of flame!... his name is ----”
Here the manuscript ends,--incomplete and broken off abruptly,--and
there is a blot on the last sentence as though the pen had been
violently wrenched from the dying fingers and flung hastily down.
From this terrible incident the story hastens to its close, remarkable
alike for the discourses of the Prince of Darkness, for the experiences
of Tempest, for his final severance from the evil genius and his return
to honest work. And here it is necessary to consider the conception of
his Satanic Majesty with which the author presents us. She states that
the idea came to her in the first place from the New Testament: “There I
found that Christ was tempted by Satan with the offer of thrones,
principalities and powers, all of which the Saviour rejected. When the
temptation was over I read that Satan left Him, and that angels came and
ministered to Him. I thought this out in my own mind and I concluded
that if man, through Christ, would only reject Satan, Satan would leave
him, and that angels would minister to him in the same way that they
ministered to Christ. Out of this germ rose the wider idea that Satan
himself might be glad for men to so reject him, as he then might have
the chance of recovering his lost angelic position.” In fact, the writer
would have it that Satan becomes on terms of intimacy with man, and man
then becomes consequently evil, only if man shows that he wishes to
travel an evil course; that man may never redeem the devil, but that
when man has become as perfect as, through Christ, he may, then the
devil may again become an angel--a Doctrine of universal salvation for
sinners and for Satan too. No other writer has given such a conception
of the devil’s character and position.
The central conception of “The Sorrows of Satan,” Marie Corelli further
says, is that as the possession of an immortal spirit must needs breed
immortal longings, Satan, being an angel once, must of necessity long
for that state of perfection; and that God, being the perfection of
love, could not in His love deny all hope of final redemption even to
Satan. Truly she here gives a conception of the God of Love more
attractive than the pitiless readings of the Divine character which some
theologians would have us accept.
There are the two conflicting influences in the novelist’s conception of
the devil--Satan endeavoring to corrupt and destroy man, yet knowing
that if man rejects him he is nearer to his own redemption. And so in
this book we find Prince Lucio Rimânez often giving utterance to
thoughts and principles which the man enslaved by him refuses to adopt
and practice, as if he longed for Tempest to repel him, though helping
forward all his selfish schemes. And we are given, too, the picture of
this Prince of Darkness, finding that Mavis Clare could not be tempted,
begging for her prayers--“_you_ believe God hears you.... Only a pure
woman can make faith possible to man. Pray for me, then, as one who has
fallen from his higher and better self; who strives, but who may not
attain; who labors under heavy punishment; who would fain reach Heaven,
but who by the cursed will of man, and man alone, is kept in hell! Pray
for me, Mavis Clare; promise it; and so shall you lift me a step nearer
the glory I have lost.”
Rimânez and Tempest go on a long yachting cruise together,--to
Egypt,--and during this journey the discourses of the Prince are
numerous and of intense interest. In one he states that if men were true
to their immortal instincts and to the God that made them,--if they were
generous, honest, fearless, faithful, reverent, unselfish, ... if women
were pure, brave, tender, and loving,--then “Lucifer, Son of the
Morning,” lifted towards his Creator on the prayers of pure lives, would
wear again his Angel’s crown. There is for a brief period after this a
vision of the devil,--“one who, proud and rebellious, like you, errs
less, in that he owns God as his Master”--as an Angel. And then the
yacht, steered by the demon Amiel, crashes on through ice with a noise
like thunder, to the world’s end. Tempest catches a passing glimpse of
his dead wife, and feels remorse and pity at last. A few moments pass
and Tempest’s hour has come, an hour for a great decision:
“Know from henceforth that the Supernatural Universe in and around
the Natural is no lie,--but the chief Reality, inasmuch as God
surroundeth all! Fate strikes thine hour,--and in this hour ’tis
given thee to choose thy Master. Now, by the will of God, thou
seest me as Angel;--but take heed thou forget not that among men I
am as Man! In human form I move with all humanity through endless
ages,--to kings and counselors, to priests and scientists, to
thinkers and teachers, to old and young, I come in the shape their
pride or vice demands, and am as one with all. Self finds in me
another Ego;--but from the pure in heart, the high in faith, the
perfect in intention, I do retreat with joy, offering naught save
reverence, demanding naught save prayer! So am I--so must I ever
be--till Man of his own will releases and redeems me. Mistake me
not, but know me!--and choose thy Future for truth’s sake and not
out of fear! Choose and change not in any time hereafter,--this
hour, this moment is thy last probation,--choose, I say! Wilt thou
serve Self and Me? or God only?”
The choice is made. Tempest realizes with shame his miserable vices, his
puny scorn of God, his effronteries and blasphemies; and in the sudden
strong repulsion and repudiation of his own worthless existence, being,
and character, he finds both voice and speech. “God only! Annihilation
at His hands, rather than life without Him! God only! I have chosen!”
From the brightening heaven there rings a silver voice, clear as a
clarion-call,--“Arise, Lucifer, Son of the Morning! One soul rejects
thee,--one hour of joy is granted thee! Hence, and arise!” And with a
vision of the man fiend rushing for a brief hour to celestial regions,
because of one soul that rejected Satan, Geoffrey Tempest finds himself
tied to a raft on the open sea, and remembers the promise, “Him who
cometh unto me will I in no wise cast out.”
The late Rev. H. R. Haweis, preaching on this book, said: “‘Seek ye
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things
shall be added unto you,’ is the grand moral carried out,” and that is
an opinion, notwithstanding the ban of the Romish Church, which is
entertained of the book by many Christian men, by a large number of
Christian clergy. It is a declaration of the Nemesis of everything that
opposes itself to the will of God. The book teaches the softening
influences upon mankind of good deeds done, of good words spoken. It
teaches, in brief, that there are two contending powers at work upon
mankind--the evil and the good; and the book is an eloquent, beautiful,
effective contribution to the victory of the Good. The sensuality, the
evil imagination, the prostitution of the marriage sacrament to
commercial bargains, the infidelity, in thought and intention, though
not in deed, of Lady Sibyl Elton, are stripped of their pretty dressings
and shown in their detestable reality. “The acts of selfishness in man,”
Mr. Haweis added, “are exhibited in the person of Geoffrey Tempest in a
garb that repels and with results that horrify; and the pure influence
of Mavis Clare is shown on the other side of the picture, bright and
attractive, the spirit of peace, contentment, and love in a glorious and
glorified conquest of the spirit of evil.”
Miss Corelli has suffered in a peculiar way from the deficiencies of the
law of copyright which allows perfect protection to a mechanical patent,
but which gives an author no adequate protection over rights such as the
dramatization of a book. “The Sorrows of Satan,” as everybody knows, was
dramatized, and this is how it came about: In the year of the
publication of “The Sorrows of Satan,” 1895, Mr. George Eric Mackay
introduced to his stepsister a lady of his acquaintance, a sculptress,
who, so he said, was anxious to make a study of his head. This lady, in
her turn, introduced Captain Woodgate, who expressed his enthusiastic
admiration for “The Sorrows of Satan” to Miss Corelli, and said it would
make a very fine play, and followed up his praise by asking whether he
might try his hand at dramatizing it, as he had already had some
experience in the writing of plays. Miss Corelli replied that she had
not thought of it at all as a play, but that she had no objection to his
trying, on condition that nothing was produced without her authorization
and permission. Captain Woodgate readily consented to this, but the
whole subject was talked of so casually that (so Miss Corelli declares)
she did not think he really meant to undertake it.
Miss Corelli was very ill at the time, and went to Scotland for her
health. During her absence, Captain Woodgate went to work, and called in
the assistance of Mr. Paul Berton. Between them they wrote a play, and
“The Grosvenor Syndicate” was formed for the purposes of its production.
Miss Corelli was then invited to hear the play read in the Shaftesbury
Theatre green-room. Miss Evelyn Millard, selected to play the part of
“Lady Sibyl,” was present. After the first act had been read by Mr. Paul
Berton, Miss Corelli informs us that she very decidedly expressed her
objection to it, and said that it would never do. Mr. Eric Mackay, who
was also present, said that, on the contrary, he thought it “admirable.”
Miss Corelli, hearing this, remained silent while the second act was
proceeded with by Mr. Berton, to her increasing distaste. Her feelings
in the matter (so Miss Corelli declares) met with complete sympathy from
Miss Evelyn Millard, who, rising from her place, begged Miss Corelli to
give her a few words in private. Miss Corelli followed her out of the
room, and Miss Millard then said: “My dear Miss Corelli, I was ready and
glad to think of playing your character of ‘Lady Sibyl Elton’ in ‘The
Sorrows of Satan,’ but I cannot possibly consent to act in this.”
Miss Corelli thanked Miss Millard very heartily for her plain speaking
and her decision, and then, informing the joint authors that she would
have nothing whatever to do with the play, the meeting at the
Shaftesbury broke up. Mr. Lewis Waller, who had been selected for the
part of “Lucio Rimânez,” wrote a letter to Miss Corelli in which he
cordially sympathized with her on the treatment her work had received.
“The Grosvenor Syndicate” paid her five hundred pounds for the use of
her name, but this sum she offered to promptly return if they would as
promptly withdraw the play. Upon this the shareholders met together at
the office of Miss Corelli’s lawyer to discuss the matter, and Miss
Corelli again proposed to give them back at once the five hundred
pounds, and to write a play on her book herself. It may be added that,
if she had been allowed to do this, Mr. Beerbohm Tree would have been
ready and glad to consider the part of Prince Lucio. She said to those
who had invested their money in the syndicate: “Gentlemen, if you will
withdraw this work, I will guarantee to write you a play which shall be
a success.” They, however, after consideration, refused, saying that
shares were issued and they could not go back. Miss Corelli, therefore,
withdrew her “authorization” altogether, and only allowed the simple use
of her name on the programmes to this effect: “Dramatized from the novel
of that name by Marie Corelli.” The play was therefore produced for the
first time at the Shaftesbury Theatre on the evening of January 9th,
1897, in the presence of H. R. H. the Duke of Cambridge and suite, the
Duke, audibly expressing agreement with Miss Corelli’s views of the
work. She herself was not present. She was lying ill in bed, suffering
acute pain, having that very day gone through a trying ordeal of
surgical examination by Sir John Williams, who had bluntly informed her
that she had not, perhaps, six months to live unless she went through a
grave operation. It will be owned that this was a singular situation for
any author, as she herself says, “to have the work of her brain dealt
with in a way to which she took obvious exception, and herself
threatened with death both on the same day.”
The play of _The Sorrows of Satan_ was produced, Mr. Lewis Waller
playing the part of Lucio. Miss Millard remained staunch to her opinion,
and wrote to Miss Corelli, saying how sincerely sorry she was that the
play had been brought out, notwithstanding the protest. Since that time
several dramatic versions of the book have been played, including Mr. C.
W. Somerset’s version, which Miss Corelli has described as a combination
of her novel and the late George Augustus Sala’s “Margaret Foster.” Mr.
Somerset is himself the author of this production, and we are told that
he informed Miss Corelli that he put the two books together in this work
“to strengthen both!”
Miss Corelli would much like to put a stop to the various stage
renderings of “The Sorrows of Satan” if the law would give her the power
to do so; and she would greatly like to see the law altered so as to
give her and other authors such power. As it is, she now, to secure her
titles, whenever she writes a book, has a play, bearing the title of her
book, produced before a paying audience.
In order to secure such dramatic copyright, authors have to pay to have
their “sham” play performed before a “sham” audience with “sham” actors!
And the law compels it!