AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON
A review of Marie Corelli’s life from the time she left her
convent-school to the present day, shapes as a record of intellectual
activity rather than one of movement or incident of an anecdotal nature.
But although the novelist has never actually gone out of her way to
study local color, she has traveled all over Europe; as, during her
stepfather’s long illness and the constant strain of anxiety entailed
upon her by his condition, it was necessary for her to take at least one
month’s rest and change of air in the course of each year. These annual
holidays were spent in various parts of Europe--in France, Italy,
Holland, Switzerland, and Germany--and during her travels she was never
idle, but always at work recording notes of scenes, seasons, and events.
The _locale_ of Combmartin was carefully studied by her before she ever
wrote “The Mighty Atom”; and, as the many tourists who have visited the
neighborhood since on account of the story can testify, both that
village and Clovelly have been faithfully represented. But some of the
scenery in her other books, though correct in detail, has never been
visited by the novelist at all. “Thelma,” which is a frequent
companion-volume to travelers in Norway, has certain scenes depicted
which are now shown by local guides as associated with the novel, but
the writer herself has never visited Norway.
It may be remembered that in “Anne of Geirstein” Walter Scott gives an
exact description of Switzerland; but at the time he wrote the novel he
had never seen that country. We have already told how Sir Henry Drummond
Wolff, a great authority on Persia, called on Miss Corelli shortly after
the publication of “Ardath” to inquire personally where she had resided
in the East, to be so familiar with Eastern color and surroundings; and
he was very much surprised to learn that she had never visited the East
at all, nor had any idea of going there. In the same way, though
“Vendetta!” is an essentially Neapolitan story, she has never seen
Naples. Nor does she “read up” for her local color. When asked to
explain how she manages to convey herself in spirit to countries with
which she is entirely unacquainted, she replies: “I _imagine_ it must be
so, and I find it generally _is_ so.” As she stated in her lecture at
Edinburgh on “The Vanishing Gift,” she thinks Imagination is a decaying
faculty in the present day. “People seem unable to project themselves
into either the past or the future,” she says, “and yet that is the only
way to gauge the events of the present.”
Marie Corelli is a fair linguist, having a thorough knowledge of French
and Italian. She can read Balzac and Dante as readily as she can read
Walter Scott--these three, by the way, being particular favorites of
hers.
Marlowe describes a library as containing “infinite riches in a little
room.” Though no millionaire in her possession of this kind of wealth,
Marie Corelli has gathered about her a set of volumes which is
representative without being cumbersome. Her books are not stored in a
stately room that is held sacred to them and them alone, but they are
here, there, and everywhere, in drawing-room, working-den, and bedroom.
She is not a bookish woman--in the reading sense--but she reads
discreetly, and has many widely different friends between covers. Nor is
she a miser in this respect, for she gives and lends as readily as she
buys or borrows.
Many of those interested in the novelist’s movements have wondered what
attraction drew Miss Marie Corelli to Stratford-on-Avon so greatly as
to persuade her to settle there. The cause is a very simple one. From
her earliest childhood she had been encouraged by her adopted father,
Dr. Charles Mackay, to entertain a great adoration for the name and the
works of Shakespeare, and before she was nine years old she used to
recite, at his request, whole passages from the plays of the great
Master. When she returned from school, he promised to take her for a
“pilgrimage,” as he termed it, to all the places made notable by
Shakespeare’s association with them, and to this pilgrimage she had
looked forward with the greatest expectation. But it was never to be,
for Dr. Mackay’s illness came on and prevented all such plans of
pleasure from being fulfilled.
When the aged poet died, and his adopted child, broken-hearted at his
loss, and feeling herself utterly alone in the world, knew not how to
endure the weary days following immediately on his death, she suddenly
bethought herself of the “pilgrimage” she and the dear one she had loved
so well had arranged to make together. She determined to carry out the
plan, and her friend Miss Vyver (who lost her mother in the same year as
that of Dr. Mackay’s death) accompanied her, as did her stepbrother, Mr.
Eric Mackay. With sorrow as well as interest, she went over every scene
her early teaching had made her familiar with, and was so charmed with
Warwickshire, and Stratford in particular, that she was anxious to leave
London then at once, and take up her residence in Shakespeare’s town.
This was in 1890, when only four of her books had been published.
Her wishes in this respect, however, she subordinated to those of her
stepbrother, who preferred London; but from that time she always
cherished the memory of Stratford-on-Avon, and hoped she would be able
to return thither. Finally, in 1898, when Eric Mackay’s death deprived
her of her last remaining link with her childhood, save her
ever-faithful friend Miss Vyver, and when she was extremely ill from the
effects of long sickness, followed by the nervous shock of Eric’s sudden
end, she turned her thoughts to the old town again, and decided to take
a furnished house there, to see if the place agreed with her health. She
rented “Hall’s Croft” for a few months, then “Avon Croft” (where the
“Master-Christian” and “Boy” were finished), and, finding that the soft,
mild air did wonders for her, and gradually reestablished her strength,
she decided to remain.
The only house available in the town for a permanency was “Mason Croft,”
a very old place
[Illustration: THE ELIZABETHAN WATCH TOWER, MASON CROFT]
in a sad state of disrepair, its last “restoration” bearing the date of
1745, but, as it was all there was to be had, she risked taking it on
trial. Gradually improving and restoring it, she has now brought it back
to look something like it must have been in the fifteenth century, when
it was quite an important house, requiring a “watch-tower,” wherein a
watchman was set to guard the property, and which still stands in the
garden, having been transformed into a cozy summer “study” for the
novelist. Every month sees some new addition to the charming
oak-panelled rooms, which are essentially home-like, and Miss Corelli’s
love of flowers, which amounts to a passion, shows itself in the mass of
blossom which in winter, equally as in the summer, adorns her
“winter-garden,” leading out from the drawing-room.
She is very fond of the home she has made, and fond of the town in which
it stands, and her reason for living in Stratford arises simply out of
the old cherished sentiment of her childhood’s days when she was taught
to consider the little town as the real “Heart of England,” where the
greatest of poets had birth, and where her idolized stepfather had
promised to “pass many happy days with her.” She takes the keenest
interest in all the joys and sorrows of Stratford’s townspeople, and
grudges neither trouble nor expense in anything that may bring them
pleasure or good.
It is well-known that she thinks it regrettable that the Memorial
Theatre should be so little used, owing to the high fees asked for it,
and that good actors should find it impossible to risk going down to
perform there, unless their expenses are guaranteed, particularly as it
is the only “self-endowed” theatre in England! She possesses an
interesting letter from the late Charles Flower, who gave the largest
share of the money required to build the place, in which it is plainly
set forth that his idea of the theatre was to let it at a merely
“nominal fee,” in order that the best actors might go to Stratford and
play Shakespeare’s works, in the best manner, to the Stratford
townspeople, who were only to be asked “popular” prices for admission.
But, since that estimable benefactor’s death, things have not been
exactly on the footing he thus suggested, and for more than half the
year the theatre is empty and useless, which seems a pity. “How much
better,” says Miss Corelli, “it would be to see the theatre full, and
the public-houses empty!” In which most people will agree with her. But
though her opinions are very strong on these and other points concerning
some matters at Stratford, she never interferes or puts forward any
suggestions that she considers might be resented. The only time she did
put her foot down was when Sir Theodore Martin wanted to break into the
antique sanctity of Shakespeare’s resting-place in the Church of the
Holy Trinity, and in that campaign all the world was with her, as well
as Stratford itself. She does all the good she can in the neighborhood;
she has quite revivified the Choral Society; she gives short, simple
addresses to workmen and schoolchildren; she opens bazaars and sales of
work, and by her presence at such functions brings much-needed pecuniary
help to institutions which always feel, to a greater or less extent, the
pinch of poverty.
The desire to do good to one’s fellow-creatures must animate every
writer whose work is not solely the product of intellect. When there is
“heart” in a book, there must be a heart that can throb for others in
the author of it. Pass the lives of eminent authors before you in rapid
mental review, and you will find that most of these authors were
constantly performing kindly actions. The great souls of Dickens and
Thackeray--of the latter especially--prompted them to do many generous
things. It is said that when, as an editor, Thackeray found a letter
with a manuscript telling a tale of pathetic circumstances, he would
sometimes (when obliged to return the manuscript) scribble out a check
on his own account and send it back with the rejected story. Turning to
women writers, has not Mrs. Gaskell, in her touching life of Charlotte
Brontë, told us how she and the poor Yorkshire clergyman’s daughter paid
sundry afternoon calls in the Haworth district, and how welcome was the
novelist’s “quiet presence” in many humble homes? Ruskin’s kindness and
open-handed charity, as one who visited him has told us, were proverbial
in the Brantwood neighborhood. The history of Dr. Johnson’s home life
proves amply the tenderness which lay behind his pompous and dictatorial
manner. Poor Goldsmith’s generosity amounted almost to a vice, for he
would borrow a guinea to give to a friend in need and empty his pockets
for a whining mendicant. His philanthropy was wholesale, and quite
lacked any sense of proportion. Scott worked himself to death to pay off
the debts of the publishing firm in which he was concerned;--turn where
you will, you find that the men and women whose work in life has been
the making of songs and dramas and novels, have ever been keenly alive
to the distress prevalent among their fellow-creatures, and have seldom
been guilty of anything approaching selfishness.
It would not be meet in the present work to touch in any but the most
passing way on Miss Corelli’s practical philanthropy. But it is only
due to her, in a biographical work published mainly to explain what she
_is_--as opposed to what so many malicious paragraphists have declared
her to be--to pay a tribute to her consideration for others, and her
desire to make the best use of such worldly possessions as the extensive
sale of her works has naturally brought her.
Those, however, who accuse her of “self-advertisement” will do well to
remember that by such an absolutely false clamor they are depriving many
in need from assistance which they might obtain were the novelist
certain that her actions would not be misrepresented and misconstrued.
For nothing makes her happier than to see others happy. She has helped
many strugglers in the literary profession, too, and literary men and
women who disparage her may be surprised to hear that she has herself
never been known to say an injurious word with regard to any one of her
fellow-authors.
It may be asked--what is Marie Corelli’s life-programme? Most writers
have a definite object in view--this one to achieve immortality; that
one to make money. What is Marie Corelli’s?
Briefly, she writes,--has always written,--to reach the hearts and minds
of those thinking people of to-day who are striving to combat the
subtleties of the Agnostic and Atheist; to strengthen their faith in
the truth, the reality, the goodness of God and Christianity; the people
who have hearts that throb with tenderness, hope, love and sincerity.
She would purify society. She would exalt everything that is noble and
good. She would destroy the rule of unbelief and insincerity, and raise
in its place ideal characters and conditions strongly built upon a
foundation of faith and truth. Such is Marie Corelli’s programme.
The interest taken by the novelist in social questions has led her to
correspond with workingmen’s clubs in America and the colonies, and not
a few papers have been written by her to serve as subjects for
discussion in such institutions.
But what of that self of which so much has been heard? It is a
personality striking in its simplicity and in its power. Marie Corelli
is a woman of women, simple in her tastes, strong in her faiths and her
aims, with a heart full of sympathy for others, living a busy life that
from its productiveness in the world of literature is a constant
influence for good in the hearts and homes of thousands the world over,
and, in its private relationships, a source of help, inspiration, and
benefit to those with whom she comes in contact.
That she is not merely a lover of Shakespeare, but a Shakespeare
enthusiast, is known to all her friends; she would see the day come, if
possible, and help to speed its coming, when the whole town of
Stratford-on-Avon shall be a Shakespeare memorial. She would exclude
steam-launches and all similar misplaced modernities from the peaceful
Avon; she would have every new building that is erected in the
birthplace of Shakespeare constructed in accordance with the
architecture of the Master’s day; she would sacredly and lovingly guard
every old building and the form of all Stratford’s old streets; she
would have the storehouse, that exists there, of never explored
sixteenth-century records, thoroughly ransacked and reported upon, as it
should be, by competent and national authorities, and given an adequate
place and publicity. We should hear little more then, we venture to
assert, of Baconian theories. Miss Corelli would have, moreover (and
perhaps the statement may help to further the object), a great
development of the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford. She would like it
to be the Bayreuth of Literature. She would establish a central
Shakespearean Society, with branches all over the world, which would
circulate notes of interest among all Shakespeare lovers, and hold
annual conferences in connection with the April Shakespearean
celebrations.
Now, as to Marie Corelli’s “public.” The great sale of her works proves
it to be a vast one, and the fact that her publishers have not found it
advisable to issue her in sixpenny form is clear proof that she commands
the purses of those who are able to afford six shillings. And although
the possession of money is no guarantee of literary taste, yet it stands
to reason that the upper and middle classes, taken in the mass, are the
chief supporters of literature, and afford the best criterion of worth
in their selection of books owing to the fact that their education is
superior to that of people who are commonly designated as “poor.” But
for the latter there are the free libraries, and the Corelli novels are
in as constant demand wherever books are to be obtained for nothing, as
at railway bookstalls, where there is not a halfpenny abatement of the
full published price. Miss Corelli, then, being read by people of all
classes, may certainly be said to have won over a considerable majority
of the bookreading portion of the British race.
And it must not be forgotten that she is perhaps the most extensively
read of living novelists in Holland, Russia, Germany and Austria, where
translations of her books are always to be obtained, or that her
“Barabbas” and “A Romance of Two Worlds,” in their Hindustani
renderings, command a wide following among the native peoples of India.
She is extremely popular in Norway and Sweden, and “Vendetta!” in its
Italian translation is always the vogue in Italy, as is the French
version of “Absinthe” (“Wormwood”) in France. There is no country where
her name is unknown, and no European city, where, if she chances to pass
through, she is not besieged with visitors and waylaid with offerings of
flowers. Were she to visit Australia or New Zealand she would receive an
almost “royal” welcome, so great is the enthusiasm in the “New World”
for anything that comes from her pen.
Marie Corelli’s acquaintances are many in number, but her circle of
friends is a small and carefully selected one. Shakespeare’s “He that is
thy friend indeed” can be applied, even in the case of a popular
novelist, to but few persons. Where Miss Corelli is, there always is her
devoted friend Miss Vyver. Between these two there is perfect
understanding and absolute sympathy. It goes without saying that, until
the day of his death, Dr. Mackay held chief place in his adopted
daughter’s heart, and, though dead, holds it still. The kind old
publisher, George Bentley, was, perhaps, owing to his unceasing sympathy
and delicate appreciation of her nature, the best friend Marie Corelli
ever had outside her own family circle.
But many of the social and artistic world’s great personages are among
her most frequent guests and correspondents. The numerous letters she
has from famous men and women would almost make a journal of
contemporary history. Many eminent persons appear to set considerable
value on her opinions, judging from the questions they ask of her, and
the urgency with which they press for an answer.
During the South African War, representatives of all ranks at the front
kept her informed of all that was going on, batches of letters reaching
her from “fighting men” who were personally utter strangers to her, and
whose names she had never heard. The gallant Lord Dundonald, who has
long been a friend of hers, found time to write her one of the first
letters that left his pen after he entered Ladysmith. And this kind of
general confidence in her friendship runs all along the line. No one who
has known her once seems inclined to forget her, while those who have
really read her books become her friends without any personal knowledge
of her.
At Stratford this celebrated novelist lives a very quiet life. Of course
she cannot escape the attentions of the curious, for Fame has its
penalties; the Stratford cabmen, taking visitors round the old town,
often pull up opposite Mason Croft to allow
[Illustration: MISS CORELLI’S BOATMAN AND PUNT]
their fares to gaze upon the residence of the popular writer. Sometimes
her admirers, although absolute strangers, venture to call upon her; but
there is an astute and diplomatic butler at Mason Croft who takes very
good care that his mistress is not unnecessarily disturbed when she is
working.
It is this resolute working of hers that--coupled with her extraordinary
gifts--has made the name of Marie Corelli one to conjure with. Week in,
week out, she toils at her desk for several hours every morning, and it
is by such methods of regularity and application that she has succeeded
in writing such long, as well as such successful, novels.
The following sketch, contributed to the _Manchester Chronicle_ last
summer by the editor, Mr. J. Cuming Walters, affords a very complete
picture of Marie Corelli as she is to-day:--
In the old-world town of Stratford-on-Avon stands an Elizabethan
red-brick house, its windowsills brightened with flowers which hang
down in profusion and impart gaiety of aspect to the ancient and
time-worn edifice. Here, near the Guild Church and the school that
Shakespeare knew, in the quietest part of the town, dwells, with
her loyal companion and friend, Miss Marie Corelli.
What manner of woman is this most popular novelist of the hour, who
has the reading world at her feet, and who has conquered the hearts
of millions? Until lately she was thought to be a mystery. One has
only to know her to marvel why. For Marie Corelli does not shroud
herself in obscurity, does not affect the life of the recluse, does
not pretend to be other than she is--a winsome, warm-hearted,
sunny-natured woman, who enjoys life to the full, and would have
others enjoy theirs, who has ideals and tries to live up to them,
and who asks only to be freed from vulgar intrusion and the
slanderous shafts of unseen enemies. In her delightful Stratford
home she lives in a serene atmosphere; she regards the spot as
hallowed; she has the artist’s love of the beautiful Warwickshire
scenery, and the woman’s tenderness for all around her; the
cottagers know her charity, and all good causes enjoy her aid and
patronage. Here she dwells in a happy environment, and works with
ardor, for her day’s labor begins at sunrise; yet she has always a
spare hour for a friend, or a spare afternoon in which to act the
gracious hostess towards visitors.
What first strikes one on meeting Miss Corelli is her intensely
sympathetic nature. She will be found in all probability amid her
choice flowers in the spacious Winter Garden, and her face
irradiates as she advances to meet you with outstretched hands and
smiling lips. A small creature, with a mass of waving golden
hair--“pale gold such as the Tuscan’s early art prefers”--with
dimpled cheeks and expressive eyes, almost childlike at first
glance but with immense reserves of energy--that is Marie Corelli;
but her chief charm is perhaps the liquid softness of her voice.
She began life as a singer and musician, and as one hears her speak
it is easy to understand that had she not been a force in
literature she might have been a controlling influence in the world
of song. In the hall her harp still stands, but more often her
fingers stray over the notes of a piano, perchance making the
instrument give forth a melody of her own composing.
A visitor is soon quite at ease. Formality is dispensed with. The
keynote in Miss Corelli’s house is Sincerity. She is a brilliant
conversationalist, but a good listener too. She talks freely and
without conscious effort, and one’s faith in her is speedily
inspired. What does she talk about? Just enough about herself to
make her auditor wish for more; yet, with a condescension that is
all grace, she is eager to hear all that her visitor has to say on
the subjects nearest his own heart. Particularly does she like the
theme to be the old loved authors, and whatever one has to tell of
Dickens, or Thackeray, or Tennyson--and even if one should have a
theory about Shakespeare--in Miss Corelli he will find not only the
ardent listener but a woman whose quick and well-stored mind
enables her to take up readily a debatable point, to help to
resolve some doubt or mystery, or to add profitably to one’s own
stock of knowledge. No one can converse with her for an hour and
come away unenriched.
Yes, she not only writes enchantingly, but she herself enchants. In
her presence you are under a spell. “There’s witchcraft in it.” Her
youth and her artlessness disarm you--you are left wondering how
this fair young creature could have fought her way alone in the
world (her life has been a battle), how she could have conquered
opposition, and how she could have attained to her present
supremacy. It may verge upon extravagance to say it, but there is
something to marvel at in the fact that at an age long before that
at which George Eliot had written her first story Miss Corelli had
given us a dozen remarkable and original romances of world-wide
fame, and there is no guessing what achievements yet lie before her
and what position she may gain. Her powers are waxing rather than
waning, and a month or two ago when the last two chapters of
“Temporal Power” were in her hand, we heard her say she hoped that
in this book she had reached a higher stage than in any she had
previously written.
But it is not only as a writer, as a necromancer with a magic pen,
that one may admire Marie Corelli. She is a very woman, too, with a
woman’s likes and dislikes, a woman’s feelings, a woman’s impulses,
a woman’s preferences and prejudices--and she is quite frank
concerning all. You like her the better for being so purely human.
She is never happier than when arranging a maypole dance for the
children or organizing Christmas festivities for the poor and
helpless. Look round her charming rooms, and behold the evidence of
the feminine hand there. Observe the taste of her dress--dress, by
the way, which, with all its elegance, does not come from France,
is not the “creation” or the “confection” of a Paris costumer, but
is English in every detail. For there is no truer, more loyal, more
patriotic soul than Marie Corelli, and she will tell you, with a
touch of quiet pride, that every servant she has about her is
English, that the cloth she wears is English, that the furniture of
her rooms is English, and that she will endure none but an English
workingman about her house. “England for the English” is her motto,
and she lives up to it herself, and loses no opportunity of trying
to get others to adopt it.
There are some who imagine that Miss Corelli is nothing if not
caustic and critical, and they imagine that she is always running
atilt against some person or other. Never was a greater delusion.
Her chief fault is that she is too generous and her good nature too
easily imposed upon. She will spend an afternoon in writing her
name for the autograph-hunters; she will gladly address a gathering
at a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon service; she will distribute prizes
to children and make a felicitous speech; she will open a Flower
Show; or she will lecture a huge throng in a public building on
questions of the day. Yet she does these things at some sacrifice,
too, for wondrously calm as she may be at the critical moment of
action, her nerves are sorely shaken both before and afterwards.
She taxes her memory greatly also. It may perhaps scarcely be
credited that the address she delivered at Glasgow, which occupied
an hour and a half, was learned off by heart and spoken without a
slip.
But it is not our intention to reveal further of her private life;
we know full well it would be displeasing to herself if we did so,
and an unwarrantable breach of confidence. She is no
notoriety-hunter. She does not cultivate the personal paragraph,
and would no more tolerate the prying busybody than she does the
camera-fiend who waylays her in the hope of obtaining snapshots.
Why, she asks, should the veil be lifted merely to satisfy a vulgar
and idle curiosity? Her private life is as sacred as that of any
other person, and it is merely pandering to a depraved modern taste
to lay bare “the poet’s house,” as Browning put it.
Outside should suffice for evidence:
And whoso desires to penetrate
Deeper, must dive by the spirit-sense.
One remark only need be added: Miss Corelli has been the victim of
much misunderstanding in the past, of some injustice, and--alas,
that it should have to be said--of deliberate malevolence. Those
who are privileged to enjoy her friendship best know her admirable
qualities, and entertain none but the kindest sentiments towards
her and the best wishes for her continued triumphs. Her influence
is vast and far-reaching. She writes with a purpose, she has used
her gifts as she best knows how, and her fiery crusade, stern and
determined as that of John Knox, against social evils and human
follies, must make for lasting good. May this valiant woman,
standing alone, battling for the right, yet add to her conquests!
Here, then, let us leave her, with the parting benediction which fell
from the lips of Mr. Gladstone: “It is a wonderful gift you have, and I
do not think you will abuse it. There is a magnetism in your pen which
will influence many. Take care always to do your best. As a woman, you
are pretty and good; as a writer, be brave and true. God bless you, my
dear child! Be brave! You’ve got a great future before you. Don’t lose
heart on the way!”
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Meaning, what terms for a new edition.
[B] As this was obvious the remark was unnecessary.
[C] The former of these works is published by Mr. Arrowsmith, and the
latter by Messrs. Skeffington.
[D] “Temporal Power.”