Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  She paused, and leaning forward a little, her eyes poured out their flashing searchlight as it seemed into the very souls of her hearers.

  “Dear friends! — dear children!” she said, and in her tone there was the tenderness of a great compassion, almost bordering on tears,— “What is it, think you all, that makes the age in which we live so sad, so colourless, so restless and devoid of hope and peace? It is not that we are the inhabitants of a less wonderful or less beautiful world, — it is not as if the sun had ceased to shine, or the birds had forgotten how to sing! Triumphs of science, — triumphs of learning and discovery, these are all on the increase for our help and furtherance. With so much gain in evident advancement, what is it we have lost? — what is it we miss? — whence come the dreariness and emptiness and satiety, — the intolerable sense of the futility of life, even when life has most to offer? Dear children, you are all so sad! — many of you so broken-hearted! — why is it? — how is it? Poverty alone is not the cause, — for it is quite possible to be poor, yet happy! True enough it is that in these days you are ground down by the imposition of taxes, which try all the strength of your earnings to pay; but even this is an evil you could mitigate for yourselves, by strong and united public protest. How is it that you do not realise your own strength? You are not like the poor brutes of the field and forest, who lack the reason which would show them how superior in physical force alone they are to the insignificant biped who commands them. Could the ox understand his own strength, he would never be led to the slaughter-house; — he and his kind would become a terror instead of a provision. You are not oxen, — yet often you are as patient, as dull, as blind and reasonless as they! You form clubs, societies, and trades-unions; — but in how many cases do you not enter upon small and querulous differences which so weaken your unity that presently it falls to pieces and has no more power in it? This is what your tyrants in trade rely on and hope for; the constant recurrence of quarrels and dissensions among yourselves. No Society lasts which tolerates conflicting argument or differing sentiments in itself. Why is it that the Jesuits, — whom you are all unanimous in hating, — are still the strongest political Brotherhood on the face of the earth? Because they are bound to maintain in every particular the tenets of their Order. No matter how vile, or how reprehensibly false their theories, they are compelled to carry on the work and propaganda of their Union, despite all loss and sacrifice to themselves. This is the secret of their force. Expelled from one land, they take root in another. Suppressed entirely by Pope Clement XIV., in 1773, they virtually ignored suppression, and took up their headquarters in Russia. The influence they exerted there still lies on the serf population, like one of the many chains fastened to a Siberian exile’s body. Yet they were driven from Russia in 1820, — from Holland in 1816, — from Switzerland in 1847, and from Germany in 1872. Latterly they have been expelled from France. Nevertheless, in spite of these numerous expulsions, and the universal odium in which they are held, — they still flourish; still are they able to maintain their twenty-two generals and their four Vicars; — and still all countries have, in their turn, to deal with their impending or fulfilled invasion. Why is it that a Society so criminal in historic annals, should yet remain as a force in our advanced era of civilization? Simply, because it is of One Mind! Bent on evil, or good, — self-renunciation or self-aggrandisement, — it is still of One Mind! Friends, — were you like them, also of One Mind, your injuries, your oppressions, your taxations would not last long! The remedy for all is easy, and rests with yourselves, — only yourselves! But some of you have lost heart — and other some have lost patience. You look round upon the squalid corners of this great city — you shudder at the cruelty of the daily life with which you have to contend, — you enter poor rooms, which you are compelled to call ‘home,’ where the sick and dying, the newly-born and the dead are huddled all together, — ten, and sometimes fifteen in one small den of four whitewashed walls; — and sickened and tired, you cry out ‘Is life worth no more than this? Is God’s scheme for the human race no more than this? Then why were we born at all? Or, being born, why may we not die at once, self-slain?’ Ah, yes, dear friends! — you often feel like this; we all of us often feel like this! But — it is not God who has made life thus hard for you, — it is yourselves! It is you who consent to be down-trodden, — it is you who resign your freewill, your thought, your originality of character, into the dominating power of others. True, — wealth controls affairs to a vast extent nowadays, — but there is a stronger power than wealth, and that is Soul! It is not the possession of gold that has given the greatest men their position. This is a commercial age, we own, — and certainly, — because of the base and degrading love of accumulation, — Intellectuality is for the moment often set aside as something valueless — but whenever Intellectuality truly asserts itself, there is at once made visible an acting force of the Divine, which is practically limitless and irresistible. Think for yourselves, friends! — do not let a hired Press think for you! Think for yourselves — judge for yourselves, and act for yourselves! By your observation of a statesman’s life, you shall know his capabilities. If he has once been a turncoat, he will be a turncoat again. If he has been known to speculate privately in a forthcoming political crisis, which he alone knows of in advance — —”

  Here the speaker was interrupted by what sounded more like a snarl than a shout. “Pérousse! Pérousse!”

  The name was hissed out, and tossed from one rank to another of the audience, and one or two of the police present glanced enquiringly towards Bernhoff their chief, — but he sat with folded arms and inscrutable demeanour, making no sign. Lotys raised her small, beautifully-shaped white hand to enjoin silence. She was obeyed instantly.

  “I speak of no one man,” she said with deliberate emphasis; “I accuse no one man, — or any man! I say ‘if’ any man gambles with State policy, he is a traitor to the country! But such gambling is not a novelty in the history of nations. It has been practised over and over again. Only mark you all this one God’s truth! — that whenever it has occurred — whenever the rulers of a State are corrupt, — whenever society sinks into such moral defilement that it sees nothing better, nothing higher than the love of money, — then comes the downfall! — then Ruin and Anarchy set up their dominion, — and Heaven’s rage rolls out upon the offenders, till their offence be cleansed away in rivers of blood and tears!”

  She waited a moment, — and changing her attitude, seemed as it were, to project her thought into her audience, by the sudden passion of her commanding gesture, and the flash of her deep luminous eyes.

  “We have heard of the Great Renunciation!” she said; “How God Himself took human form, and came to this low little earth to prove how nobly we should live and die! But in our day, — we with our preachers and teachers, our press and our parliamentary orators, — our atheistical statesmen on all hands, have come upon the Great Obliteration! — the Obliteration of God altogether in our ways of life! We push Him out, as if He were not. He is not in our Churches — He is not in our Laws — He is not in our Commerce. Only when we are brought low by pain and sickness — when we are confronted by death itself — then we call out ‘God! God!’ like cowards, praying for help from the Power we have negatived all our lives! Here is the evil, O children all! — we have forgotten Our Father! We arrange all our affairs in life without giving Him a thought! Our pleasures, our gains, our advantages, — are calculated without consulting His good pleasure. He is last, or not at all, — when He should be first, and in everything! The end of this is misery; — it must be so; it cannot by law be anything else. For what is God? Who is God? God is a name merely, — but we give it to that Unseen, but ever working Force which rules the Universe! The coldest atheist that ever breathed must own that somehow, — by some means or other, — the Universe is ruled, — for if it were not, we should know nothing of it. Therefore, when we set aside, or leave out the consciousness and acknowledgment of the Ruler, the ruling of our a
ffairs must, of necessity, go wrong!

  “I cannot preach to you — I cannot out of my own conscience recommend to you one or the other form of faith as the way to peace and wisdom; — but I can and do Beseech you to remember the Note Dominant of this great Universe — the Note that sounds through high and low, — through small and great alike! — and that must and will in due course absorb all our discords into Everlasting Harmony! Try not to put this fact out of your lives, — that Justice and Order are the rule of the spheres; and that whenever we depart from these, even in the smallest contingency, confusion reigns. How hard it is to believe in Justice and Order, you will tell me, — when the poor are not treated with the same consideration as the rich, — and when money will buy place and position! True! It is hard to believe, — but it is believable nevertheless. As the lungs and the heart are the life of the human body, so are Justice and Order the life of the Universe, — and when these are pushed out of place, or become diseased in the composition of a human state or community, then the life of that state or community is threatened; — and unless remedies are quickly to hand, it must end. You all know the position of things among yourselves to-day; — you all know that there is no trust to be placed in Churches, Kings or Parliaments; — that the world is in a state of ferment and unrest, — moving towards Change; — change imminent — change, possibly, disastrous! And if it is You who know, it is likewise You who must seize the hour as it approaches! — seize it as you would seize a robber by the throat, and demand its business; — search its heart; — deprive it of its weapons; — and learn from it its message! A message it may be of wild alarm — of tearing up old conventions; — of thrusting forth old abuses; a message full of clamour and outcry — but whatever the uproar, doubt not that we shall hear the voice of the Forgotten God thundering in our ears at the close! We shall have found our way closer to Him — and with penitence and prayer, we shall ask to be forgiven for having wandered away from Him so long!

  “And will He not pardon? Yes, — He will, because He must! To Him we owe our existence; — He alone is responsible for our life, our probation, our progress, our striving through many errors towards Perfection! He, who sees all, must needs have pity for His creature Man! Out of the evolutions of a blind Time, He has made the poor weak human being, who in the first days of his sojourn on earth had neither covering nor home. Less protected than the beasts of the forest, he found himself compelled to Think! — to think out his own means of shelter, — to contrive his own weapons of defence. Slowly, and by painful degrees, from Savagery he has emerged to Civilization; — wherefore it is evident that his Maker meant Thought to be his first principle, and Action his second. He who does not work, shall not eat; — he who does not use all his faculties for improvement, shall by and by have none to use. Injustice and corruption are amongst us, merely because we ourselves have failed to resist their first inroads. Who is it that complains of wrong? Let him hasten to his own amending, — and he will find a thousand hands, a thousand hearts ready to work with him! All Nature is on the side of health in the body, as of health in the State. All Nature fights against disease, — physical and moral. Therefore do not, — dear friends and children! — sit idle and passive, submitting yourselves to be deceived, as if you had no force to withstand deception! Show that you hate lies, and will have none of them, — show that you will not be imposed upon — and decline to be led or governed by party agents, who persuade you to your own and your country’s destruction! The voice of the People can no longer be heard in a purchased Press; — let it echo forth then, in stronger form than ephemeral print, which to-day is glanced at, and to-morrow is forgotten; — wherever and whenever you are given the chance to meet, and to speak, let your authority as the workers, the ratepayers, and supporters of the State be heard; and do not You, without whom even the King could not keep his throne, consent to be set aside as the Unvalued Majority! Prove, by your own firm attitude that without You, nothing can be done! It is time, oh people of my heart! — it is time you spoke clearly! God is moving His thought through your souls — God stirs in you the fear, the discontent, the suspicion that all is not well with your country; — and it is the Spirit of God which breathes in the warning note of the time —

  “‘Hark to the voice of the time!

  The multitude think forthemselves,

  And weigh their condition each one;

  The drudge has a spirit sublime,

  And whether he hammers or delves,

  He reads when his labour is done;

  And learns, though he groan under poverty’s ban,

  That freedom to Think, is the birthright of man!’

  “Learn,” she continued, — as a low deep murmur of agreement ran through the room; “Learn to what strange uses God puts even such men of this world, whose sole existence has been for the cause of amassing money! They have acted as the merest machines, gathering in the millions; — gathering, gathering them in! For what purpose? Lo, they are smitten down in the prime of their lives, and the gold they have piled up is at once scattered! Much of it becomes used for educational purposes; — and some of these dead millionaires have, as it were thrown Education at the heads of the people, and almost pauperised it. Far away in Great Britain, a millionaire has recently made the Scottish University education ‘free’ to all students, — instead of, as it used to be, hard to get, and well worth working to win. Now, — through the wealth of one man, it is turned into a pauper’s allowance; — like offering the smallest silver coin to a reduced gentleman. The pride, — the skill, — the self-renunciation, — the strong determination to succeed, which form fine character, and which taught the struggling student to win his own University education, are all wiped out; — there is no longer any necessity for the practice of these manly and self-sustaining virtues. The harm that will be done is probably not yet perceivable; but it will be incalculable. Education, turned into a kind of pauper’s monopoly, will have widely different results to those just now imagined! But with all the contemptuous throwing out of the unneeded kitchen-waste of millionaires, — still Education is the thing to take at any price, and under any circumstances; — because it alone is capable of giving power! It alone will ‘put down the mighty from their seats, and exalt the humble and the meek.’ It alone will give us the force to fight our taskmasters with their own weapons, and to place them where they should be, coequal with us, but not superior, — considerate of us, but not commanding us, — and above all things, bound to make their records of such work as they do for the State — clean!”

  A hurricane of applause interrupted her, — she waited till it subsided, then went on quietly.

  “There should be no scheming in the dark; no secret contracts for which we have to pay blindly; — no refusal to explain the way in which the people’s hard-earned money is spent; and before foreign urbanities and diplomacies and concessions are allowed to take up time in the Senate, it is necessary that the frightful and abounding evils of our own land, — our own homes, — be considered. For this we purpose to demand redress, — and not only to demand it, but to obtain it! Ministers may refuse to hear us; but the Country’s claims are greater than any Ministry! A King’s displeasure may cause court-parasites to tremble — but a People’s Honour is more to be guarded than a thousand thrones!”

  As she concluded with these words, she seemed to grow taller, nobler, more inspired and commanding, — and while the applause was yet shaking the rafters of the hall, she left the platform. Shouts of “Lotys! Lotys!” rang out again and again with passionate bursts of cheering, — and in response to it she came back, and by a slight gesture commanded silence.

  “Dear friends, I thank you all for listening to me!” she said simply, her rich voice trembling a little; “I speak only with a woman’s impulse and unwisdom — just as I think and feel — and always out of my great love for you! As you all know, I have no interests to serve; — I am only Lotys, your own poor friend, — one who works with you, and dwells among you, seeing and s
haring your hard lives, and wishing with all my heart that I could help you to be happier and freer! My life is at your service, — my love for you is all too great for any words to express, — and my gratitude for your faith and trust in me forms my daily thanksgiving! Now, dear children all, — for you are truly as children in your patience, submission and obedience to bitter destiny! — I will ask you to disperse quietly without noise or confusion, or any trouble that may give to the paid men of law ungrateful work to do; — and in your homes, think of me! — remember my words! — and while you maintain order by the steadiness and reasonableness of your difficult lives, still avoid and resent that slavish obedience to the yoke fastened upon you by capitalists, — who have no other comfort to offer you in poverty than the workhouse; and no other remedy for the sins into which you are thrust by their neglect, than the prison! Take, and keep the rights of your humanity! — the right to think, — the right to speak, — the right to know what is being done with the money you patiently earn for others; — and work, all together in unity. Put aside all petty differences, — all small rancours and jealousies; and even as a Ministry may unite to defraud and deceive you, so do you, the People, unite to expose the fraud, and reject the deception! There is no voice so resonant and convincing as the voice of the public; there is no power on earth more strong or more irresistible than the power of the People!”