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

by Marie Corelli

  A leading and popular journalist has lately penned the following: —

  “That we have loved our Queen is beyond dispute, but the pretence that has been offered that her departure brings a great epoch to a close is ridiculous.”

  Nevertheless, “ridiculous” as it seems to this one individual, there can be no doubt that a great epoch has closed, and that it is particularly doubtful whether as great a one will ever dawn again. Nations have their lives and deaths like individuals, and in the opinion of many, both here and abroad, the more active life of England has already begun to decline. “For,” as Carlyle says, “Never on this earth was the relation of man to man long carried on by Cash-payment alone. If at any time a philosophy of Laissez-faire, Competition, and Supply-and-demand start up as the exponent of human relations, expect that it will soon end.”

  We will not, however, and shall not accept forebodings of disaster; and yet there are hints in the very air of a coming battle and a dawning change.

  “Great thoughts are heaving in the world’s wide breast;

  The time is labouring with a mighty birth;

  The old ideals fall!

  Men wander up and down in wild unrest;

  A sense of change preparing for the Earth

  Broods over all

  There lies a gloom on all things under Heaven —

  A gloom portentous to the quiet men,

  Who see no joy in being driven

  Onwards from change, ever to change again;

  Who never walk but on the beaten ways;

  And love the breath of yesterdays; —

  Men who would rather sit and sleep

  Where sunbeams through the ivies creep,

  Each at his door-post all alone,

  Heedless of near or distant wars,

  Than wake and listen to the moan

  Of storm-vex’d forests nodding to the stars —

  Or hear, far-off, the melancholy roar

  Of billows, white with wrath, battling against the shore.

  “Deep on their troubled souls the shadow lies;

  And in that shadow come and go —

  While fitful lightning write upon the skies,

  And mystic voices chant the coming woe —

  Titanic phantoms swathed in mist and flame,

  The mighty ghosts of things without a name,

  Mingling with forms more palpably defined,

  That whirl and dance like leaves upon the wind;

  Who marshal in array their arrowy hosts,

  And rush to battle in a cloud-like land;

  Thick phalanx’d on those far aërial coasts,

  As swarms of locusts plaguing Samarcand.

  ‘Oh, who would live,’ they cry, ‘in time like this!

  A time of conflict fierce, and trouble strange;

  When Old and New, over a dark abyss,

  Fight the great battle of relentless change?’

  And still before their eyes discrownèd kings,

  Desolate chiefs, and aged priests forlorn,

  Flit by — confused — with all incongruous things,

  Swooping in rise and fall on ponderous wings.”

  No one, even with the most persistent cheerfulness of disposition, can say the political outlook is otherwise than stormy, or the social one otherwise than depressing. Half the country is in mourning for itself as well as for the Queen; so many loved ones have been lost on the field of battle that there is scarcely a home to which grief has not brought a cup of cruel bitterness during the past year. On the one side is a section of humanity overbalanced with excess of money and love of luxury; on the other an infinitely larger mass which is struggling night and day for the barest means of subsistence, and between these two is the strong wedge of a steady, thinking, hard-working middle class, whose vote of preference, if asked for, would unquestionably be given to their poorer rather than their richer brethren; and over them all the Heavens flame “War!” War means taxation; War means loss of able-bodied men, and, therefore, loss of trade; War means to some people, who can barely afford to buy bread in time of peace, sheer famine. But, say the militarists, War means conquest; War means gold! So thought Rome in her palmy days; — even so, Rome fell!

  “One might have thought,” wrote Sir George Mackenzie, in the sixteenth century, “that as the world grew older luxury would have been more shunned; for the more men multiplied, and the greater their dangers grew, they should have been the more easily induced to shun all expense, that they might the more successfully provide against those inconveniences. But yet it proved otherwise, and luxury was the last of all vices that prevailed over mankind; for after riches had been hoarded up, they rotted, as it were, into luxury; and after that tyranny and ambition had robbed many poor innocents, luxury, more cruel than they, was made use of by Providence to revenge their quarrel, and so triumphed over the conquerors. Thus, when Rome had by wit and courage subdued the world, it was drowned in that inundation of riches which these brought upon it.”

  “Drowned in an inundation of riches!” A similar inundation threatens to engulf the higher ideals, the nobler morals of our English tradition. The ostentatious assertion of wealth was never more in evidence among us than it is to-day; an entrance into so-called “society” can, we know, be bought for cash; and even on such a solemn occasion as that which saw our great Queen’s body carried across the sea from her island home to London, and thence to Windsor, it was not the most love or loyalty which was rewarded by a full sight of the great historic pageant, but merely the most push and the greatest amount of gold. No one who witnessed it will be likely to forget the levity with which bargains were made and luncheons “planned” for the occasion, and sensitive ears will long remember the light jesting carried on in certain of the more “smart” resorts of London among the “high-class” revellers, when the solemn procession had passed by. Those who saw and heard, will not fail to chronicle the taste and conduct of the “upper” mob on this supreme and historic occasion, for the edification of future students who may desire to know something of the manners and customs in vogue among the educated ladies and gentlemen at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The slangy epithets heaped on the somewhat chill weather which prevented these élite from thoroughly “enjoying” the “general holiday,” might have stirred envy in the soul of a prize-fighter, — and the utter vulgarity, coarseness and indifference displayed by persons whose names figure in newspaper paragraphs as “leaders” of society, seemed to call urgently for a swift visitation of the King’s displeasure.

  “To Apes by the Dead Sea, this Universe is an Apery, a tragic humbug, which they put away from them by unmusical screeches, by the natural cares for lodging, for dinner, and such like,” only, unfortunately, it often chances that these Ape-persons are the very ones who, in the King’s presence, would be the first to bend the knee, and wear the most close and becoming masks of decorum and respectful homage; for there is no flattery so subtle or so difficult to deal with as that which affects straightforwardness and sincerity. His Majesty is known to despise compliments, therefore those who are anxious to ingratiate themselves in the Royal favour will be careful not to make them. But open adulation is a far less dangerous evil than the appearance of blunt and bluff honesty which covers the deepest motives of self-interest. And the men who practise this specious form of candid and fair dealing are those who are likely to work mischief to both society and government. The King’s position is one of far more difficulty than that of the late Queen; in her case a sense of chivalry and respect for noble and pure womanhood held many evil tongues silent, and fastened invisible fetters on the hands of evil-doers.

  “She was,” says a leading journal, “a Constitutional Sovereign with limited powers of controlling politics in this country, but let it never be forgotten that she could bring the influence of a parent or relative to bear upon sovereigns whose personal power was enormous. We can see, negatively, what this influence was worth from the constant alarm which it excited in Bismarck,
who resented it. It is not to be supposed that her Majesty’s successor can have at once either the same personal authority or a similar claim to the deference of other sovereigns. Those things were the fruits of a long reign and unremitting labours through sixty years. Yet it remains the function of the Crown to mitigate the isolation of British politics and to remove the asperities which may arise out of small matters as well as big. We do not doubt that the King will work to that end, but statesmen also must remember that the removal of the Queen makes a difference to the position of the country, that there is less forbearance to be counted on, and that some mistakes may, therefore, be less easy to retrieve.”

  Taking into consideration various “splits,” discontent, and restlessness in the Churches, brief attention may here be called to the unnecessary announcement made by Leo XIII. to the effect that he was “unwilling to be represented at the funeral of a Protestant Queen,” and also to the equally gratuitous information given out in all the Roman Catholic Churches that “no Masses would be offered up for the soul of the Queen.” The Imperial English nation has not asked for “Masses” for its late Queen, nor did His Majesty the King and Emperor supplicate the Pope to represent himself at the world-famed obsequies. Hence Roman Catholic dignitaries have had no cause whatever to make so loud and public a statement of their particular form of bigotry, or to emphasize the special width and height of their own little door into Heaven. Thanks be to God, Heaven is wide, and the bounty and beneficence of the Creator are infinite, and a pure and perfect soul will take its place among angelic and immortal spirits without the assistance of finite persons, who, according to the words of Christ, are “hypocrites,” who “shut up the Kingdom of Heaven.”

  At this particular moment when the great Timepiece of the Universe strikes away for us one era and rings in another, it is well for us that we should be brought to consider exactly where we stand in our national life, and to remember that England has just completed a thousand years of historical upward progress. From Alfred the Great to Edward VII., one thousand years intervene, and during that immense period the rise of the English nation has been steady, glorious, and supreme. And in this present year of our Lord, 1901, when we not only enter upon the accession of Edward VII., but are also preparing to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of Alfred the Great, it is curious and instructive to turn back to very ancient records, and read what such an old-world chronicler as Stow, says in his “Annales of Englande” of the Monarch, who though dead and buried for such a vast period of time is still remembered for his good and useful deeds. In an edition of the antique volume dated 1605, occurs the following passage: —

  “The victorious Prince, the studious provider for widowes, orphanes, and poore people, most perfect in Saxon poetrie, most liberall, endued with wisdome, fortitude, justice, and temperance, the most patient bearer of sicknesse, wherewith he was dailie vexed, a most discreete searcher of truth in executing judgment, a most vigilant and devout Prince in the service of God, Alfrede, the XXIX. yeere and sixt moneth of his raigne departed this life, the XXVIII. day of October and is buried at Winchester. He ordained common schooles of divers sciences in Oxonford, and turned the Saxon laws into English with divers other Bookes. He established good lawes by the which he brought so great a quietnesse to the country that men might have hanged golden bracelets and jewels where the ways parted and no man durst touch them for feare of the lawe.”

  Since then we may assert that we have made much progress; but assuredly our progress has not been of such a character that we can “hang up golden bracelets and jewels at the parting of the ways and no man durst touch them!” We have discovered a good many things and invented a good many things; we have secured many little comforts and conveniences for the greater ease of the lazy and the slothful, and our mechanical appliances and contrivances for reducing human labour are ingenious and numerous. Nevertheless, while gaining some little useful information, we have lost much high faith and a great deal of happiness. Some of us seem to be as it were “born tired,” and the fatigue of our minds does not lessen with increasing knowledge. There is a deep symbolical truth in the old Biblical legend which tells us how man, after having eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, was driven out of the Garden of Eden, and that now, “lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat and live for ever,” there is indeed a “flaming sword” turning every way to keep him from the fulfilment of his heart’s desires and dreams. East and West, North and South, the sword turns invincibly, and we can never pass it, save as Victoria, by the Grace of God, has passed it, across the dark river we call death! Forever we strive to be what we consider “happy,” and the majority of us strive in vain. Much of our restlessness combined with discontent is our own fault, because so many of us go the wrong way to work with our lives, and try, not to help each other, but to overbear each other down. Simplicity of life is best; natural and innocent pleasures are best; and happiness comes quickest to those who are not seeking it. Our late Queen chose a simple life because she knew it was the wisest, the healthiest, and the nearest to God; she disapproved of vanity, ostentation, and extravagance, because she knew that these things have only one ending, vice and ruin. Her long and magnificent reign is much more than a great Sovereign’s rule; it is a matchless Example which will shine in history like a great Light for all time. None who saw it will ever forget the great British Navy’s farewell to the little yacht Alberta as it bore across the glittering Solent the “robed and crowned” coffin which held all that was mortal of England’s Greatest Queen; none will ever forget the massed crowds of loyal, patient, sympathetic people in London who rose in their thousands in the chilly winter’s dawn, content to stand where they could, and how they could, for hours and hours, just to breathe a prayer as that same robed and crowned coffin passed them by. For many of them could not see it; many could only feel, with deep and tender awe, the momentary presence of their dead Sovereign. It was a wonderful sight; nothing so wonderful has ever been witnessed before in England. It was the most eloquent, touching, and magnificent testimony of the strong loyalty, love and truth of the British people that has ever been chronicled in history.

  There are more reasons than our own personal sense of deep loss which make us linger round the tomb of Victoria the Great and Good, with aching hearts and tearful eyes. Under the fragrant wreaths of violets and the great garlands of lilies, by the side of the husband she loved so well, the body of our noble Queen rests, in peace and honour, while her Soul has “passed,” like Arthur’s, —

  “To the island-valley of Avilion;