CHAPTER IX

“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!