Chapter XV: Speeches and Lectures

Miss Marie Corelli’s career as a public speaker has been a short one, but, so far as it has gone, full of promise. She has a good enunciation and a sweet, penetrating voice; she takes the platform with the whole of her address clearly mapped out in her mind, her only aids to memory being a few notes scribbled on slips of paper, which at first glance look like a number of broad spills. Consulting these occasionally by way of mental refreshment, she says what she has to say with easy self-possession, never hesitating for lack of a suitable word or phrase.

The novelist’s first speech in public was made in connection with a bazaar at Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, in July, 1899. The announcement that Miss Corelli was to open the proceedings attracted a large number of people to this picturesque little town, which is situated some eight miles from Stratford-on-Avon, on the high road to Birmingham.

When Miss Corelli had mounted the improvised platform, she first thanked the organizers of the bazaar for the compliment that had been paid her in their invitation, and then proceeded as follows:

“I think we all know very well what a bazaar is. It is peculiar and
distinctive; it is a way of charming the money out of our pockets.
We wish it to be charmed to-day, because we always know when such
money is obtained it is for a good purpose. Sometimes it is for a
hospital, frequently it is for the restoration of a parish church.
That is our object this afternoon. Now, there are some people who
say that a parish church does not always require repair, but in
this special case you cannot possibly offer that as an excuse for
not spending your money. The parish church of Henley-in-Arden is in
a very sad state; indeed, there are holes in the wooden floor
through which rats and mice, quite uninvited, may come to prayers.
Also the pavement of the central aisle is so broken up that it has
literally risen in wrath, and become divided against itself. I hope
this day you will come forward with your money and make the parish
church a thing of beauty and a joy forever. It is a very old
building. It is, I believe, five or six hundred years old, and all
that time it has been a place of prayer and praise. I am sure you
will not allow it to suffer, or fall into neglect and ruin at your
hands. Now, I want you to set your hearts to the tune of generosity
this afternoon, and I want you to spend regardless of expense; I
want you to be absolutely extravagant and reckless. The bazaar is
full of very pretty things, some useful, some not useful, but all
ornamental; and I can only recommend you to buy everything in the
place. In the words of the Immortal Bard, whose very spirit
permeates the whole of your beautiful county,

Leave not a wrack behind!

Set your hearts to the task, your wills to the deed, spend your
money, and make the whole thing a great and triumphant success.
Ladies and gentlemen, may your purses to-day be like this bazaar,
which I have now the honor to declare open!”

An excellent example of what an address to workingmen should be, was delivered by Miss Corelli, at Stratford-on-Avon on January 6th, 1901. The lecture was entitled, “The Secret of Happiness.” After some preliminary observations on the birth of the New Century, Miss Corelli said:

“The twentieth century finds us all on the same old search, asking
the same old question: How to be happy? Some of the distinguished
persons who have written in the newspapers on this subject declare
we have lost the art of being happy in the old simple ways, and
that all the brightness and mirth which used to make our England
‘Merry England’ have gone forever. I think there is some little
truth in these statements, and the reason is not very far distant.
We think too much of ourselves and too little of our neighbors.
There is nothing so depressing as a constant contemplation of one’s
self, and the greatest moral cowardice in the world’s opinion comes
from consulting one’s own personal convenience. It is just as if a
man were asked to look at a beautiful garden full of flowers, and,
instead of accepting the invitation, sat down with the Röntgen rays
to look at his own bones. His bones concern no one but himself, and
are a dull entertainment at best. To be truly happy we must set
ourselves on one side, and think of all the good we can do, all the
love we can show to our neighbors. This is our work and our
business, and, by performing that work thoroughly well, we shall
not lose the secret of happiness; we shall find it. The harming,
the slandering, the over-reaching, the plucking down of our
neighbors is not our business, and if we indulge in that kind of
thing we shall never be happy. It is to a great extent true, as
some of the newspapers tell us, that the twentieth century still
finds us very far from the best ideals and hopes. War still hangs
like a cloud across the country. Drink is still a curse, and large
sections of trade are being taken from us by American and foreign
rivals. This, if it goes on, will mean much ruin and misery and
want to many of our English artisans and workmen, and this brings
me to another point in the secret of happiness, which is Work. Not
what we call scamp work; not work which drops its tools at the
first sound of the dinner bell and runs across to the public-house,
but good, conscientious, thorough work, of which the workman
himself may be justly proud. Why should Americans take work which
Englishmen, if they like, can do infinitely better? Simply because
they are smart, cute, up to time, and take less early closing and
fewer bank holidays. I am a very hard worker myself, and I am not
speaking without knowing what I am talking about, and I say from my
own experience--and I have worked ever since I reached my sixteenth
year--that work is happiness. No one can take my work from me and
therefore no one can take my happiness from me. I defy any one to
upset, worry, or put me out in the least so long as I have my work
to do. Take away my work, and I am lost. Show me a lazy, loafing
person, man or woman, and I will show you a discontented grumbler,
who is a misery in his or her home, and a misery to him or her
self. Nothing is idle in God’s universe; the smallest observation
will prove that. If there were early closing up there (_pointing
upwards_) there would soon be an end to us all. The flower works,
as it pushes its way through the soil to bud and blossom; the tree
works as it breaks into beautiful foliage; the whole earth works
incessantly to produce its fruits. The sun works; it never rests;
it rises and sets with perfect regularity. In fact, everything we
see about us in nature is in constant, steady, splendid, perfect
work. The idle person is, therefore, out of tune with the plan of
God’s creation and action. A great millionaire whom I know said to
his son: ‘If you can’t find anything to do I will disinherit you,
so that you may work as hard as I did. That will make a man of
you.’ In this beautiful world, with a thousand opportunities of
doing good every day and all day, and with the light of the
Christian faith spread about us like perpetual sunshine, no one
should be really unhappy. To your society, which has done so much
good already, which is doing so much good, and will continue to do
so much good, I would say, if I may be permitted to offer any
advice: Cultivate among yourselves a spirit of cheerfulness,
light-heartedness, and content, which shall spread the influence of
moral and mental sunshine all through this dear little town in
which you dwell. Let those who don’t belong to your society see
that you can be merry and wise without needing any other stimulant
than your own cheery natures, and that the Christian faith is to
you a healthy and active working daily principle, the heart, life,
and soul. Show all your friends--and enemies too--that you have the
secret of happiness by holding up a firm faith in the goodness of
God; by keeping the welfare of others always in sight, and loving
your neighbor not only as yourself, but even more than yourself;
and by carrying out whatever you have to do, no matter how trivial
it be, so thoroughly and so perfectly that you can feel proud of
it. Such pride is true pride, and thoroughly justifiable, and the
independence that comes from work thoroughly well done is a noble
independence. I would not change such independence as that to be a
king and be waited on by courtiers all day long. To me the honest
workman is a thousand times better than the king. The king can do
no work. It is all done for him,--poor king! He can hardly call his
soul his own. He is not allowed to put his own coat on, and do you
call him an independent man! I call him a slave! I would rather
have a man here in Stratford, who could do something of his own
accord, turn out a piece of work, perfect--carving, finishing, or
anything of that sort--and say, ‘That is mine! The king can’t do
that, but I can!’ Money is nothing; pride, independence, and
self-respect are everything; and money gained by bad work is bad
money. You can’t make it anything else. Good work always commands
good money, and good money brings a blessing with it. We are told
that the danger of the twentieth century is greed of gold. Our
upper classes are all craving for yet still more money, and as much
money is spent in a single night on a dinner in London as would
keep nearly all Stratford. We are told that England will lose her
prestige through the money-craving mania of her people. More than
one great empire has fallen from an excessive love of luxury and
self-indulgence, but we will hope that no such mischief will come
to our beloved England. At any rate, in this little corner of
it--Shakespeare’s greenwood--where the greatest of thinkers,
philosophers, and poets was born, and to which he was content to
return, when he had made sufficient means, and die among his own
people--here, I say, let us try and keep up high ideals of mutual
help, love, and labor. Let us keep them up to their highest spirit.
The secret of happiness is to hold fast to such simple,
old-fashioned virtues as love of home, a life of simplicity, and
appreciation of all the beautiful things of Nature, which are so
richly strewn about us in Warwickshire, and never to lose sight of
the best of all things--the great lesson of the pure Christian
faith, the lesson which teaches us how the Divine sacrifice of self
for the sake of others was sufficient to redeem the world! A happy
New Year and a century of hope and good to all of you.”

In November, 1901, Miss Corelli delivered her first lecture in Scotland. It was called “The Vanishing Gift: an address on the Decay of the Imagination,” and was listened to with the greatest appreciation by a crowded audience of the members of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, and their friends, numbering some four thousand persons.

Scotland has ever been a more literary country than England. A novel that fails in England often sells well in Scotland. Scotch people are very loyal to the magazines they like, and they always display a keen interest in literary ventures. Thackeray was a great favorite up there. “I have had three per cent. of the whole population here,” he wrote from Edinburgh in November, 1856, “If I could but get three per cent. of London!” Both Dickens and Thackeray received tangible tokens of regard from Edinburgh people, Thackeray’s taking the form of a silver statuette of “Mr. Punch,” designed as an inkstand.

It would seem that to-day, as then, Edinburgh is anxious to give substantial proof of its appreciation, for, a few days after Miss Corelli delivered her lecture, whilst ill-health detained her at the Royal Hotel, a deputation from the Philosophical Institution called and presented her with a massive silver rose-bowl.

The Chairman of the deputation, in asking her to accept the gift, made a very eloquent little speech, in which he laid emphasis on the fact that the last time a similar token of appreciation had been presented by the Philosophical Institution to any novelist had been in the case of Charles Dickens. Since then, no one, save Miss Corelli, had received the unanimous vote of the Committee as meriting such a tribute. The rose-bowl bears the following inscription:--

“_Presented to Miss Marie Corelli by the Edinburgh Philosophical
Institution, in grateful recognition of the Brilliant Address
delivered by her on 19th November, 1901._”

It is worthy of note that the leading journal of Edinburgh, _The Scotsman_, made no allusion whatever to this presentation. The omission caused considerable annoyance to the Committee of the Philosophical Institution, and the Secretary made inquiry as to why their special compliment to Miss Marie Corelli had been passed over. The reply was that they “did not think it was necessary to mention it”; a particularly lame and inadequate answer, seeing that if such a handsome presentation on the part of a great Institution had been made to any well-known male author, the probabilities are that considerable importance would have been attached to the incident. As it was, _The Scotsman_ was judged to have committed itself to a singular error of prejudice in the omission, as also by stating that Miss Corelli’s crowded audience at the Queen’s Hall were “mostly women,” a perfectly erroneous statement, as by far the larger half of the assembly was composed of the sterner sex.

Miss Corelli, in the course of the lecture referred to, attributed the gradual dwindling of Imagination to the feverish unrest and agitation of the age in which we live. The hurry-skurry of modern life, the morbid craving for incessant excitement, breed a disinclination to think. Where there is no time to think, there is less time to imagine; and when there is neither thought nor imagination, creative work of a high and lasting quality is not possible. In the world’s earlier days, conceptions of art were of the loftiest and purest order.

“The thoughts of the ‘old world’ period are written in well-nigh
indelible characters. The colossal architecture of the temples of
ancient Egypt, and that marvelous imaginative creation, the Sphinx,
with its immutable face of mingled scorn and pity; the beautiful
classic forms of old Greece and Rome,--these are all visible
evidences of spiritual aspiration and endeavor; moreover, they are
the expression of a broad, reposeful strength--a dignified
consciousness of power. The glorious poetry of the Hebrew
Scriptures, the swing and rush of Homer’s ‘Iliad,’ the stately
simplicity and profundity of Plato--these also belong to what we
know of the youth of the world. And they are still a part of the
world’s most precious possessions. We, in our day, can do nothing
so great. We have neither the imagination to conceive such work,
nor the calm force necessary to execute it. The artists of a former
time labored with sustained and passionate, yet tranquil, energy;
we can only produce imitations of the greater models with a vast
amount of spasmodic hurry and clamor. So, perchance, we shall leave
to future generations little more than an echo of ‘much ado about
nothing.’ For truly we live at present under a veritable scourge of
mere noise. No king, no statesman, no general, no thinker, no
writer is allowed to follow the course of his duty or work without
the shrieking comment of all sorts and conditions of uninstructed
and misguided persons....”

Imagination is an artist’s first necessary. The poet, the painter, the sculptor, or the musician must be able to make a world of his own, and live in it, before he can make one for others. When he has evolved such a world out of his individual consciousness, and has peopled it with the creations of his fancy, he can turn its “airy substance” into reality for all time.

“Shakespeare’s world is real; so real that there are not wanting
certain literary impostors who grudge him its reality, and strive
to dispossess him of his own. Walter Scott’s world is real; so real
that you have built him a shrine here in Edinburgh, crowded with
sculptured figures of men and women, most of whom never existed
save in his teeming fancy. What a tribute to the power of
Imagination is that beautiful monument in the centre of Princes
Street, with all the forms evoked from one great mind, lifted high
above us, who consider ourselves ‘real’ people!”

The lecturer proceeded to deplore acts of vandalism such as that which caused “the pitiful ruin of Loch Katrine” in supplying Glasgow with water. Further on she lamented the gradual disappearance of “that idealistic and romantic spirit” which has helped to make Scotland’s history such a brilliant chronicle of heroism and honor.

In her powerful peroration the novelist graphically told of modern wonders which were imagined when the world was young.

“What, after all, is Imagination? It is a great many things. It is
a sense of beauty and harmony; it is an instinct of poetry and
prophecy. A Persian poet describes it as an immortal sense of
memory which is always striving to recall the beautiful things the
soul has lost. Another fancy, also from the East, is that it is ‘an
instructive premonition of beautiful things to come.’ Another,
which is perhaps the most accurate description of all, is that it
is ‘the sundial of the soul, on which God flashes the true time of
day.’ This is true, if we bear in mind that Imagination is always
ahead of science, pointing out in advance the great discovery to
come. Shakespeare foretold the whole science of geology in three
words--‘sermons in stones’; and the whole business of the electric
telegram in one line--‘I’ll put a girdle round the earth in forty
minutes.’ One of the Hebrew prophets ‘imagined’ the phonograph when
he wrote, ‘Declare unto me the image of a voice.’ As we all know,
the marks on the wax cylinder in a phonograph are ‘the image of a
voice.’ The airship may prove a very marvelous invention, but the
imagination which saw Aladdin’s palace flying from one country to
another was long before it. All the genii in the ‘Arabian Nights’
stories were only the symbols of the elements which man might
control if he but rubbed the lamp of his intelligence smartly
enough. Every fairy-tale has a meaning; every legend a lesson. The
submarine boat in perfection has been ‘imagined’ by Jules Verne.
Wireless telegraphy appears to have been known in the very remote
days of Egypt, for in a very old book called ‘The History of the
Pyramids,’ translated from the Arabic, and published in France in
1672, we find an account of a certain high priest of Memphis, named
Saurid, who, so says the ancient Arabian chronicler, ‘prepared for
himself a casket, wherein he put magic fire, and, shutting himself
up with the casket, he sent messages with the fire day and night,
over land and sea to all those priests over whom he had command, so
that all the people should be made subject to his will. And he
received answers to his messages without stop or stay, and none
could hold or see the running fire, so that all the land was in
fear by reason of the knowledge of Saurid.’ In the same volume we
find that a priestess, named Borsa, evidently used the telephone;
for, according to her history, ‘she applied her mouth and ears unto
pipes in the wall of her dwelling, and so heard and answered the
requests of the people in the distant city.’

“Thus it would seem that there is nothing new under the sun to that
‘dainty Ariel’ of the mind--Imagination.”

Early in 1902 Miss Corelli again gave an address in Scotland--this time at Glasgow, where one of the largest audiences ever known in that city assembled to hear her lecture on “Signs of the Times.” Every seat was occupied, and up to the last moment numbers were clamoring for only standing room. All reserved seats had been booked for nearly three weeks beforehand, and the extraordinary number of applications received proved that double the accommodation available could have been taken up.

The Address was undeniably daring and spirited, touching on various social aspects of the hour. The apathy of Parliament on certain pressing matters of home interest, the new rules of Procedure in the House, the inrush of undesirable aliens, the traitorous attitude of the pro-Boers, the crowding out of British industries by an excess of foreign competition, the German slanders upon our army, the change in the British uniform to the German model, and the flattering attentions of Germany towards America, were all touched upon by the novelist with a force and satire that were entirely new and unexpected. One of her best points was made in alluding to the words uttered by the Prince of Wales, on his return from his Colonial tour, in the course of his famous speech at the Mansion House, _i. e._, “The old country must wake up if she intends to maintain her old position of pre-eminence in her Colonial trade against foreign competition.”

She continued:

“I believe it is the first time in all the annals of English
History that any Prince of Wales has deemed it necessary to tell
the old country, which gave him his birth and heir-apparency, to
‘wake up’! It has been called a ‘statesmanlike utterance’ in many
quarters of our own always courteous Press, but by our Continental
neighbors it has been simply taken as a royal and official
statement of British incompetency. It has even been said that no
Prince of Wales should ever have admitted any possible likelihood
of weakness in his own country. We must remember, however, that the
warning of his Royal Highness was directed against foreign
competition, and may have been intended to prepare British trade
for the impending commercial designs of Germany upon South
Africa.... If the British Lion is indeed sleeping, it is time to
wake, but to some of us the Great Creature seems never to have
slept, but to have been caught unsuspectingly in a trap of
restrictive legislation and vested interests, and so bound hand and
foot unawares. The Lion is a generous animal, but in certain old
fables he is represented as being no match for the Fox. If, as the
Prince of Wales says, the old country is to maintain her position
of pre-eminence against foreign competition, she has some right to
demand that she be not swamped and throttled by it under the very
shelter of her own sea wall.”

Referring to what she satirically termed the evidence of our “love” for Germany, she pointed out that though Germans were guilty of one of the grossest insults ever recorded in history against our brave army, we, nevertheless, had clothed that army in the German uniform, and had made free and independent Tommy Atkins turn himself into a copy of his Teuton conscript brother. Not only that, we have accepted a German design for the new postage stamps. She also alluded to the rumor that the Coronation medal was to be struck from a German design.

Miss Corelli concluded with the following words:--

“The greatest, strongest, most splendid and hopeful ‘sign of the
times’ is the advancing and resistless tide of Truth, which is
approaching steadily--which cannot be kept back, and which in the
first breaking of its great wave shall engulf a whole shore of
weedy shams. A desire for Truth is in the hearts of the people:
Truth in religion, Truth in Life, Truth in work. We are all aiming
for it, pushing towards it, and breaking down obstacles on the way.
And, because God is on the side of Truth, we shall obtain it; more
speedily, perhaps, than we think--especially if we are not too
weakly ready to be led away by the first Anti-Christ of religious,
political, or social example.

“‘Truth, like the sun in the morning skies,
Shall clear the clouds from the days to be;
“Each for himself” is a Gospel of Lies,
That never was issued by God’s decree.’”

Such are a few examples of Miss Corelli’s utterances in public. It is hardly necessary to add that these speeches were liberally punctuated with applause by those who had the privilege of listening to them.

If those who condemn the novelist so readily will only take the trouble to study what she has said, they cannot, if they wish to be regarded as honest men, deny her possession of many of the qualities that make for greatness. There are people who fear and dislike this lady because the attitude she takes up, on many questions, is significant of Battle. She hits very hard; her enemies wince beneath her blows, and revile her in wholesale terms because they cannot overcome her in fair combat. But newspaper sneers will do little to affect the judgment of the Public, which is, after all, the critic whose opinion is abiding and final.