COREUIAN CORUSCATIONS.

NZ Truth, Issue 91, 16 March 1907, Page 8

COREUIAN CORUSCATIONS.

CANTING CELIBATE CORELLI

Condemns the Commands >f Christ.

Marie's Bad English and Worse Blasphemy.

Culled from Her Best Bad Beck,

(By JOHN NORTON.)

(fnku sits our Sulk V.. sullen dame, fathering her brows like gathering storm, ■■-••-• Nursiag her .wrath, te keep it warm.; r . —Burns. Marie' Corelli has written many books, few of them good, most of •them bad, m the sense of being made up, mainly, of • balderdash, bunkum and blasphemy ; the blasphemy being fthe best part ol them, from an artistic point of view. But, bad as her, (books are, they have the all-condon-ing merit of possessing the two qualities absolutely essential to pecuniary 'and " popiii&i s * i suecess-r-.sell-<' ing .readily, and being easily read. These qualities are twin, one bei^g the moral concomitant and commercial corollary of the other. They recommend the Coreilian compositions to ithe two parties most interested m their publicatidn and perusal— Corelli herself and her readers., y v-' ; ,_ ■■/:;•• ". :/-., . r • • ■;..-. By her success m making suck good money out of her many bad books, Marie Corelli has falsified the sententious saying of Sheridan that '"Easy writing's: curst hard reading." She scribbles -her 'bad books witlu all the persistent facility of Tennyson's everflowing brook. Yet the crowd have, bought and read her books during; a quarter of a centui'y. The CorelHans won't buy anything they can t read, nor read anything that is "hard," although they will both buy and read anything they, don't understand, which seems something of a contradiction, which it is not. Her .bad books are to good books what '"•Bulletin" bards are to Byron and sham, sMcker and sk*te. But her books have been popular, and, (therefore, profitable, 'because nytaphomaniacal matrons, who chafe at theirown chastity and suspect thait 01 their sex,- fancy that they see m them a fiat m favor of fornication ;, virgins whose virtue is vague, vacaous and vagarious, < pretend, to' perceive m then! fl sanction for a crapulous sort .of chastity ; while men of vitiated virility. *nd masturbated minds, ghoulishly gloat over them as catering for male concupiscence by championing female celibacy, m orser to> provide them with paramours and concubines. These constitute *ne chief attractions ,of Maudlin Marie s meretricious writings to her HMUiy readers* ihe majority of whom "*« as maudlin as Marie herself. < • ■■• • Concerning CorelH's own celibacy and her championship of it for her own sex, a censorious critic has cut Marie to the core by/the foHowing: savage satire W _ . ___ _ L <_ I Marie Corelli champions \worneti' s* rights because she .deems it a wrong to herself and to the whoie^of womankind that her mother, or father, or both, didn't maker her a mon : ; ; and she only condemns the sins of men because she isn't a man .. ,to participate m them. She is celibate because she fears to fecundate. A most unhappy spinster, side seeks satisfaction for her unsatisfied* sexual longings, m literary license, , : and ' compensation for sexual sterility m scribbling fecundity. In- lieu of in-, nocent babies, she has 'brought forth bad books. Lacking the joys of legitimate , love, and the joyful pains and felicitous fears of married maternity and holy* motber- • hood, she hoists aloft the shameful shift of the stale, stagnant, shrieking sisterhood. These sweet sisters beshrew boys 1 and beaux as banes ■'(as "the. fox did 'the grape's), malign Single men as scoundrelly seducers, and married men as marital' monsters, the while they- chant paeans to prurient Marie their coryphee, the veritable, virgin of very virgins, very virago of-, very viiasos^ most indecentK immaculate mouithpiece of hnmodest modesty, who, f° r want of a man, has ; become the most miserable of women. For Ma.rie Corelli typifies these wretched women who want to marry, but who don't get married, .simply because they have neither the linht of love m their hearts nor the fire of passion m theic bosoms, to light the way to Hymen's altar, or to feed its .flames. Men- cant love celibate Corellies and won't marry maudlin Maries. Hence these tantrums and these tears. Marie, cither got thee a man and marry him,' or get thee, with thy clamant Corelli, to a nunnery, and there,, m piacular privity penitentially peter out. There is no welcome m the. world for women who won't be mothers, because they want to ps men; or for splay-foot-ed, flat-chested bacchantes who shriek about the servitude of wonira simply because they desire that sexual liberty which is the sole privilege of men, and which, when exercised by .women, make of them moral prostitutes. Such women are wantons by inclination, and only chaste by the coercion of custom. They are not wanted m a world that professes a morality which it does not' exneot from men, but which it inexorably exacts from women. Worn.en who claim that consideration which their sex demands— and always commands as a right, and not as a concession— must do their duty by getting married and bearing babies— preferably baby boys. • • • This is ihe sort of criticism which Beems to have cured Maudlin. Marie of her own complaint of Corelliism for the time being, and to have been -the cause of her Best Book. But (which is her best book among so many bad ones ? Cry the Coreilian crowd m chorus : "That's as may be !" as the Lady of Ostend says. It may *be tbc fjrst.j it may be the last. Whifhever it is, m the order .of sequence, it is herycrv hest as it shbv/s MaviP on her mettle, the criticised Cort'lH retorting on her critics, giving as quod as given, and, foe it.

wonder, writiflig, amid much Coreliiaiij.: cant and claptrap, no little sound, common sense. In it she retorts right roundly- on her critics, and becomes reminiscent of the Dunoiad, the Baviad aad English Bards and Scotch reviewers;* a mixture of Pope, Lockhart and Byron m one strong dose. While paying a tribute to Tennyson as the Peer. of Poets, she savagely scoffs and sneers at the pagan phantasmagoria called "Society," scorning; its victims and scourging its scandals. ..- Here is^iCorelli's tribute to Tenhyson, put m the forefront of this, her Best Book, and than .which, it must be confessed, a more splendid has never, been laid on the. great, minstrel's grave :-- He was the greatest poet of. the Victorian Era, and, draped i<n the flag of England,, as befits his sturdy and splendid patriotism, he sleeps j the sleep of the just and pure minded who have served their Art, as worthy subjects servo their sovereign, loyally and unflinchingly to the end. It was "fitting" I sup-' pose, that he should be laid to rest m dismal Poet's Corner— beside ■Browning, too <! The REAL Singer beside the Sifiapa !— but many would rather have seen him placed m a shrine of his\ own— a warm, grassy grave under the "talking" English oaks, whose forest language he so well translated, than thus pent-up among the crumbling ashes of inferior and almost forgotten men. . • ■ - ••- • After this gracious and graceful genuflexion before the shrine of genuine genius, Corelli ' 'comes at' 1 her critics, whom she castigates thus caustically •—"'... They have' taken. me very seriously, niuoh more seriously than I have taken myself. I am so little 'peculiar" ,that I confess'- to have copied the phraseology of my diatribes on certain poets and novelists from the language of the "reviews" m divers journals, and I am truly surprised to. hear such phraseology termed ' 'vulgar . "• ' When I was a "known; author— l was, once !— reviewers "reviewed" me with a profuseness of , vituperative force that, struck me as.vsmgular $ but I did not presume^' uTO^call, . their well-rounded .' terms of aljuse "vulgar" or ''scurrilous.7 Now I see I might very well fray 'done so, as they , all agree m a condemnation their own One lives and (learns, (this J is a platitude), and ■ ' Wih'en an author . anonymously T^mSfgs^'^^Tiosfe^who.- '■anonymously ■? /^" slates ' r ' Mim', it is curious and instructive to observe' wh-ait a different view is* taken of his "case ! In such flippant,; vein, slipshod style, and bad, .(ungraratnatical) language, does jboreljti . couoh her caustic critioisrhs of her critics. ,V.-i ••■ •■ • ■ Corelli, that peerless, shameless panderer to the vulgarity and vanity of the mob, thus lets herself loose against what she labels Literature and Society ".■ — ' Friends"? No, not precisely. No man who. has lived long enough to be wise' m social wisdom can be certain that he has a friend anywhere ; bes des, I do not pretend to have found what Socrates himself could not discover. \ There is a great deal of Coreilian cant comprised m these few words, and what- of them, is not cant is claptrap. For, see, all men, want friends and many have them' if they be worth 17 of friendship. Socrates did not fail to find friends. Like Christ, he had friends and disciples, who were with him through his life and" up till, the hour of his. death— friends who would, had he been willing, have saved him from the death-draught of hemlock. Again, Corelli coruscates, this time somewhat more clearly :— Enemies, then ? . Truly, that is nrobable •! Enemies are- more than luxuries-^thev are necessities. One cannot live strongly or self-reliant-ly without them (such pure Christianity has never yet been m vogue) : one fights them , and fighting is excellent exercise. Yes, sweet Marie ! Fighting, is excellent exercise, provided the fight is m a good cause, and not the exercise of mere brute force m a bad cause. Fighting, moreover, is a most excellent preparation for forgiveness. The man who conauers his enemy, be he Christian or Pagan, is thereby propitiated and predisposed to pardon. Ccnqucirorsi bear no grudges after conquest/ and. .Christians claim to be more than conquerors. Muscular Christians make the best paints, because they fight, better, conquer more easily, and are thereby more readily disposed to forgiveness. It behoves us to beware of muscular Christianity, since it is conscientiously compelled to conquer, m order to be able to comply with the divine command to forgive its enemies. Having tackled "Society, • Corelli comes into conflict with press-nuffed poets and boomed bookmakers of both genders ; her- criticisms of her own sex being savagely sincere and painfully plain. Corelli does not even spare Cqrelli, whom Corelli cunningly, criticises, pnlv to show that other critics of CorellL have only criticised Corelli because they are envious of Corelli. A cute customer is Corclli, ac her criticism. of herself and others shows. Here's how Corelli craftily criticises Corelli .— Some critics were very hard down upon her (Amelie RiveS) because she threatened to be "original" all the time and critics hate that sort of J thing. That is why they invariably, "go" for one of our

ne-wesfc inflictions, Marie Corelli, of whom it may be truly said that she has written no two books alike, cither m plot or style ; and the grave "Spectator" on one occasion ■forgot itself so far as to say that her romance entitled "Ardath" had actually beaten Beckford's renowned "Vathek" out of the field. But all the same, with every respect for the "Spectator's" opinion, I, personally, speaking;, find her a very exasperating writer, who is neither here, there, nor anywhere— a will-o'-the-wisp sort of .being, of whom it is devoutly to be wished that she would settle into a "groove," as she would be less of a trial to the (m her case) always savage reviewer. Nothing is more irritating to a critic than to have to chronicle the reckless flights of this young woman's unbridled and fantastic imagination. She tells us about heaven and hell as if she had been to them both, and had rather enjoyed her experiences. -Valiant attempts to "quash" her have been made, but apparently m vain, and most of my brethren m the critical faculty consider her a positive infliction. Why does she not take the advice tendered to her by the 'World," and other sensible journals, and retire from literature ? I am sure she would be much happier '•'picking geranium leaves" a la Becky Sharp, with a husband and ,£■2ooo a year. As it is, her very •name is, to the men of the press, what a red rag is to a bull. They are down upon it. instantly with a fury that is almost laughable m its violence. But I suppose she is like the rest of her sex— obstinate, and that she will hold on her wild career regardless of censure. Only, as I say, I wish she would elect a "groove" to run m, for I, among many others, shall be relieved as well as delighted when we are all quite certain beyond a doubt as to what sort of book we are to expect from her. At present, she is a mere vexation to any well-ordered mind. . * * * . Now the foregoing Coreilian coruscation concerning Corelli is nothing more or less than a vulgar piece of personal puffing:, perfidiously perpetrated and played off upon the public under the cover of anonymity, and the false pretence of having been penned by a male person. It is one of those dirty dodges for advertising one's 1 wares that only v a Coreilian charlatan could be capable of : no mere man would descend so low as to resort to such a silly subterfuge m order to sell his book. This cunning trick is played m every book m which Corelli pretends to crucify her critics, and to hold up to scorn and contempt other scribes of her own' sex whose chief claims to the consideration of the cultured classes are that their works, unlike those of Cdirclli, are clever and clean, and that they,- unlike Corelli, do not blaspheme. It is cohiical to mark how cunningly this canting Corelli, while cruelly criticising \sister writers,- whose '-works will be' read when Corelli's are forgotten, accords to herself self-praise 'Which sho' tries to palm off on the public as the production of the much-maligned mancritic. A mere mendacious manoeuvre for magnifying the meagre tierits of meretricious and nastily naughty nonsense has never been perpetrated by a «pruriently. profligate pen. IV is time now that Corelli should corus-' cate again. .Before submitting '■; any; more of, -her scribbling scintillations, ■hpwev,er;- ; the "following 'criaijjl, ■ cock"sure'(Jtia!irerige,'''which Cofellr throws at her critics, ought to be recorded right here and now :— So have at you all, good brag- ' garts of work done and undone ! I am as ready to give and take the "passado" as any Mercutio on a hot Italian day. , Have at . TH,EE, then, thou most Mercutian Marie, on a hot Australian day : and if thou canst take aswell as give the "passado," take it, thou canting, cackling, crafty, selfpraising claptrapper ! ' •• # . • •• Although strongly savoring of claptrap, there is less of ; cant •• and more of blasphemy m the following Coreilian coruscation on this same subject of Christian forgiveness .— Christ's command to "Bless them that curse you, and to pray for them that despisedlv use you, "IS TO US THE MEREST FEEBLE PARADOX, for our detestation of all persons who presume to interfere with our business, and who say unpleasant things about us, is too burningly sincere to admit of discussion. 1,, for my part, frankly confess to intertaining the liveliest animosity TOWARDS certain individuals- of my acquaintance — people who shake my hand- with the utmost cordiality, smile ING-ENU-OUSLY. m my "eyes, and then go off and write a : lying paragraph about me, m order to procure A NEFARIOUS HALF-CROWN. I never feel disposed to "bless" such folk, and certes ! I should be made . of flabbier material than a jellyfish if I prayed for them. - ♦■ • • This is a fatras of flabby sentiment expressed, flabbily, and contains quite as much claptrap as candor, and, from a Christian standpoint, it is almost as immoral . as it is ungfammatical. Corelli 's forte is not correctness of composition, the construction of some of her phrases, behw as flabby as the. •sentiments that they are intended, but sometimes fail, to' convey, are paltrv-. She seems to be more concerned about coruscating flashily than about writing correctly. Without presuming to censure the propension of such a self-privileged and self-puffed penwoman to write" incorrectly, it may be pointed out that, m this last cited short sentence of only sixteen lines, containing about 1-25 words, she commits almost as many blunders as there are linos. Witli a contempt quite Coreilian, she is guilty .of .grammatical errors, comprising a prodigious pleonasm—a ridiculous redundancy of words— and a stupid solecism for which a schoolgirl would be slapped. As a sorb of "Diversion of Punley" i pastime,' let us look closely at the ! construction of this choice Coreilian coruscation, '* and see how much there ; is m it to criticise. ' */ ' • Mark well the captalised portion of the passage quoted, remembering that the capitals are mine. What does Marie mean, by "the merest feeble paradox" ? She means more than she says,, but says less than she means. What is a paradox? Something believed, or said, to be con-

trary to general opinion or cqiumon sense ; a sentiment or proposition which, m its form of expression or terms, may seem absurd, but. yet may be true or reconciled with fact. Corelli characterises Christ's injunction to forgive as a paradox. There is nothing paradoxical about it, nothing contrary to Christian conduct, dogma, or sentiment — nothing that conflicts with what Christians profess to believe, or with those canons of conduct which Christ Himself , preached during His life and practised on -the Cross, when, with His dying breath, he prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know : not what they do." Therefore, Christ's command is not a paradox to US, who are professing; Christians, whatever it may be to a cogging cognoscenti like the coruscating Corelli. ■.-* • ■ • But -let us concede, for the sake of argument, that Corelli has made good her paradoxical charge against Christ What is the meaning of the conjoined words, ''merest feeble," which precede the word paradox ? Here, surely, we shall convict ■ Corelli of the commission of a paradox of paradoxes. "Merest" is the superlative of the adjective "mere," which, m the application given it by our con- j tumaceous Corelli, means absolute and unqualified. What she intended to convey 'nus her own opinion that Christ, m enjoining forgiveness of enemies upon His followers, had been guilty of an absolute and unqualified paradox. A- mere paradox is an absolute and unqualified paradox; and an absolute and unqualified paradox is a pronounced and positive paradox, and, m that sense, is strong, and not feeble. This is the meaning ■CoreHi really meant to convey by the word "merest." Had she halted at the margin of the "mere," she would not have blundered int© the bog, as she does when she so incongruously -conjoins ' the word "feeble" with the word "merest," and* uses them both as an adjectival prefix to paradox. Both words are adjectives which may with perfect Giramma'tical propriety (when properly used) lie made to tiesignate different qualities m .the same thing at different times ukder different circumstances. But to use them as Corelli does, is to be guilty of ai paradox by perpetrating, not only a prodigious pleonasm, but also a scandalous .solecism, which none but a coruscating scribbler of Corelli's blinding brilliancy could commit without incurring condign censure. * • •■ • The "merest paradox" is the strongest possible and most absolute paradox ; but 'the "merest feeble paradox" is no sort of paradox, except it be a pleonastical one— a perversion of phonography, a mere muddled multiplication of words, which mean nothing and convey nothing but a contradiction m terms. If they, express anything it -is absolutely antithetical to their author's real meaning. As used m the 1 passage above quoted, the words ''merest" and "feeble" contradictorily qualify the same thing, whereas Corelli ignorantly imagines that by simply conjoining them and prefixing them to the same substantive she makes them signify the • same quality m a superlative degree. Corelli has committed a confounding contraposition m composition , thus : Christ's, injunction of forgiyenness is 'Mihe mereest paradox" that is, a positive, palpable, and/ 'therefore, strongly pronounced paradox ; but this ."mereest" jparadox" is something more. It is,J'the_mejest; r fe.e;b%jaradox.'.'. that is ."wanting;,, in- force, vigor ,, expression and clearness, and, therefore, a paradox that is at once strong and weak. To enable her to coruscate, Corelli. poleaxes her predicate m order to insinuate an illogical inference. Consequently, it is Corelli and not Christ who stands convicted of the commission of a paradox, and a paltry, ■ peurile, perverse, piebald, pleonastic .-paradox at thai. Corelli's paradox proves her plasphemy to be much stronger than her grammar. - There is yet another critical cut or two to be made at the coruscating Corelli's criticisms of her critics. In the preface to this her Best Book she challenges her critics m this style. Have at THEE again, then, thou solecistiqal, pleonastical, pragmatical penwoman/, take, the passado, or say what thbu meanest by the words "entertaining the liveliest animosity TOWARDS certain individuals." This is a most untoward expression, worthy of* our good old Mrs -Malaprop,, who would have proclaimed you "a perfect progeny of learning." But m regard to your disregard of the rules of grammar, even Mother Malaprop must have pronounced you "As headstrong as an allegory on the banks., of the Nile." Sheridan, the literary sire of Mrs Malaprop, said of" some other, solecistical scribbler of Corellian calibre — • "You write with ease to show your breeding, . But easy writing's curst hard reading." We know what Corelli really means by "entertaining animosity TOWARDS certain . people. " But she expresses her meaning m a crude, clumsy manner quite Corellian. We move TOWARDS a person, .place or thing, but we entertain— or rather maintain, or hold, or harborsentiments friendly or unfriendly TOmaintain or hold, or harbor TOWARD persons or things. ._ "Entertaining .animosity'' 1 is a . loose, lopsi'di ed form of expression," but "entertaininc: «inim6sit^ TOWARDS certain individuals" is a phrase altogether Corellian m construction as it is m sentiment. » « • Then Corelli chatters about people "who smile INGENUOUSLY IN my eyes !" What she would describe, if her slipshod style of composition did not prevent her, is the insincere wa,y m which certain people simulate sincerity hv DISINGENUOUSLY (not ingenuously) smiling to her face, or INTO (not In) her eyes. She speaks of a NEFARIOUS -guinea, which, may be allowed to pass muster along with the proverbial "honest ! penny. "although what Marie means, I but does not say. is a dishonestly rcained guinea. Then Marie would jhave us believe that she is not "flabiby!" Not only is she flabbier than a „Jlyfish, but she. is flatulent and feculent m her flabbiness, as will be j shown m other Corellian coruscations yet to come. (To be continued.) R.M.S. Mongolia, I At Sea (m the Bight)', Sunday, February 10, 190>7.

NO. I.