A Corellian Scream

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 25, 21 June 1906, Page 2

A Corellian Scream

It is not pleasant^ to hear a woman scream— least of all in the market-place. But screaming is Miss Corelli's way when she deals with persons or things affecting the great organisation at which she flings the unmannerly nickname, the ' Romish Church.' It is her ' argumentum ad baculinum '—the ultimate argumentative weapon of her peculiar school of ratiocination. She screamed at ' Rome ' in her ' Master Christian '—that dull and not over-grammatical production in which she drew her inspiration from the French decadents, known as ' the Satanic cult,' and into which she dragged the Saviour of the world, and mado Him talk some five hundred pages of her own silly slop and senile twaddle. Miss Corelli's latest screams ,have been directed against the young Queen of Spain. The ' Rapid Review ' has permitted the panegyrist of Bar abb as to outrage sense and sentiment in two hysterical mockr-heroic articles that accuse the young Queen of all manner of hypocrisies and high crimes and. misdemeanors. Among other tit-bits of hysterical romance, the young Queen was — in the face of authoritative denials — accused of having taken an 'oath' of ' abjuration ' which anathematised ' the English throne,' did likewise to her mother, and ' condemned to eternal damnation ' her grandmother, the late Queen Victoria. Of course, Queen Ena's profession 1 »ol fuJLth did no such .thing. It was precisely the same . as is made by converts every --day. of the week in Australia and New Zealand. Miss Corelli has been wasting her high-frequency currents of indignation on oaths, that no Catholic man or woman ever took. Yet, almost in the same breath, she extols the royal oath which compels a British Sovereign on his accession to swear that the ancient) faith of the vastly greater body of Christians is damnable superstition and idolatry. That is a coarse ignominy, a." relic of barbarism,' from which Catholic Spain, at least, has protected the honor and conscience of its King. The tirades in the * Rapid Review ' are pitched in an ear-piercing key. By an easy association of ideas, they

recall to our mind the shrieks that split the air when the peer, in 5 The Rape of the Lock,' cut the fair tresses from Belinda's neck :-r " •- . ' '* Then flashed, the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rent th' affrighted skies. Not louder shrieks to pitying heav.'n are cast, When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their lasft; , Or when rich china vessels falln from high, _ In glitt'ring .dust and pai.nted fragments lie ! ' Miss Corelli's most pressing: need is a full dose of soothing syrup. She has other urgent needs besides : for instance, to cease mistaking gossip for gospel ; to know that; there is only one Searcher of hearts and consciences, and that His name is not Corelli ; to learn at least fragments of the penny catechism before setting up as a court of last appeal upon the doctrines and ritual of the ' Romish ' Church ; and to try hard to believe that Catholics are not quite all, in the matter of morals, Chadfcands or Charles Peaces, nor, in the matter of intellect, anthropoid apes.