Marie Corelli

We will allow wonder zoos, but we do not want the gloomy Victorian circus in Piccadilly Circus.

It is Piccadilly Circus, not meant for menageries trundling out of sixties, Dickensian clowns, Corelli lady riders, troops of performing gypsies, who complain besides that one and six a night does not pay fare back to Clapham.

Blast the post office, Frank Brangwyn, Robertson Nichol, Reverend Pennyfeather, Bells, Galloway Kyle, Cluster of Grapes, Bishop of London and all his posterity, Galsworthy, Dean Inge, Croce, Matthews, Reverend Mayer, Seymour Hicks, Lionel Cust, C.B. Fry, Bergson, Abdul Baha'u'llah, Hawtrey, Edward Elgar, Sardly, Philson Young, Marie Corelli, Geddes, Cod Liver Oil, St.

Lo Strachey, Lyceum Club, Rabindranath Tagore, Lord Glenconner of Glen, Vinegar, Norman Angel, Adamahn, Mr. and Mrs. Dearmer, Beecham, Pills, Opera, Thomas, Ella, A.C. Benson, Sydney Webb, British Academy, Messrs. Chapel, Countess of Warwick, George Edwards, Willie Ferraro, Captain Cook, R.J. Campbell, Clan Thesiger, Martin Harvey, William Archer, George Grossmith, R.H. Benson, Annie Besant, Chenill, Clan Menill, Father Vaughan, Joseph Holbrook, Clan Strachey.

One.

Of his own accord and with a deliberate intention to deceive, he had added the early fathers, Tillotson's sermons, and Farrar's Life of Christ.

On another shelf, rather less conspicuous, were some bound volumes of The Record, with the novels of Mrs. Henry Wood and Miss Marie Corelli.

On the ledge of his bureau, Blackwood's magazine, uncut, lay ready to his hand.

The Spectator, in process of skimming, was on his knees.

aunt enid stood up arranging things on the rack so that the children could not even see if the nice lady had found a seat in the train well i do think francis could not help saying oh do you said aunt enid I should never have thought it of you.

When she had arranged the things in the rack to her satisfaction, she pointed out a few little faults that she had noticed in the children, and settled down to read a book by Miss Marie Corelli.

The children looked miserably at each other.

They could not understand why Mother had placed them under the control of this most unpleasant mock aunt.

When I picture his face, sir, I wish I had made it five shillings and gone without a new tie and dinner altogether.

End of section 7 THE HIRED BABY by Marie Corelli a dark desolate december night a night that clung to the metropolis like a wet

black shroud a night in which the heavy low-hanging vapors melted every now and then into a slow reluctant rain cold as icicle drops in a rock cavern people passed and repassed in the streets like ghosts in a bad dream the twinkling gas-light showed them at one moment rising out of the fog and then disappearing from view as though suddenly engulfed in a vaporous ebon sea with muffled angry shrieks the metropolitan trains deposited their shoals of shivering coughing travellers at the several stations where sleepy officials rendered vicious by the weather snatched the tickets from their hands with offensive haste and roughness omnibus conductors grew ill-tempered and abusive without any seemingly adequate reason shopkeepers became flippant disobliging and careless of custom cabmen shouted derisive or denunciatory language after their rapidly retreating fares in short everybody was in a discontented almost spiteful humour with the exception of those few aggressively cheerful persons who are in the habit of always making the best of everything even the bad weather down the long wide vista of the cromwell road kensington the fog had it all its own way it swept on steadily like thick smoke from a huge fire choking the throats and blinding the eyes of foot-passengers stealing through the crannies of the houses and chilling the blood of even those luxurious individuals who seated in elegant drawing-rooms before blazing fires easily forgot that there were such bitter things as cold and poverty in that outside world against which they had barred their windows At one house in particular, a house with gaudy glass doors and somewhat spoiled yellow silk curtains at the windows, a house that plainly said to itself, done up for show to all who cared to examine its exterior, there stood

a closed room drawn by a prancing pair of fat horses.

When you didn't do what they liked, they just prodded you too pointed, I think almost amounting to a hint anyhow the gentlemen then prodded each other with their Spears answered Olive They didn't go and sit on plush seats To see an Irishman pummeling a black man I wouldn't see a modern prize fight For the world But I shouldn't mind a bit Being a lady At one of the old tournaments You might be a lady but I shouldn't be a lord Said the scene painter gloomily Not my luck Even if I were a king I should only be drowned in a butt of sack And never smile again But it's more my luck To be born A serf or something A leper Or some such medieval institution Yes That's how it would be The minute I'd poked My nose into the 13th century I'd be appointed Chief leper to the king Or somebody And have to squint Into church Through that little window You don't squint Into church through Any window at present Observed the lady Nor has it occurred To you even to do so Through the door Oh I leave all that to you He said And proceeded to splash away in silence He was engaged On the modest interior Of the throne room Of Richard Coeur de Leon Which he treated In a scheme of scarlet Crimson and purple Which Miss Ashley Strove in vain to arrest Though she really Had some rights of protest In the matter Having both selected The medieval subject And even written the play So far as her More sportive collaborators Would allow her It was all About Blondel The troubadour Who serenaded Coeur de Leon And many Other people Including the daughter Of the house Who was addicted To theatricals And kept him at it The Honourable Douglas Merle Or Monkey Cheerfully Confronted his ill success In scene-painting having succeeded equally ill in many other things he was a man of wide culture and had failed in all subjects he had especially failed in politics having once been called the future leader of his party whichever it was but he had failed at the supreme moment to seize the logical connection between the principle of taxing deer forests and that of retaining an old pattern rifle for the Indian army and the nephew of an Alsatian pawnbroker whose clear brain the connection was more apparent had slipped into his place since then he had shown that taste for low company which has kept so many aristocrats out of mischief and their country out of peril and shown it incongruously as they sometimes do by having something vaguely slangy and horsey about its very dress and appearance As of an objectless ostler His hair Was very fair And beginning to blanch Quite prematurely For he also was young though Many years older Than his companion His face Which was plain But not commonplace Habitually wore A dolorous expression Which was Almost comic Especially In connection With the sporting colours Of his neckties And waistcoats Which Were almost as lively As the Colours on his Brush I've a Negro Taste He explained Laying on a giant streak of sanguine colour These mongrel greys of the mystics make me as tired as they are They talk about a Celtic renaissance But I'm for An Ethiopian Renaissance The banjo To be more truly What's Its name Than Old Dolmetsch's Lute No dances But the deep Heart weary Breakdown There's tears In the Very Name No historical Characters Like Toussaint l'Outre And Booker Washington No fictitious characters Except Uncle Remus And Uncle Tom I bet it Wouldn't take much To make the smart set Black Their faces As they used to Whiten their Hair For my part I begin to feel A meaning In all my Misspent life Something tells Me I was Intended For a Margate nigger I Do Think vulgarity Is so nice Don't you She did not reply Indeed She seemed A Little absentminded Her humour had Been faintly Shrewdish But when her Face fell into Seriousness It was entirely Young Her fine Profile With parted Lips Suddenly Suggested Not Only a child But a lost Child I remember An old Illumination That had a negro In it She said at last It was One of the Three Kings At Bethlehem With gold Crowns One of them was quite black, but he had a red dress like flames.

So you see, even about a nigger and his bright clothes there is a way of doing it But we can't get the exact red they used now I know people who have really tried It's one of the lost arts Like the stained glass This red will do very well for our modern purpose Said Merle equably She still looked out abstractedly at the circle of the woods under the morning sky I rather wonder sometimes she said What are our modern purposes? Painting the town red, I suppose He answered The old gold they used has gone too She proceeded Was looking at an old missal in the library yesterday You know they always guilt the name of God I think if they guilt any word now it would be gold The industrious silence which ensued was at length broken by a distant voice down the corridors calling out Monkey In a boisterous and imperative manner Muriel did not in the least object to being called a monkey Yet he always felt slight distaste when Julian Archer called him one It had nothing to do with jealousy Though Archer had the same vague universality of success as Muriel had of failure It had to do with a fine shade between familiarity and intimacy Which men like Muriel are never ready to disregard However ready they may be To black their faces When he was at Oxford He had often carried ragging to something With immeasurable distance of murder But he never threw people out of top windows Unless they were his personal friends Julian Archer was one of those men Who seemed to be in a great many places at once And to be very important For some reason Which is difficult to specify He was not a fool or a fraud He acquitted himself with credit and moderation In the various examinations Or responsibilities which appeared to be forced upon him But spectators of the subtler sort Could never quite understand Why these things always were forced upon him And not upon the man next door Some magazine would have a symposium Let us say On Shall We Eat Meat In which answers would be obtained From Bernard Shaw Dr Salaby Lord Dawson of Penn And Mr Julian Archer A committee would be formed For a national theatre Or a Shakespeare memorial And speeches would be delivered from the platform By Miss Viola Tree Sir Arthur Pinero Mr Colmans Carr And Mr Julian Archer A composite book of essays Would be published Called The Hope Of A Hereafter With contributions by Sir Oliver Lodge Miss Maria Corelli Mr Joseph McCabe And Mr Julian Archer He was a member of parliament And of many other clubs He had written a historical novel He was an admirable amateur actor So that his claims to take the leading part in the play of Blondel the troubadour could not be disputed In all this There is nothing objectionable Or even eccentric His historical novel about Agincourt Was quite good considered As a modern historical novel That is Considered as the adventures of a Modern public schoolboy At a fancy dress ball He was in favour of moderate indulgence in meat And moderate indulgence in personal immortality But his temperate opinions Were loudly And positively uttered As in the deep And resonant voice Which was now booming Down the passages He was one of those Who can endure that silence Which comes after a platitude His voice went before him everywhere As did his reputation And his photograph In the society papers With its dark curls And bold handsome face Miss Ashley remarked That he looked like a tenor Mr Merrell was content To reply that he Did not sound like one He entered the room In the complete costume Of a troubadour Except for a telegram Which he held in his hand The complete costume Of a troubadour Compared favourably With that worn By Mr Snodgrass In being more becoming Equally historical He had been rehearsing his part And was flushed With triumph and exertion But the telegram Apparently Had rather put him out "I say," he said Braintree won't act Well Said Merrill painting stolidly i never thought he would Rather rot i know having to ask a fellow like that but there is simply nobody else i told lord sewood it was rot to have it at this time of the year when all his friends are away braintree s only an acquaintance of course and i can t imagine how he even came to be that it was a mistake i believe said merle sea wood called on him because he heard he was standing for parliament as a unionist when he found it meant a trade unionist he was a bit put off of course but he couldn't make a scene i fancy it would puzzle him to say what either of the terms mean don't you know what the term unionist means asked olive Nobody knows that Replied the scene painter why i ve been one myself oh i wouldn't cut a fellow just because he was a socialist cried the broad-minded mr archer and he was silent Lost in social reminiscences He isn't a Socialist Observed Merle Impassively He breaks things If you call him a Socialist He is a Syndicalist But that's worse Isn't it Said the young lady Innocently Of course We're all for Social questions And making things better Said Archer In a general manner But nobody can defend a man who sets one class against another as he does, talking about manual labor and all sorts of impossible utopias.

I've always said that capital has its duties as well as its- Well interposed mural hastily.

I'm prejudiced in the present case.

"Oh, do you?" said Aunt Enid.

"I should never have thought it of you." When she had arranged the things in the rack to her satisfaction, she pointed out a few little faults that she had noticed in the children and settled down to read a book by Miss Marie Corelli.

The children looked miserably at each other.

They could not understand why Mother had placed them under the control of this most unpleasant mock aunt.

End of section 7 Section 8 of Stories by English Authors, London, by Various This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

The Hired Baby by Marie Corelli A dark, desolate December night.

A night that clung to the metropolis like a wet black shroud.

A night in which the heavy low-hanging vapors melted every now and then into a slow, reluctant rain, cold as icicle drops in a rock cavern.

The Ulysses of great rivers and perilous seas is a connoisseur of Japanese prints.

The warrior of sixty-one rivals, Miss Marie Corelli, the mining engineer carves cherry stones.

He who is figured as gaunt, hardy, and aggressive, conquering the desert with the steam locomotive, sings of a pretty little rose in a pretty little garden.

The judge, haggard with experience, who presides over the most tragic comic divorce court ever devised by man, writes love stories that would have made Jane Austen smile.

Within its walls, the free life continues, while the legions of death and pain and despair and all the servile captains of tyrant fate afford the burghers of that dauntless city new spectacles of beauty.

Happy those sacred ramparts, thrice happy the dwellers on that all-seeing eminence.

Honor to those brave warriors who through countless ages of warfare have preserved for us the priceless heritage of liberty and have kept undefiled by sacrilegious invaders the home of the unsubdued.

But the beauty of tragedy does not make visible a quality which in more or less obvious shapes is present always and everywhere in life.

End of section 7 Section 8 of Stories by English Authors London by Various This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

The Hired Baby by Marie Corelli a dark desolate december night a night that clung to the metropolis like

a wet black shroud a night in which the heavy low-hanging vapors melted every now and then into a slow reluctant rain cold as icicle drops in a rock cavern people passed and repassed in the streets like ghosts in a bad dream The twinkling gas light showed them at one moment rising out of the fog and then disappearing from view as though suddenly engulfed in a vaporous ebon sea.

With muffled angry shrieks, the metropolitan trains deposited their shoals of shivering, coughing travellers at the several stations where sleepy officials, rendered vicious by the weather, snatched the tickets from their hands with offensive haste and roughness.