Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  And now we stand, sorrow-stricken, — even as the Queen’s own Laureate, Tennyson, wrote of his “Sir Bedivere,” —

  “The stillness of the dead world’s winter dawn

  Amazed him, and he groan’d, ‘The King is gone!’

  And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,

  From the great deep to the great deep he goes !’”

  The Queen is gone! It will take us a long while to believe it. The solemn and majestic death-march, the rolling of muffled drums, the tolling of funeral bells, have not helped us to realize it any the more plainly. We have read the news, we have shed tears, — we think of it and we ponder it, but we do not really yet understand the full weight of the blow that has fallen upon the English Empire in the death of the Queen at this particular juncture in history. We shall realize it by-and-bye; but not yet — not yet for a long while! We cannot believe but that she is still with us; and the black pageant of death, we think, must be a mere bad dream, which will pass presently with the full light of morning. It is not for me to play biographer; there are hundreds of brilliant men and women in the land ready to write full and detailed memoirs of the Queen, and to chronicle her virtues, her good deeds, her never failing sympathy with the suffering and the poor. I am merely trying to express in this brief tribute to her imperishable glory what I feel to be the special lesson of this noblest woman’s life to women. In a time like the present, when the accumulation of wealth seems to be the chief object of existence, and the indulgence of self the rule of daily conduct, and yet, when despite our exceptional advantages, our modern luxuries and conveniences, so many of us are weary, restless and ill at ease, travelling from one place to another in search of some chimera of happiness which for ever eludes our grasp, is it not plain and paramount after all, that simple goodness is best? The “old-fashioned” virtues — is there not something in them? — something sweet and penetrating like the perfume of thyme and lavender in the “old-fashioned” garden? One recalls to-day the words of the great Napoleon to a lady who, deploring lack of energy and enthusiasm in France, said to him, —

  “Sire, we want men.”

  “No, Madame,” was the curt rejoinder, “we want mothers!”

  This is what every great nation needs — mothers, — true, good women, content with their husbands and their homes — women whose dearest joy in life is so to influence their sons that they may grow up to be useful, clever, brave, and honourable. This invaluable influence of pure and modest womanhood is what England is fast losing. For many of her matrons, especially those of the upper classes, are no longer content to be matronly, — they must have the pleasures, the dissipations, the frivolous gaieties of the extremely young, and the girl of to-day is often brought into reluctant rivalry with her own mother in the contest for the unmeaning flatteries and attentions of men. Our late Monarch has given to women a supreme example of what mothers should be, — wise, prudent, patient, never weary in well doing, and for ever tender, for ever loving. How sweet it is to-day to remember the little endearing words which she wrote when he who is now our King was a new-born infant in her arms:

  “As my precious, invaluable Albert sat there, and our little love between us, I felt quite warm with happiness and love to God!”

  Her gentle woman’s heart, then so “warm with happiness,” was destined to know the coldness of a life-long sorrow, but the “love to God” never failed — never relaxed in its firm trust and faith; and herein was the great light that seemed to spring mystically from England’s throne, and spread a halo round England’s Sovereign.

  “I am quite clear,” said the Queen, speaking of her eldest daughter, then a child, “that she should be taught to have great reverence for God and for religion, and that she should have the feeling of devotion and love which our Heavenly Father encourages His earthly children to have for Him, and not one of fear and trembling.”

  “Reverence for God!” No one will deny that the Queen in the closing years of her long and splendid reign must have seen this reverence dying out, and that her heart must often have been surcharged with weeping when she considered the great change that has come over modern thought and modern life since she first ascended the throne, a shy, pretty little girl, with all England waiting to do her homage. She must have noticed a complete departure from old ways and customs which, however simple they were, certainly did mark Englishwomen as the Queen-roses of the world, and did so influence men to love their homes, and to work for the glory of their country, that they were able to leave it greater than they found it. She must have watched Progress marching with swift, impetuous strides in one direction, but Retrogression and Decay marching as steadily, though more slowly, in another, — progress, let us say, in machinery, but retrogression in men. Who shall count the tears the Queen has shed for the evils which she, with her well-known wisdom and prescience, may not have foreseen coming upon England! Who shall estimate the grief and pain she has suffered on account of the cruel war which has ravaged the homes of a people who are one with ourselves in the Christian faith — a war which, in her last days on earth, she had to learn was not ended, but rather likely to be prolonged! Noble-hearted, deeply God-loving woman as she was, her beautiful spirit, on the verge of eternal glory, must have often contemplated the dark clouds on England’s horizon with the most poignant and tender sorrow, and her anxiety for the many difficulties likely to surround her son, our King, must have been acute and pitiful indeed. For there can be no doubt that much of the peace of Europe was the result of her personal influence; and personal influence is a far more important factor in the welding together and holding of countries and peoples, than is generally taken into account by such of us as are superficial observers, and who imagine everything is done by Governments.

  How many times in the history of the world has it been proved that Governments are paralyzed in a great national crisis, and powerless to avert a great national disaster! How often have the men composing the governing body lost their heads in emergency, and thrown aside their responsibilities in desperate dismay at the suddenly rising tide of difficulties, many of which they had not foreseen! But the Queen’s heart was true; her trust in God never faltered, and her woman’s hand, so small and delicate, held all things in the clasp of a fearless love and faith, such as we are told can remove mountains. One may say of her that she taught all her fellow-sovereigns the dignity of sovereignty. There was no German Empire when she first came to the throne. There was no free or united Italy. England’s chief foes were France and Russia, — and may it not be said that they are her foes still? Yet in Russia the personal influence of our late beloved Monarch has been of weight, apart altogether from the ties of blood which unite her family with that of the Tzar. Her personal word, — the benign action of her quiet personal authority — these have smoothed over many animosities which might otherwise have become subjects of hot international dispute. The woman’s word and the woman’s touch are marvellous in their working for good if the woman herself be pure and true! When Bismarck, known as “the man of blood and iron,” called the Queen “The greatest Statesman in Europe,” his remark was neither a flattery nor an exaggeration. It was strictly correct. The Queen possessed the two supreme gifts with which God endows unspoilt women, Instinct and Tact. While men, with heavy logic and contentious disputes, wearily argued pros and cons of various deep questions, the Queen, bringing her quick brain to bear on the subject in hand, easily sprang to a straight issue, and by a word here, a gentle suggestion there, skilfully guided slower perceptions and duller wits out of darkness into light. Her loss means much more than is at present apparent to Europe. The very fact of her sex commanded reverence and respect; — a woman’s prayer has often proved more potent than a man’s command.

  Strange, beautiful and pathetic is the picture given to our thoughts of the dead Majesty of England, — white and still, lying in her snowy death-robes with the first snowdrops of the year and lilies around her, and the golden Cross shining above her — that emble
m of the Christian Faith which, in its simplest form, the Queen followed fervently without any faltering doubt or fear. The words of one of her favourite hymns were the daily echo of her own heart’s trust in the Divine:

  “Thy way, not mine, O Lord,

  However dark it be;

  Lead me by Thine own Hand,

  Choose out the path for me.

  * * *

  “Not mine, not mine the choice

  In things or great or small;

  Be Thou my Guide, my Strength,

  My Wisdom and my All.”

  The Queen’s piety was of a simple and fervent nature, and ostentatious or decorative ritual never met with her sympathy or approval. The private chapel at Osborne is as simple as a mission-house, and if her Majesty had any preference for a devotional service other than that of the Church of England, it was for the Presbyterian form, which she always adopted when at Balmoral. The religious side of her character, as displayed through her whole life, was a direct contradiction to the statement rashly made in certain quarters that she favoured the idea of what Leo XIII. calls “The conversion of England,” that is, the retrogression of England to Rome. Never did she warrant such a report; never did she give the slightest ground for even a suspicion of the accusation, though she was broad-minded and tolerant of all shades of religious belief, as indeed every true Christian worthy of the name should be, provided he is not asked to entertain the wolf of money-grubbing and self-aggrandizement under the sheep’s clothing of a creed. The Queen was not a bigot; she was in herself the representative of England and England’s freedom; and she would have been the last to approve of any form of religious intolerance or persecution. Once, in long years back, she was told by the then Bishop of London that two members of the royal band, who were Wesleyans, had refused to attend Sunday rehearsals. “These men,” said the Bishop, “have since been dismissed from the service for their scruples.” “What!” exclaimed her Majesty, “two of my men dismissed for conscience sake! they shall be immediately reinstated. I will have no more persecution in my service on account of religious belief, and I will have no more Sunday rehearsals.” And she kept her word.

  By numberless little anecdotes such as this, many of which will be quoted for years and years to come, we recognize the steadfast simplicity and candour of the Queen’s religious faith, and we know that the angry quarrels of sects, the intolerant pride of precedence in forms and rituals, the wrangling, the bitterness and malice which have recently and regrettably disturbed the equanimity of some of those ministers of Him whose New Commandant was “Love one another,” could not have been otherwise than lamentable to the mind of that crowned Defender of the Faith whose woman’s weakness made her stronger than many armed hosts, and more potent than all other rulers of the kingdoms of this world. Her devotion to the highest ideal of sovereignty, namely— “Queen, by the Grace of God!” enabled her to hold the delicate balance of things aright, and to maintain the equilibrium of national policy by the mere fact of her existence. Not only will the British Empire miss Her, who, as the King has said, “united the virtues of a supreme domestic guide with the affection and patriotism of a wise and peace-loving Monarch,” but all Europe will be the poorer for lacking her gentle counsel. True, she fulfilled a more than ordinary length of days, — true, her reign extended beyond that of all our other Monarchs, — but the fact that the blessing of her presence and influence was vouchsafed to us so long does but little to console us for its withdrawal. She was our Mother as well as our Queen, and a mother’s place can never be filled.

  There is a deep melancholy in the thought that the nation begins its first year of the Twentieth Century clad in “the trappings and the suits of woe.” The sombre black under which the Ship of State sets sail again upon the uncertain ocean of life strikes a dismal hue against the arching azure of the sky, and many there are of us who deem it un-Christian to wear mourning robes if truly we believe in Heaven. Unfortunately, however, at this time of day thousands of us do not believe in Heaven, — will not believe, no, not for all our preachers and teachers, and would not, if an angel brought us the assurance straight from God! We believe in the dark grave, because we see it with our finite eyes, and we put on the sable colour of the earth to match the dimness of our sight. What we see, or what we think we see with our limited and doubtful vision, we accept as actual; but what we feel in the innermost recesses of our souls, when we are alone to think, alone to realize in the deep silence that we are not alone, this we put aside hastily, sometimes with a careless laugh or nervous shudder, calling it “imagination,” “fancy,” or “morbidness.” It is “morbid,” some people will tell us, to believe that there is a Divine Intelligence from whose observation no smallest thing escapes, and yet if the conscience be clear, how far from “morbid,” how healthy, how reasonable, how comforting is such belief! — for, no matter how evilly we are spoken of, how vilely we are slandered, — no matter what sorrows we suffer or what losses we endure, all will be righted by that Eternal Justice at the end, when “through the gates that bar the distance, comes a gleam of what is higher!”

  The great thing, therefore, is to live, here and now, the daily life of simplicity and self-denial such as our late glorious Queen lived. For if by the rule of courts we must wear outward black as a sign of mourning for her loss, let us in our hearts inwardly rejoice that God found her so pure, so ready for the highest bliss of Heaven. Sixty-three years of the most exalted position in the world, — sixty-three years of undisputed sovereignty over millions of human beings neither spoilt the earthly Woman nor the heavenly Soul which God had made our Queen. Shall we not be grateful for this? Shall we not give hearty thanks amid our lamentation? There is cause for very profound rejoicing that the crowned Queens of the earth to-day are proverbially of simple tastes and gentle characters, and we may be proud that our Queen was the simplest of them all. Remembering her, and cherishing her memory as we shall ever do, it may be we shall help ourselves to measure things rightly by the standard she has left us, so that we may be no longer deceived by false appearances. We shall learn to recognize extravagance and ostentation as mere vulgarity, — materialism and atheism as the action of diseased brains, and social “swagger” as bad manners. We shall demand of women that the matrons deserve our homage and the maidens our respect, — that the aged command our reverence, and the young our tenderness. We shall perhaps learn by-and-bye that paint and dyed hair are not beautifiers of any woman’s face, and we shall give the wearers of such the kindly, compassionate cold shoulder. We may even ask — who knows! — that certain of our “ladies” shall give up smoking and the use of stable-slang.

  This would be a great concession, no doubt, but perhaps it will come. The memory of the great Queen who has passed from our midst without a stain upon her character as a woman, or a flaw in her wisdom as a Monarch, may exercise a softening charm and refining influence upon us through the chastening sorrow we feel at her irreparable loss. But that there are breakers ahead for England, who shall deny? Who can refuse to see the gathering clouds? Who that is not wilfully deaf cannot hear the ominous rising of the storm-wind?

  “We live in a time of sorrow,

  A time of doubt and storm,

  When the thunder-clouds hang heavy,

  And the air is thick and warm;

  When the far-off lightnings gather

  On the verge of the darkening sky,

  And the birds of the air, fear-stricken,

  To nest and cover fly:

  Look up! ye drowsy people,

  There’s desolation nigh!

  “Look up! ye drowsy people,

  And shield yourselves in time,

  From the wrath and retribution

  That track the heels of crime;

  That lie in wait for the folly

  Of the lordly and the strong;

  That spare not nigh nor lowly

  From vengeance threatened long, —

  But strike at the heart of nations,

  And ki
ngs who govern wrong.

  * * *

  “Kneel down in the dust and sackcloth,

  And own, with contrite tears,

  Your arrogant self-worship,

  And wrongs of many years;

  Your luxuries hard-hearted;

  Your pride so barren-cold,

  Remote from the warmth of pity

  For men of the self-same mould,

  As good as yourselves, or better,

  In all but the shining gold.

  “Kneel down, ye priests and preachers,

  Ye men of lawn and stole,

  Who call yourselves physicians

  And guardians of the soul, —

  And own if ye have not hated