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emma_in_dreamMarie Corelli, A Romance of Two Worlds: A Novel (1886)
Apparently Marie Corelli outsold the work of combined works of contemporaries including Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling and HG Wells. And yet I’ve only heard her name vaguely.
Her *Romance of Two Worlds* combines grandly over the top nineteenth-century romance with didactic Christianity and an obsession with electricity. The narrator meets a charismatic healer and preacher of the doctine of ELECTRICITY (caps in the original). She becomes his ardent follower - and there follow many descriptions of how great electric lights are and how some people are naturally in tune because they have compatible electrical fields.
Also, dialogue like this:
"Has this also to do with electricity?" I asked.
"Certainly--with what is called vegetable electricity. There is not a
plant or herb in existence, but has almost a miracle hidden away in its
tiny cup or spreading leaves--do you doubt it?"
"Not I!" I answered quickly. "I doubt nothing!"
Heliobas smiled gravely.
"You are right!" he said. "Doubt is the destroyer of beauty--the poison
in the sweet cup of existence--the curse which mankind have brought on
themselves. Avoid it as you would the plague. Believe in anything or
everything miraculous and glorious--the utmost reach of your faith can
with difficulty grasp the majestic reality and perfection of everything
you can see, desire, or imagine. Mistrust that volatile thing called
Human Reason, which is merely a name for whatever opinion we happen to
adopt for the time--it is a thing which totters on its throne in a fit
of rage or despair--there is nothing infinite about it. Guide yourself
by the delicate Spiritual Instinct within you, which tells you that
with God all things are possible, save that He cannot destroy Himself
or lessen by one spark the fiery brilliancy of his ever-widening circle
of productive Intelligence. But make no attempt to convert the world to
your way of thinking--it would be mere waste of time."
"May I never try to instruct anyone in these things?" I asked.
"You can try, if you choose; but you will find most human beings like
the herd of swine in the Gospel, possessed by devils that drive them
headlong into the sea. You know, for instance, that angels and aerial
spirits actually exist; but were you to assert your belief in them,
philosophers (so-called) would scout your theories as absurd,--though
their idea of a LONELY God, who yet is Love, is the very acme of
absurdity. For Love MUST have somewhat to love, and MUST create the
beauty and happiness round itself and the things beloved. But why point
out these simple things to those who have no desire to see? Be content,
child, that YOU have been deemed worthy of instruction--it is a higher
fate for you than if you had been made a Queen."
As a side-note, it turns out that Corelli lived her whole life with Bertha Vyver, leaving her everything when she died. She didn’t identify as a lesbian, but now I note that this book was full of lengthy, detailed descriptions of the beauty of the preacher’s noble sister.
Apparently Marie Corelli outsold the work of combined works of contemporaries including Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling and HG Wells. And yet I’ve only heard her name vaguely.
Her *Romance of Two Worlds* combines grandly over the top nineteenth-century romance with didactic Christianity and an obsession with electricity. The narrator meets a charismatic healer and preacher of the doctine of ELECTRICITY (caps in the original). She becomes his ardent follower - and there follow many descriptions of how great electric lights are and how some people are naturally in tune because they have compatible electrical fields.
Also, dialogue like this:
"Has this also to do with electricity?" I asked.
"Certainly--with what is called vegetable electricity. There is not a
plant or herb in existence, but has almost a miracle hidden away in its
tiny cup or spreading leaves--do you doubt it?"
"Not I!" I answered quickly. "I doubt nothing!"
Heliobas smiled gravely.
"You are right!" he said. "Doubt is the destroyer of beauty--the poison
in the sweet cup of existence--the curse which mankind have brought on
themselves. Avoid it as you would the plague. Believe in anything or
everything miraculous and glorious--the utmost reach of your faith can
with difficulty grasp the majestic reality and perfection of everything
you can see, desire, or imagine. Mistrust that volatile thing called
Human Reason, which is merely a name for whatever opinion we happen to
adopt for the time--it is a thing which totters on its throne in a fit
of rage or despair--there is nothing infinite about it. Guide yourself
by the delicate Spiritual Instinct within you, which tells you that
with God all things are possible, save that He cannot destroy Himself
or lessen by one spark the fiery brilliancy of his ever-widening circle
of productive Intelligence. But make no attempt to convert the world to
your way of thinking--it would be mere waste of time."
"May I never try to instruct anyone in these things?" I asked.
"You can try, if you choose; but you will find most human beings like
the herd of swine in the Gospel, possessed by devils that drive them
headlong into the sea. You know, for instance, that angels and aerial
spirits actually exist; but were you to assert your belief in them,
philosophers (so-called) would scout your theories as absurd,--though
their idea of a LONELY God, who yet is Love, is the very acme of
absurdity. For Love MUST have somewhat to love, and MUST create the
beauty and happiness round itself and the things beloved. But why point
out these simple things to those who have no desire to see? Be content,
child, that YOU have been deemed worthy of instruction--it is a higher
fate for you than if you had been made a Queen."
As a side-note, it turns out that Corelli lived her whole life with Bertha Vyver, leaving her everything when she died. She didn’t identify as a lesbian, but now I note that this book was full of lengthy, detailed descriptions of the beauty of the preacher’s noble sister.
