Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/136

 Could not Marie Corelli turn the heavy guns of her genius on the drink question this side of the Channel! The field is a very wide one. Children under fourteen are now prevented by law from being served at public-houses. It would be a good plan, too, if women could not order intoxicants from grocers. Many a man, in discharging his grocer's account, does not trouble to inspect the items, or is not afforded the chance of inspecting them; many a man, however, if he were to submit his grocer's book to a close scrutiny, would find that bottles of inferior wines and spirits were being supplied along with the raisins and baking-powder not for his own, the cook's, or his family's use, but for the secret consumption of his wife.

In suggesting new legislative measures with regard to the sale of intoxicants in this country, Marie Corelli would be performing a public service worthy of the Nation's profoundest gratitude.

"The Soul of Lilith," which was published about a year after "Wormwood," is a work of a very different character. This book treats of a subject in which Marie Corelli revels. As a brief introductory note explains, "The Soul of Lilith" does not assume to be what is generally understood by a "novel," being simply the account "of a strange