Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/160



"October 28th, 1892.

"I was unable to write and tell you how glad I am that you are once more yourself again.

"Bother the papers; don't let them bother you. If I lived next door to you, I should intercept them all.

"It seems a growing fashion to use strong language, and certainly such language has been leveled at you. The fair sex in former days were held to command a chivalrous respect, which seems to be almost as much a thing of the past as the Crusades."

This of October 28th, 1892, forms the last of the batch of extracts placed in our hands. Throughout his business associations with Miss Corelli, it is apparent that Mr. Bentley was everything that was kindly, tactful, and encouraging. The imaginative temperament is always a difficult one to deal with, and Mr. Bentley excelled himself in this respect. Even when he wished to bestow a mild rebuke he did so with an old-fashioned courtesy that is truly delightful and only too rare in these days of dictated, typewritten epistles.

There are other letters, but from these it will be only necessary to cull a sentence here and there. All the above-quoted communications, we should add, were in Mr. Bentley's own handwriting.

Marie Corelli has always been a neat workwoman, and here, in a letter from her publisher, dated Au