Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/165

 prose, for it is poetry and prose hand-in-hand, an achievement, a oneness of the two.

This was Marie Corelli's idea in penning "Barabbas." Setting her mind hard and fast to face creeds and defy criticism; true to the instincts which permeated her mind throughout her pristine works, she went on following her soul impression, her inspiration to see "good" in most things, nobility in men and women who might be scourged by the world. And thus "Barabbas," though a robber, might have had some strong points, and though of an evil nature must certainly, from scriptural evidence, have had the sympathy of the populace. That sympathy gave the author the keynote to produce the human drama, which is lived over and over again to-day and forever,—and which is aptly called A Dream of the World's Tragedy.

Marie Corelli, true to her colors in this later work, still adheres to poetic spirituality, the "ideal," the sublime, the free, the sympathetic, mingled with the rendering of a forcible and traitorous character in that of "Judith" (the heroine of the book) in its full strength of weakness and evil, and in its final magnificent revulsion from a past to the glory of a holy repentance and in finding the King, in the symbol of the cross. Take this scene,