Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/172

 since it is dignity in another name. The pathetic touches are the cream of her story. It is not a long study, but what there is, is strange and touching with the wholesomeness of real pathos, not of one particular class, not mythical, but a tender theme as it were from a woman's tender heart, possessing the faculty of a noble sympathy for the world's greatest tale of inimitable love and sorrow therefrom. The chapter on the resurrection is one of the highest aims of the work, and has been read frequently as a "lesson" in the Churches on Easter day. The peculiar and idealistic spirituality of the angels at the tomb is told in a fashion distinctive of the writer. The scene of the resurrection, indeed, is worth giving in its entirety:

"A deep silence reigned. All the soldiers of the watch lay stretched on the ground unconscious, as though struck by lightning; the previous mysterious singing of the birds had ceased; and only the lambent quivering of the wing-like glory surrounding the two angelic Messengers, seemed to make an expressed though unheard sound as of music. Then, in the midst of the solemn hush,  the great stone that closed the tomb of the Crucified trembled,  and was suddenly thrust back like a door flung open in haste for the exit of a King,  and lo!  a Third great Angel joined the other two! Sublimely beautiful He stood,—the Risen from the Dead! gazing with loving eyes on all the swooning, sleeping world of men; the same grand Countenance that