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 CHAPTER X

"THE MIGHTY ATOM" AND "BOY"

Marie Corelli never writes without a purpose—never solely to excite or entertain the reader who regards books as pleasant things provided for his regalement just as ices, pantomimes, and balloon ascents are.

The greatest of novelists have generally told their stories with an object other than mere story-telling. Charles Reade brought about asylum reform by publishing "Hard Cash," while in "Foul Play" he made clear the injustice of preventing a prisoner from giving evidence in his own behalf—a state of things which has been only recently remedied; Dickens showed up villainous schoolmasters, receivers of stolen goods, the delays of the Law, Bumbledom, emigration frauds, and a hundred other abuses; Thackeray preached against cant; Wilkie Collins broke a lance with the vivisectionists; and Clark Russell, in "The Wreck of the Grosvenor," told a harrowing story of the rotten food provided for the helpless merchant sailor.