Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/339

 was responsible, could have been followed with only the one object of endeavoring to make Miss Corelli appear in an unfavorable light before the neighbors and friends among whom she resides.

It is pleasant to learn that this precious campaign entirely failed. The editor of the local journal, the Stratford-on-Avon Herald, duly received his slips of this correspondence, the hope probably being that he would reproduce them in his journal. He however took no notice of these "hand-bills"; and the good citizens of Shakespeare's town generally are far too conscious of Miss Corelli's affection for them and unfailing sympathy in all their interests, to feel anything but unmeasured contempt for any effort to injure her in their esteem. People hastened to call at Mason Croft and express their indignation at the treatment she had received, and they found her, as usual, busily working, happy and unconcerned. To one friend, an M.P., who expressed his views on the subject with considerable expletive, she said quietly, "Oh, well, it really doesn't matter! The editor has condemned himself by his own action. My letter, asking merely why my name was omitted, was quite a harmless epistle, surely? It scarcely merits an imprisonment in the Tower!"

The Daily Express acted somewhat curiously on