Page:Marie Corelli - the writer and the woman (IA mariecorelliwrit00coat).pdf/362

 *tleties of the Agnostic and Atheist; to strengthen their faith in the truth, the reality, the goodness of God and Christianity; the people who have hearts that throb with tenderness, hope, love and sincerity. She would purify society. She would exalt everything that is noble and good. She would destroy the rule of unbelief and insincerity, and raise in its place ideal characters and conditions strongly built upon a foundation of faith and truth. Such is Marie Corelli's programme.

The interest taken by the novelist in social questions has led her to correspond with workingmen's clubs in America and the colonies, and not a few papers have been written by her to serve as subjects for discussion in such institutions.

But what of that self of which so much has been heard? It is a personality striking in its simplicity and in its power. Marie Corelli is a woman of women, simple in her tastes, strong in her faiths and her aims, with a heart full of sympathy for others, living a busy life that from its productiveness in the world of literature is a constant influence for good in the hearts and homes of thousands the world over, and, in its private relationships, a source of help, inspiration, and benefit to those with whom she comes in contact.

That she is not merely a lover of Shakespeare,