scious of authority. It would
be well if we could leave Miss Corelli here, but something remains to be
said which is not altogether pleasant to say. In 'The Sorrows of Satan'
many pages are devoted to the bitter (and merited) abuse of certain
female writers who deal coarsely with the sexual problem. But Miss
Corelli appears to think that she may be as frankly disagreeable as she
pleases so long as she is conscious of a moral purpose. Whatever she may
feel, and whatever estimable purposes may guide her, she has published
many things which run side by side with her denunciation of her sister
writers, and are as offensive as anything to be found in the work of any
living woman. Take as a solitary example the following passage:

'I soon found that Lucio did not intend to marry, and I concluded that
he preferred to be the lover of many women, instead of the husband of
one. I did not love him any the less for this; I only resolved that
I would at least be one of those who were happy enough to share his
passion. I married the man Tempest, feeling that, like many women I
knew, I should, when safely wedded, have greater liberty of action. I
was aware that most modern men prefer an amour with a married woman
to any other kind of _liaison_, and I thought Lucio would have readily
yielded to the plan I had preconceived.'

I do not know of any passage in any of the works so savagely assaulted
by Miss Corelli which goes beyond this; and I think it the more, and not
the less, objectionable, because the lady who wrote it can see so very
plainly how sinful her offence is when it is committed by other people.

XII.--THE AMERICANS

I suppose it will not be disputed that the glory of a nation's
literature lies in the fact that it is national--that it reflects truly
the spirit and the life of the people with whom it is concerned, by whom
it is written, and to whom it belongs. It will not be denied either that
this final splendour has not yet descended on the literature of America.
The happy and tonic optimism of Emerson is a gift which could hardly
have been bestowed upon any man in an old country. It belongs to a land
and a time of boundless aspiration and of untired youth, and in virtue
of this possession Emerson is amongst the most characteristically
American of Americans. In the walks of fiction, with which alone we have
to deal in these pages, the Americans have been distinctively English
in spirit and in method (until within r