Marie Corelli
A Romance of Two Worlds, Vol.I
(1886)
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About the print version:
A Romance of Two Worlds. A Novel.
BY
MARIE CORELLI.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen.
1886. [All Rights Reserved.]
***********
TO ONE WHO KNOWS.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
PROLOGUE
I. AN ARTIST'S STUDIO
II. THE MYSTERIOUS POTION
III. THREE VISIONS
IV. A DANCE AND A PROMISE
V. CELLINI'S STORY
VI. THE HÔTEL MARS AND ITS OWNER
VII. ZARA AND PRINCE IVAN
VIII. A SYMPHONY IN THE AIR
IX. AN ELECTRIC SHOCK
A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS.
PROLOGUE.
WE live in an age of universal inquiry, ergo of universal scepticism.
The prophecies of the poet, the dreams of the philosopher and scientist, are
being daily realized--things formerly considered mere fairy-tales have become
facts--yet, in spite of the marvels of learning and science that are hourly
accomplished among us, the attitude of mankind is one of disbelief. "There is no
God!" cries one theorist; "or if there be one, I can obtain no proof of His
existence!" "There is no Creator!" exclaims another. "The Universe is simply a
rushing together of atoms." "There can be no Immortality," asserts a third. "We
are but dust, and to dust we shall return." "What is called by idealists the
SOUL," argues another, "is simply the vital principle composed of heat and air,
which escapes from the body at death, and mingles again with its native element.
A candle when lit emits flame; blow out the light, the flame vanishes--where?
Would it not be madness to assert the flame immortal? Yet the soul, or, vital
principle of human existence, is no more than the flame of a candle."
If you propound to these theorists the eternal question WHY?--why is the
world in existence?--why is there a universe? why do we live? why do we think
and plan? why do we perish at the last?--their grandiose reply is, "Because of
the Law of Universal Necessity." They cannot explain this mysterious Law to themselves, nor can they probe deep enough to find the answer to a still more tremendous WHY--namely, Why is there a Law of
Universal Necessity?--but they are satisfied with the result of their
reasonings, if not wholly, yet in part, and seldom try to search beyond that
great vague vast Necessity, lest their finite brains should reel into madness
worse than death. Recognising, therefore, that in this cultivated age a wall of
scepticism and cynicism is gradually being built up by intellectual thinkers of
every nation against all that treats of the Supernatural and Unseen, I am aware
that my narration of the events I have recently experienced will be read with
incredulity. At a time when the great empire of the Christian Religion is being
assailed or politely ignored by governments and public speakers and teachers, I
realize to the fullest extent how daring is any attempt
to prove, even by a plain history of strange occurrences happening to one's
self, the actual existence of the Supernatural around us; and the absolute
certainty of a future state of being, after the passage through that brief
soul-torpor in which the body perishes, known to us as Death.
In the present narration, which I have purposely called a "romance," I
do not expect to be believed, as I can only relate what I myself have
experienced. I know that men and women of to-day must have proofs, or what they
are willing to accept as proofs, before they will credit anything that purports
to be of a spiritual tendency;--something startling--some miracle of a
stupendous nature, such as according to prophecy they are all unfit to receive.
Few will admit the subtle influence and incontestible, though mysterious,
authority exercised upon their lives by higher intelligences than their
own--intelligences unseen, unknown, but felt.
Yes! felt by the most careless, the most cynical; in the uncomfortable
prescience of danger, the inner foreboding of guilt--the moral and mental
torture endured by those who fight a protracted battle to gain the hardly won
victory in themselves of right over wrong--in the thousand and one sudden
appeals made without warning to that compass of a man's life, Conscience--and in
those brilliant and startling impulses of generosity, bravery, and
self-sacrifice which carry us on, heedless of consequences, to the performance
of great and noble deeds, whose fame makes the whole world one resounding echo
of glory--deeds that we wonder at ourselves even in the performance of
them--acts of heroism in which mere life goes for nothing, and the Soul for a
brief space is pre-eminent, obeying blindly the guiding influence of a something
akin to itself, yet higher in the realms of Thought. There are no proofs as to
why such things should be; but that they are, is indubitable. The miracles of to-day are silent ones, and are worked in the heart and mind of man alone. Unbelief is nearly supreme in the world to-day. Were an angel to descend from heaven in the middle of Trafalgar Square, the crowd would think he had got himself up on pulleys and wires, and would try to discover his apparatus. Were he, in wrath, to cast destruction upon them, and with fire blazing from his wings, slay a thousand of them with the mere shaking of a pinion, those who were left alive would either say that a tremendous dynamite explosion had occurred, or that Trafalgar Square was built on an extinct volcano which had suddenly broken out into frightful activity. Anything rather than believe in angels--the nineteenth century protests against the possibility of their existence. It sees no miracles--it pooh-poohs the very enthusiasm that might work them.
"Give a positive sign," it says; "prove clearly that what you say is
true, and I, in spite of my Progress and Atom Theory, will believe." The answer
to such a request was spoken eighteen hundred years and more ago. "A faithless
and perverse generation asketh for a sign, and no sign shall be given unto
them."
Were I now to assert that a sign had been given to me--to me, as one out
of the thousands who demand it--such daring assurance on my part would meet with
the most strenuous opposition from all who peruse the following pages; each
person who reads having his own ideas on all subjects, and naturally considering
them to be the best if not the only ideas worth anything. Therefore I wish it to
be plainly understood that in this book I personally advocate no theory of
either religion or philosophy; nor do I hold myself answerable for the opinions
expressed by any of my characters. My aim throughout is to let facts speak for themselves. If they seem strange, unreal, even impossible, I can only say that it is open to others to follow, if so inclined, the same course which I pursued, and which obtained for me the remarkable experience I am about to relate.
CHAPTER I.
AN ARTIST'S STUDIO.
IN the winter of 188-, I was afflicted by a series of nervous ailments,
brought on by over-work and over-worry. Chief among these was a protracted and
terrible insomnia, accompanied by the utmost depression of spirits and anxiety
of mind. I became filled with the gloomiest anticipations of evil; and my system
was strung up by slow degrees to such a high tension of physical and mental
excitement, that the quietest and most soothing of friendly voices had no other
effect upon me than to jar and irritate. Work was impossible; music, my one passion, intolerable; books became wearisome
to my sight; and even a short walk in the open air brought with it such
lassitude and exhaustion, that I soon grew to dislike the very thought of moving
out of doors. In such a condition of health, medical aid became necessary; and a
skilful and amiable physician, Dr. R--, of great repute in nervous ailments,
attended me for many weeks, with but slight success. He was not to blame, poor
man, for his failure to effect a cure. He had only one way of treatment, and he
applied it to all his patients with more or less happy results. Some died, some
recovered; it was a lottery on which my medical friend staked his reputation,
and won. The patients who died were never heard of more--those who recovered
sang the praises of their physician everywhere, and sent him gifts of silver
plate and hampers of wine, to testify their gratitude. His popularity was very great; his skill considered marvelous; and his inability
to do me any good arose, I must perforce imagine, out of some defect or hidden
obstinacy in my constitution, which was to him a new experience, and for which
he was unprepared. ...
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