Marie Corelli

one is old, my dear sir, nowadays!" he declared lightly—" even the grandmothers and grandfathers are friskier at fifty than they were at fifteen. One does not talk of age at all now in polite society,—it is ill-bred, even coarse. Indecent things are unmentionable—age has become an indecent thing. It is therefore avoided in conversation. You expected to see an old man you say? Well, you are not disappointed—I am old. In fact you have no idea how very old I am!"

Genius thrives in a garret and dies in a palace,—is not that the generally accepted theory?"

"The inexhaustible greed of a man, my dear sir, can never be satisfied. If he is not consumed by desire for one thing, he is for another, and his tastes are generally expensive

Yet after all there is nothing so deceptive as one's outward appearance. The reason of this is, that as soon as childhood is past, we are always pretending to be what we are not,—and thus, with constant practice from our youth up, we manage to make our physical frames complete disguises for our actual selves

the devil is not so black as he is painted'?"

empest, if there is one human being more than another that I utterly abhor, it is the type of man so common to the present time, the man who huddles his own loathly vices under a cloak of assumed broad-mindedness and virtue

But man gives no clue to his intent—more malignant than the lion, more treacherous than the snake, more greedy than the wolf, he takes his fellow-man's hand in pretended friendship, and an hour later defames his character behind his back,—with a smiling face he hides a false and selfish heart, —flinging his pigmy mockery at the riddle of the Universe, he stands gibing at God, feebly a-straddle on his own earthgrave—Heavens!"—here he stopped short with a passionate gesture—"What should the Eternities do with such a thankless, blind worm as he!"

genius seldom develops itself under the influence of wealth

The clergy are doing their utmost best to destroy religion,—by cant, by hypocrisy, by sensuality, by shams of every description,—and when they seek my help in this noble work, I give it,—freely!"

as I stood looking out of the window at the persistently falling rain, I was conscious of a bitterness rather than a sweetness in the full cup of fortune