Mrs. Alec-Tweedie

“ A woman of taste and refinement, a woman of organisation—as the occasion revealed, with all its details of a luncheon for a hundred and fifty people, as well as an opening ceremony—and withal, what a strangely imaginative mind! Almost a seer, a mystic, a religious dreamer, a hard worker, a strange but lovable personality—such is Marie Corelli.
Many men and women who attain great ends are egotistical—and why not? What others admire they may surely be allowed to appreciate also. ”

“ Little boys home from school had to be fed at meals, amused between tea and dinner during that precious “children’s hour,” and I often left my bed in the morning, to begin another strenuous day, more tired than I had entered it the previous night.
But mediocrity and determination succeeded where genius and inspiration might have failed.
One rule, and a very good rule, for success is never to let one’s self get out of hand. If anybody cannot rule himself, he cannot rule his life. ”

“ If things change, if one goes up in the world, one naturally assimilates ideas and ways by merely taking on a little more of what one already has; but if one slides back in life, one has to give up what is part and parcel of one’s very existence. I was not born in a back street or a country cottage or a suburban villa—in either of these I might have lived in simple comfort on my small income—but that would not have been me. ”

“ The latter part of his strenuous life he has devoted to a desk and diplomacy, has thrown aside the soldier’s cloak for the frock-coat and tall hat of civilisation.
For thirty years President Diaz has been teaching men to govern. He has made many men. He has modelled a nation. Diaz has always been a patriot, whether old or young. He has established thirty years of peace, and made a Presidency famous for its political rule. Not only do Mexicans love him, but Europeans who have filled their purses with Mexican gold must honour and respect so remarkable a man. ”

“ Short in stature—the red hair almost white, but still peeping through the beard—his stoop and tottering, dragging gait denote age—also his slowness of speech; but his mind is all there—alive and active and full of thought and force.
Men may rise to great power in a new country if they only have the grit.
The life of another such in Canada, merely as known to the public by newspaper notices, reads like a romance. ”

“ Nevertheless, after-dinner speaking is, alas, far more often boring than entertaining, and one regrets a bell does not ring after five minutes, as a gentle hint to sit down. The poor speaker seldom knows when the right moment to end has arrived.
Everyone is shy about something. The rough-edged shyness of youth wears away, but we each remain tender somewhere. Shyness overpowers me when making a speech, or on hearing my name roared into a room full of people. The first makes me sick, in spite of having addressed an audience of three thousand people, which I find easier than thirty ”

“ The remembrance helped me—but I missed the old life.
It doesn’t matter being born poor, that is no crime, and we cannot miss what we never had; but the poverty which robs of the luxuries—that use has really made necessaries—of existence is a cruel, rasping kind of poverty, that irritates like a gall on a horse’s back until one learns the philosophy of life. Luxury is merely a little more self-indulgence than one is accustomed to. Prolonged luxury becomes habit. The well-born can do without cream, but they cannot do without clean linen. ”

“ I never believe in people making money they do not require, unless occasionally, and then they should pass their little gains on to some charitable cause. Still less do I believe in anyone writing anything to be printed just for the pleasure of seeing their name in print. That is taking bread out of someone’s mouth, and lowering the market standard. I never wrote a line in my life that was not paid for. Always before me lay two roads, the one grinding on to the bitter end as a writer and journalist, the second string being much the more important as it meant more pay for less risk ”

“ Roosevelt writes a hand like a schoolboy’s, and, with all his business rush and appetite for work, it somehow seemed to me that he would love quiet sentimental songs and pretty poems. No doubt there may be more clever men in America, more learned men, more suave and polished diplomatists, but this man is a judicious mixture that makes him great. In truth he is a gigantic personality. He is not in the least American except in his unrestrained enthusiasm and rough exterior. He gesticulates like a foreigner, his mind works quickly. ”

“ I used to long for a night at a theatre, a whirling dance, a day on the river. But no, life was one round of work, work, work. Thoughtless friends, out of the kindness of their heart, invited me to stay with them. Wealth of gold often accompanies poverty of mind. They thought they were helping me—they had not brains to see I could not afford the ticket to Scotland, the clothes necessary for them and their guests, or the stupendous tips required in large households—a life of pleasure now seemed to me merely fierce misery. ”

“ Others, on the other hand, make too much of a picture and too little of a portrait. Really, the picture is of most consequence, because the good picture with its impression of the sitter remains, while the fleeting expression of the face and age of the sitter passes away.
Joy is only a flash, sorrow is an abiding pain. We women have lines of figure when young, but we must all expect lines of wrinkles when old.
Artists and writers are generally poor, but we are often happy. The greater the artist, the less he seems to be able to push his wares. ”

“ And these poor folk loved him. It was a treat to see a man so respected and adored by the people whom he had been at such pains to make understood. Drummond was the Kipling—the Bret Harte of Canada. He was not much of a French scholar. His accent was horrible, but he comprehended. He had that human understanding and perception that count for more than mere words. He would sit and smoke in the corner with an old man, and draw him out to tell me stories while the wife made cakes for our tea. ”

“ The club woman is young and handsome, well dressed and pleasing, and she stands up and addresses a couple of hundred women just as easily as she would begin a tête-à-tête across a luncheon table. She is not shy, or if she is she hides it cleverly.
Americans entertain royally; they almost overpower the stranger with hospitality. They are generous in a high degree, not only in big things, but in constantly thinking of “little gifts or kindnesses” to shower upon their guests. They become the warmest and truest of friends, in spite of their sensitiveness and hatred of criticism. ”

“ There is not much good literature in France either, but there is less in England. People are all too busy trying to fill their pockets with gold to have time to store their brains with knowledge.”
The conversation turned upon his studio. Speaking of students, he said:
“Oh, I like women ever so much better than men. They are finer artists; they are more delicate, more subtle, more sensitive and artistic; indeed, it is the feminine side of a man that makes him an artist at all. Art is refined, or it is not Art. Man is not refined, except when he copies woman.” ”

“ Men and women whose names are known in every land—but who have fallen on evil days—generally ill-health having been the cause. The Arts are shockingly paid, the mental strain is great. Exponents of great work live on their health capital, their brain-force, and sometimes the chain snaps and the wheels refuse to go round. Then a few hundred pounds, or a pension, or the kindly sympathy of friendship that backs up their faltering strength, comes like a new fuse, inspiring the recipient to take up the threads of work almost as well as before. ”

“ From generation to generation, Hyde Park has been the wide theatre upon which many tragedies and comedies of London have been enacted, the forum where many liberties have been demanded, the scene where national triumphs have been celebrated.
Yes, the book was a success; but every success in life brings a would-be friend, and a dozen enemies.
True friendship is not influenced by success or failure. ”

“ As a rule, we always lunched at the old Harley-Street house on Sundays when we were in town, went to all the theatres, and, in fact, lived a thoroughly happy, gay, social life, with no thought for the morrow.
I still kept up my painting, did a quantity of embroidery from my own designs for bedspreads, sideboard cloths, babies’ bonnets, or lapels of dresses; once and again wrote a little, but the business of existence was more amusement, and fun and spending, rather than making money and saving.
Everything seemed gay and bright and I found life one continual joy.
Let Youth be happy and gay. ”