Accepting Miss Corelli’s disclaimer, one is still forced to the conclusion that she has fallen into a serious indiscretion. In ‘The Murder of Delicia’ we are made acquainted with another lady-writer who enjoys all the popularity of Miss Corelli and of ‘Mavis Clare,’ who has the genius and the eyes and the stature and the hair of both. ‘As a writer she stood quite apart from the rank and file of modern fictionists.’ ‘The public responded to her voice, and clamoured for her work, and as a natural result of this, all ambitious and aspiring publishers were her very humble suppliants. Whatsoever munificent and glittering terms are dreamed of by authors in their wildest conceptions of a literary El Dorado were hers to command; and yet she was neither vain nor greedy.’ One thanks God piously that yet she was neither vain nor greedy; but one can’t keep the mouth from watering. Ah! those wildest conceptions of a literary El Dorado! ‘Delicia’ gets 8,000L. for a book. May it be delicately hinted that this sum is only approached in the receipts of one living lady-writer, and that the lady-writer’s name is ------? Wild horses shall not drag this pen further. Miss Corelli complains, in a preface to this recent work, that ‘every little halfpenny ragamuffin of the press that can get a newspaper corner in which to hide himself for the convenience of throwing stones,’ pelts every ‘brilliant woman’ with the word ‘unsexed.’ Honestly, I don’t remember the reproach being hurled at Mrs. Browning, or George Eliot, or Mrs. Cowden Clarke, or Charlotte Brontë, or Maria Edgeworth, or Mrs. Hemans. Miss Corelli tells us that the woman who is ‘well-nigh stripped to man’s gaze every night,’ and who ‘drinks too much wine and brandy,’ is not subjected to this reproach, whilst if another woman ‘prefers to keep her woman’s modesty, and execute some great work of art which shall be as good or even better than anything man can accomplish, she will be dubbed “unsexed” instantly,’ Where has Miss Corelli found the society of which these amazing things are true? Does anybody else know it? And where are the better works of art from woman’s hand than man can accomplish? ‘Aurora Leigh’ and the Portuguese Sonnets are at the top of feminine achievement, and Shakespeare is not dethroned. And here is a pearl of common sense: ‘To put it bluntly and plainly, a great majority of the men of the present day want women to keep them,’ This is Miss Corelli in her own person in her preface, and, ‘to put it bluntly and plainly,’ the statement is not true, or approximately true, or within shouting distance of the truth. And what of the ‘persons of high distinction who always find something curiously degrading in paying their tradesmen’? Are they commoner than persons of high distinction who meet their bills? Are they as common? Miss Corelli sweeps the board. She is angry because some people will not take her seriously, but whilst her pages are charged with this kind of matter, she cannot fairly blame