THE STRANGE VISITATION
THE
STRANGE VISITATION
BY
MARIE CORELLI
AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE EVERLASTING” “THELMA” “HOLY
ORDERS” “THE SORROWS OF SATAN” ETC. ETC.
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
THE
STRANGE VISITATION
A WILD night, with a gale of wind,a wind that scratched and tore andhowled at doors and windows like an angrycat spitting and spluttering—its miaulingvoice now rising, now sinking—at onemoment savage, at another querulous, butalways incessant of complaint, with athreatening under snarl of restless rage inits tone. A wild night!—full of storm andquarrel, with occasional dashes of cold rainsweeping down on the shrieking blast likegusts of angry tears—a noisy night in whichthe elements were at open war with themselves,[6]making no secret of their hostileintentions—and yet it was the one night ofall nights in the year when “peace and goodwill”were the suggested influences of thetime. For it was Christmas Eve. ChristmasEve! What a wonderful anniversaryit is, if we would but pause in our recklessand senseless rush onward to the grave,just to think quietly about it for a moment!Long, long ago—yet but a short while since—ifwe count by the world’s great epochsof civilisation wherein a little two thousandyears are but a moment—a host of Angelsdescended from heaven and sang a joyoushymn of general amnesty to mankind onthe first Christmas Eve that ever was—andaccording to the noble poesy of high-thinking,God-revering John Milton:
One wonders if—in those far-off days ofangel-singing—there was such a thing as amillionaire? Not a merely “rich” man;—nota “Wise Man of the East,” who,possessing knowledge and insight as well aswealth, hastened to bring his gold withfrankincense and myrrh, and to lay thesereverently in the humble manger whichserved as cradle to a Child, who