There may be -- we'd say there are -- ways to reconcile the eternal with the evidence of our senses. But surely a harangue in the cloak of fiction is not the way to do it; rather more by railing at the dark she teaches folks to find the intellectual courage to step into it. Regardless, Corelli was a gifted writer, and whether the tale she tells here is the one she intended or not, she tells a fine and interesting tale.