?R 4682 
 .ftS 
 1886 
 Copy 2 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT'S TWO MARRIAGES 
 
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George Eliot's Two Marriages 
 
 AN ESSAY 
 
 EY 
 
 CHARLES GORDON AMES 
 
 It is better to stir a question without deciding it, than to decide it 
 without stirring it — Jouhcrt 
 
 FOURTH EDITION REVISED 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 GEORGE H BUCHANAN AND COMPANY 
 1886 
 
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 ?-.^ 
 
 l£> 
 
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 Copyright 1886 by 
 
 George H Buchanan and Company 
 
 philadelphia 
 
 
GEORGE ELIOT'S TWO MARRIAGES 
 
 The reputation of George Eliot has become pre- 
 cious. The general suffrage gives her a foremost 
 place among those writers of the second class who 
 address a far wider audience than the austere few 
 of the first class ; and the kind of service she 
 has rendered already secures for her the seat she 
 coveted in 
 
 "The choir invisible 
 Of those immortal dead who live again 
 In minds made better by their presence." 
 
 For many of us the revelations of her inner life 
 made in the Letters recently published have in- 
 creased the sense of personal endearment, as if she 
 were one of our great ascended friends. This feel- 
 ing may operate as a bias to disqualify us for an 
 impartial judgment of her merits as a woman. But 
 the questions raised by her two marriages, and 
 especially by the first, no longer concern her so 
 much as they concern modern society and the moral 
 health of the race. There is no more exact measure 
 
6 George Eliot's Tiuo Marriages 
 
 of human progress than the growth of dehcacy 
 between men and women, and of purity and con- 
 stancy in their domestic relations. 
 
 One who is duly mindful of the sanctity of the 
 family would be obliged to say, that if George Eliot 
 had willingly violated that sanctity by a loose exam- 
 ple, this one fact would not only blast her reputation 
 as^ woman, but would do vastly more harm than 
 all the wisdom and power of her genius as an author 
 could do good. 
 
 It would still be true that her writings should be 
 judged by their merits. Much excellent literary 
 work has been done by men who were not noble 
 nor pure ; Seneca put better morals into his writings 
 than into*his life. Rousseau was not clean ; even 
 Dr. Johnson felt obliged to say, " I have written 
 well, but, ah, I have not lived well." Nobody ques- 
 tions the superiority of Raphael's pictures on account 
 of the stories that are told to his discredit. And if 
 we were obliged to read Marian Evans out of good 
 society, it would still be true that George Eliot's 
 books have adorned and enriched the 19th century. 
 
 But it shocks our moral sense to know that a 
 favorite author is wanting in personal rectitude ; we 
 are obliged to forget him in order to enjoy his works. 
 We would gladly require of a writer just what we 
 have a right to require of .a preacher : — that he be 
 as good as his word. It is well to require it, even 
 if the requisition is not always honored. 
 
George Eliofs Tiuo Marriages y 
 
 ?klr. Cross' Life of George Eliot gives the impres- 
 sion of one who, despite some weaknesses, was 
 greater as a woman than as an author. She has 
 created no character in fiction equal to this uncon- 
 scious portraiture of herself While her relations 
 to Mr. Lewes are certainly open to question, it 
 Avould be a relief to many minds if this passage in 
 her history could truly be presented in such a light 
 as to clear our estimate of her womanhood from 
 misgivings ; for all noble reputations are historic 
 treasures. It can never be so important to vindicate 
 a person as to clear up and establish a principle of 
 right. The main object of this paper, however, is 
 to consider whether this admitted irregularity of her 
 marriage should seriously impair our respect for 
 her character. 
 
 In 1854, Marian Evans, then in her 36th }'ear, and ^ 
 afterwards known in literature as George Eliot, 
 united her life with that of George Henry Lewes, 
 and this union continued for twenty-four years, till 
 his death in 1878. Their acquaintance began in 
 those common literary pursuits to which their joint 
 existence was afterwards devoted. 
 
 Were they married ? They had no doubt of it ; 
 for nearly a quarter of a century they lived together 
 in rare harmony, happiness, and helpfulness, though 
 shadowed by the sense of something like a social 
 tragedy. There was no formal wedding, no religious 
 or civil ceremony, no legal record or recognition. 
 
8 George Eliofs Tivo Marriages 
 
 There could be none ; for, in law, Mr. Lewes was 
 still the husband of another woman. 
 
 On some bearings of the case, in the absence of 
 anything like a legal or other inquiry, in the absence 
 of sifted and recorded evidence, it is not possible to 
 pronounce a confident judgment. No friend of the 
 first Mrs. Lewes appears in her vindication ; and 
 Mr. Lewes preserved a prudent silence concerning 
 her conduct and his own ; he may have been glad to 
 escape the scandal of a case in court for reasons 
 generous or selfish. We are relieved from the sad 
 confidences of both parties ; yet rumors have survived. 
 
 So far as it can now be made out, the situation 
 was something like this : Mr. Lewes had married 
 early. An experiment in co-operative housekeeping 
 exposed both husband and wife to unusual tempta-^ 
 tions. She consorted with another man ; he forgave 
 her and took her back ; and when she repeated the 
 offence and left him finally and forever, and left also 
 their three children to his sole care, he had no legal 
 remedy. His condonation of her first offence worked 
 a forfeiture of his right of divorce for the second ; 
 thus does the law punish the husband's magnanim- 
 ity ! * It is also said that his wife's conduct was 
 
 * This statement is discredited by an American lawyer. But the 
 main fact remains, that a legal remedy was entirely beyond the reach 
 of Mr. Lewes. Thirty years ago, divorce could only be procured by 
 special act of Parliament, with preliminary proceedings which some- 
 times cost $10,000 in fees. 
 
George Eliot's Two Marriages 9 
 
 " not without his permission and sympathetic sanc- 
 tion," and that the whole story was known to 
 Marian Evans. This statement is extremely im- 
 probable, and the witness is an anonymous writer in 
 Temple Bar,^^ who discloses a malignant animus. It 
 is not so easy to discredit the uncontradicted reports 
 which make Mr. Lewes a London Bohemian of 
 doubtful precedents, and of no secure social standing. 
 He was a man of unattractive appearance, but with 
 wonderful eyes, and brilliant social powers. He had 
 also gained a fair literary reputation, was known as 
 the author of a four-volumed Biographical History 
 of Philosophy, and had now become the editor of 
 the Leader. Miss Evans saw in him what he after- 
 wards proved to be — a strong and clear-minded 
 man, a serious student, whose affinities and aspira- 
 tions drew him toward higher levels. When their 
 acquaintance began, she was ma.naging editor of the 
 Westminster Revieiu, the organ of radical thinking, to 
 which he was an acceptable contributor. In respect 
 to religious and social traditions, they had both 
 reached conclusions which placed them in a minority 
 of the minority. She saw in him a wronged and 
 wifeless man, with unmothered children ; she pitied 
 his deep, personal misery, while she respected his 
 manhood; respect and pity ripened into love — a true 
 and deathless passion ; and, with her eyes wide open 
 
 * Anonymity is not here mentioned reproachfully. None of the 
 articles in Temple Bar are signed. 
 
lo George Eliofs Two Marriages 
 
 to the situation, she became his wife, the woman to 
 whom he was legally bound still living. Was it 
 right ? The question itself is less simple than it 
 appears : the answer may be a qualified one. We 
 shall at least educate our judgment a little by prac- 
 tice on a complication of facts. 
 
 Such a case brings into sharp contrast the various 
 theories of divorce : 
 
 1. The Roman Catholic theory, which forbids 
 divorce altogether, except in rare cases, and under 
 papal dispensation. Ever since the Council of Trent, 
 which was dominated by extreme sacramental ten- 
 dencies, the Church has held marriage indissoluble 
 except by death. Separation is permitted ; but not 
 even the innocent party may marry again. This view 
 is not confined to Catholics. Frederic Harrison, the 
 champion of Positivism and Agnosticism, and the 
 personal friend of George Eliot and of Mr. Lewes, is 
 the stout advocate of the indissolubility of marriage, 
 even by death itself Many accredited moralists hold 
 that the only way to dignify the marital relation and 
 to prevent hasty engagements, is by laying down 
 the principle that there shall be no absolute divorce; 
 /. e. no remarriage while both parties live. 
 
 2. The prevailing Protestant theory, resting on a 
 construction of the teaching of Jesus, (Matt, xix : 9,) 
 denies divorce, except for the single cause of sexual 
 infidelity. The English law, like that of New York, 
 permits divorce only for this offence ; and if the 
 
George Eliot's Tzvo Marriages II 
 
 wife be tlie petitioner, she must also prove cruelty 
 or desertion. 
 
 3. A third theory affirms that marriage is nulli- 
 fied and divorce justifiable whenever either party has 
 committed a fatal breach of the contract. While 
 unfair constructions of this tlieory have opened the 
 door to dangerous laxity, its advocates hold it clearly 
 defensible on grounds of public welfare, of private 
 right, and of the highest morality. 
 
 The civil law, in recognizing and protecting mar- 
 riage, acts as the guardian of social order and of the 
 personal rights of husbands, wives, and children. 
 Its function is chiefly to define and declare. It can 
 declare the validity or invalidity of marriage, but can 
 do nothing to ijive it vitalitv. Least of all can it 
 restore to life a marriage which is dead. Divorce, 
 as an easy off-hand way of settling cases of ordinary 
 infelicity, is justly deprecated; }'et it is the natural 
 and proper corrective of extreme evils which can 
 be reached by no other remed\'. Laxity of marriage 
 is the real evil, originating in the frivolity of the 
 times and the superficial quality of our civilization. 
 
 So long as these extreme and ghastly cases, of 
 false and unreal marriages are frequent, separations 
 will be frequent ; and if the law should refuse to 
 release such wretched couples by divorce, there is 
 a high degree of probability that something worse 
 than orderly remarriage will be very common. If 
 there was divine wisdom in the Mosaic legislation. 
 
12 George Eliot's Two Marriages 
 
 which accommodated itself to the actual condition 
 of a semi-barbarous people, because of the hard- 
 ness of their hearts, may not the same wisdom still 
 frame laws suited to the imperfect condition of 
 humanity ? Not the less, but all the more, should 
 the lovers of purity toil and pray for the redemption 
 of the race from all this profanation. 
 
 As guardian of the sanctities, religion speaks : 
 " What God hath joined together let not man put 
 asunder." But what of those whom God hath not 
 joined ? or those from whose nominal union every 
 divine element has vanished ? May it not be profane 
 to hold Heaven responsible for false, foul, unreal or 
 disorderly relations between men and women, inside 
 of marriage as well as outside ? Not for light rea- 
 sons — not in haste even for heavy reasons — may 
 society consent to the destruction of a household 
 once formed ; but there may be cases where it is a 
 sad wrong not to decree the separation which, for 
 sufficient reasons, has already accomplished itself 
 Why not deal frankly and fairly with those condi- 
 tions which are just as fatal to marriage as death 
 itself, and hardly less repulsive than binding the 
 living to the dead ? 
 
 The law of reason and right is not always hon- 
 ored by our harsh and arbitrary constructions ; and 
 a false austerity is often .i:he parent of laxity. Jesus 
 condemns the man who puts away his wife and 
 marries another; but this language does not describe 
 
George Eliot's Tzco Marriages 13 
 
 the case where the woman withdraws herself, repu- 
 diates her vows and forms other relations. It does 
 not appear that the early Christians gave an ascetic 
 construction to their Master's teaching. If the 
 heathen spouse chooses to depart, says Paul, " a 
 brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases ; " 
 but the believer who took the initiative in departing 
 was enjoined not to marry again. It is on this point 
 of marrying again that the main difficulty arises. 
 
 To understand and feel the profound shock given 
 to the moral sensibilities of the better classes in 
 England, by Marian Evans's non-legal relations 
 with Mr. Lewes, we must remember that for a thous- 
 and years the whole nation has been grounded, 
 schooled and trained not only in the Christian theory 
 that marriage is sacred, " for better, for worse," but 
 also in the practice of that theory under religious 
 and legal sanctions. Nearly everybody has come 
 to think of the prescribed artificial formality as vital 
 to the relation ; and who but the most reckless radi- 
 cal could dream of its dissolution being valid without 
 the law's consent? 
 
 For a time the Society of Friends w^as exposed to 
 cruel misunderstanding and persecution by its reso- 
 lute refusal to recognize the service of a minister or 
 magistrate. English opinion said that the union of 
 hearts, hands and destinies does not constitute mar- 
 riage ; the Church and State must constitute it; and 
 what the Church has blessed and the State has 
 
14 George Eliot's Tiuo JMarriagcs 
 
 recognized is man"ia<je, whether there is a union of 
 hearts or not. When the Friends were reheved from 
 embarrassment by an act of Parhament, the prece- 
 dent was estabhshed that any scrupulous man or 
 woman, who have a right to each other, may marry 
 themselves. But no act of Parliament has ever 
 given to married people the right to unmarry. The 
 power of divorce rests alone with public authority. 
 An acute moralist might press this awkward ques- 
 tion : If the law of nature is sufficient for marrying, 
 why is it insufficient for divorce ? But here come 
 in broad considerations of public order — the safe- 
 guards of the family, the rights of children — which 
 the acute moralist may not always weigh. 
 
 I only pause now to say, that questions of legislative 
 policy are not always questions of exact right ; they 
 have two sides, and are always open to argument. 
 
 Mr. Hutton, an able and reputable English writer, 
 in an article on " George Eliot," pronounces her 
 union with Mr. Lewes " a grave step downward ; 
 * * * a breach with a moral law which the great 
 majority of men hold to be the essence of social 
 purity." Clearly it was a breach of the civil law ; 
 but to make it also a breach of the moral law, must 
 we not convict the parties of something like wrong- 
 ful intent? What if -on their part and in their own 
 minds it was simply a refusal' to identify the moral 
 law with the law of Parliament? What if they 
 simply meant to affirm that where the fact of sep- 
 
George Eliot's Ttuo Marriages 15 
 
 aration is fully accomplished, the rt'rrrr^' of separation, 
 howev'cr desirable, is not vital ? Such a position 
 may not be tenable, but it is at least intelligible, and 
 might be held and acted on in perfect good ^faith. 
 If the general reason and conscience should ratify 
 the judgment of Mr. Hutton, a dark stain and shadow 
 must rest on the name of George Eliot. But let us 
 look at her conduct from all its human sides. Whom 
 did she wrong by taking Mr. Lewes to be her 
 husband? 
 
 Was any wrong done to the former wife ? If the 
 facts are correctly given, she had no just claim to 
 wifehood, no moral right to it, and probably not the 
 faintest wish for it. It was all the same as if she had 
 been dead. 
 
 Was wrong done to this woman's children ? The 
 three boys were motherless. _ George Eliot became 
 their mother in the deep, true sense. She gave them 
 her love and won theirs. She earned money for 
 their education, helped to bring them up in wisdom 
 and virtue, watched tenderly over Thornton's dying 
 pillow, had the satisfaction of seeing Charles become 
 an honorable scholar and husband and father, treated 
 him as a son in the final disposition of her property, 
 and was by him given in marriage to Mr. Cross, her 
 second husband. 
 
 Did she wrong Mr. Lewes ? His love for her with 
 her love for him was like a spiritual rescue ; it saved 
 him from misery and despair. In 1859 he wrote of 
 
1 6 George Eliot's Tzvo Marriages 
 
 his debt to Herbert Spencer : " It was through him 
 that I learned to know Marian — to know her was to 
 love her — and since then my life has been a new 
 birth. To her I owe all my prosperity and all my 
 happiness." Through their whole life together his 
 devotion was that of a lover. In all matters he was 
 her judicious counsellor and glad servant, and under 
 her encouragement, his own faculties as a student 
 rallied from depression and became powerfully 
 creative. He took a leading part in scientific 
 research and philosophic discussion ; and reached 
 the high honor of being named in connection with 
 the Rectorship of the University of St. Andrews. 
 
 Did she wrong herself? The quickening effect of 
 her marriage on her spirits, character, and genius, is 
 among the beautiful marvels of soul-history. To 
 say that it made her happy would be no adequate 
 justification. There is a kind of happiness which 
 dishonors and degrades — the happiness of those 
 who love " downwards and not up." But it would 
 confound all our notions of moral order to discover 
 a single instance in which a false and debasing 
 marriage became the means of spiritual enrichment, 
 mental elevation, and enlargement of character. 
 
 If her own testimony may be accepted, her mar- 
 riage was like the coming of the summer's sun to all 
 her faculties. I will recite the. inscriptions placed by 
 her own hand on the manuscripts of her successive 
 books, for they have a kind of monumental interest: 
 
George Eliot's Two Marriages ly 
 
 AdiDii Bcdc : ''To my dear Husband, George Henry 
 Lewes, I give this IMS. of a work wliich would never have 
 been written but for the happiness which his love has con- 
 ferred on my life." 
 
 Mill on the Floss: "To my beloved Husband, Georg-e 
 Henry Lewes, I give this MS. of my third book, written in 
 this sixth year of our life together, at Holly Lodge, South 
 Field, Wandsworth, and finished 21st March, 1860." 
 
 Romola: "To the Husband whose perfect love has been 
 the best source of her insight and strength, this MS. is given 
 by his devoted wife, the writer." 
 
 Spanish Gypsy: " To my dear — every day dearer — Hus- 
 band." 
 
 Middlcniarch : "To my dear Husband, George Henry 
 Lewes, in this I'.lth year of our blessed union." 
 
 Daniel Deronda : " To my dear Husband, George Henry 
 Lewes. 
 
 For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings 
 That then I scorn to change my state with kings." 
 
 To her friend Barbara Bodichon — the only per- 
 son who penetrated the disguise of her anonymity — 
 she wrote in happy freedoin about the encouragement 
 her husband had given to her earhest attempts at 
 fiction, and how he laughed and cried and rushed to 
 kiss her as she read to him from the manuscript. 
 " He is the prime blessing that has made all the rest 
 possible to me, giving me a response to everything 
 I have written * * * a proof that I had not mis- 
 taken my work." 
 
 But for the powerful inspiration for good which 
 came into her life from her marriage, it is extremely 
 
1 8 • George Eliot" s Two Marriages 
 
 doubtful whether George Eliot would ever have 
 found her true self; whether her genius would ever 
 have come to flower and fruit ; whether we should 
 ever have heard of her as woman or author. Could 
 this inspiration for good have been the outcome of 
 conscious, willful sin ? 
 
 The writer in Temple Bar is very prompt to 
 recognize and emphasize this dependence of George 
 Eliot's mind upon the support and stimulant of love 
 and sympathy. He finds in it a proof that she had 
 no strength of character; like other women, she 
 lacked originality or initiating power. He allows 
 that she had a great mind, " a superb intelligence," 
 and characterizes her earlier books as " shining 
 mountains; " but in what he calls the " meagre and 
 dreary " volumes of her Life and Letters, he sees 
 few signs of moral nobleness. She is greedy of 
 money, morbidly anxious for praise and fame, selfishly 
 "jealous and dependent." Her temporary refusal 
 to go to church is her " only recorded act of aggres- 
 sive conscientiousness ; " her part in society is that 
 of ?iposeuse, posing for qualities which have no real 
 root in her character ; in short, a much overrated 
 person, tricked out and presented to the public with 
 quite artificial glories by her two husbands. 
 
 Mr. Lewes is described as a resojute and success- 
 ful adventurer, who made a gdod "job " of his life, 
 and profited to the utmost in a worldly way by his 
 partnership with this intellectual prodigy, for whose 
 
George Eliot's Tivo Marriages 19 
 
 sake he suppressed himself, the more willingly be- 
 cause her productions proved marketable. George 
 Eliot's career is thus explained as a rare run of 
 fortune, rather than as a triumph of merit. Her 
 union with Mr. Lewes is made to appear as a common- 
 place falling in love of two persons who could not 
 marry, and so chose to live in chronic adultery. 
 They ran no great social risks, as she had no 
 reputation to speak of, and his was already lost. 
 This writer concludes by intimating that he could 
 tell a great deal more if he cared to, but the true 
 " story will never be known, for those who could 
 tell the truth will be silent, and those who do not 
 know it would not believe it, if told." Just how 
 much credit ought we to give to an aanknown 
 witness who deals in insinuations, and who seems 
 never to allow a worthy motive, if he can invent an 
 unworthy one? If, as he says, England was full of 
 gossips, who manufactured unreal glory for George 
 Eliot and made an idol of her, may there not have 
 been other busybodies who took delight in circu- 
 lating detractions and nasty lies ? Such things 
 have been known. 
 
 A few scanty hints are enough to show that 
 George Eliot's irregular and informal marriage cost 
 her much mental suffering, despite its happy results. 
 She made no outcry ; but in some of her letters are 
 allusions which let us know that she felt the hurt 
 of being cut and condemned by many former 
 
20 George Eliofs Tn'o Marriages 
 
 friends. She carried herself with quiet dignity ; she 
 blamed no one for blaming her; but she was careful 
 to invite none to her house unless they first sought 
 the invitation ; and once she draws aside the domes- 
 tic curtain far enough to let us know that her husband 
 and herself were tempted to declare they would 
 "never have any more friends, only acquaintances." 
 That stateliness of manner which was so impressive 
 to her company may have been due in part to an 
 under-consciousness that her position was ques- 
 tioned. 
 
 But she was too much absorbed in work to waste 
 time or strength in painful broodings. Besides, her 
 marriage was its own protection ; she rested in the 
 love which surrounded her like an atmosphere ; she 
 found in her husband a constant support and incite- 
 ment, a near and trusted counsellor, capable of clear 
 insight as well as of close sympathy ; and this support 
 became more and more necessary to her life, as one 
 after another she brought forth her books with 
 anguish of travail, almost swooning with exhaustion 
 and ever falling into doubt and despair of doing 
 anything more. From childhood, she had dwelt 
 apart, solitary in society, her aspirations crippled by 
 self-distrust, yet craving and giving no end of love. 
 This profound reserve and withdrawal may help to 
 explain her non-conformity. She was not lawless, 
 but more than most women she lived out of the 
 reach of conventional influences and standards. She 
 
George Eliot's Tzvo MarriagtS 21 
 
 could not hold the traditional theories of marriage 
 any more than of religion. But her non-conformity 
 did not spring from lawlessness, caprice or willful- 
 ness, much less from lower impulses. Her whole life 
 and character, every sign and trace found in her 
 letters and private journal, testify that she was 
 superior to any loose or base action. The Edinbnrg 
 Revieiu \\hich reprobates her marriage, yet says : 
 " She was a high-minded woman, with whom no 
 thought or inclination that was less than pure had 
 ever been connected. It is impossible but that she 
 must have thought over, and somehow justified to 
 herself, the tremendous step she took." Certainly 
 she counted the cost. She writes to IVIrs. Bray : 
 " From the majority of persons, of course we never 
 looked for anything but condemnation." 
 
 Her own theory of marriage itself — legalities 
 aside — was so lofty and spiritual that on this subject 
 she has become one of the teachers of mankind. 
 Even the cynic of Temple Bar says, " She wTote the 
 most eloquent defence of marriage in our language, 
 and vaunted its sacredness and quasi-indissolubility 
 in terms which w^ould have satisfied a Roman 
 Catholic." She was shocked and disgusted at the 
 publication of the Byron scandal because of its 
 probable effect on the minds of the young. Indeed 
 her views of all human relations were of the most 
 exalted kind. She exacted of herself the most 
 rigid fidelity to the highest standard ; rather, she did 
 
22 George Eliot's Two Marriages 
 
 not need to exact it ; her natural tastes and tenden- 
 cies made it easy. 
 
 We are told that in a class of cases, we must 
 judge the action by what we know of the man, and 
 not the man by a doubtful action. We must say of 
 George Eliot's marriage that no portion of her life 
 was more completely justified to herself, or more 
 honorably carried out, or more blessed in its results 
 to herself and others. Whatev^er judgment we may 
 feel obliged to pass on the wisdom or the rightful- 
 ness of such marriages generally, we must, in this 
 matter, acquit George Eliot, entirely and uncon- 
 ditionally, of all wrong in her guiding principles, 
 her motive, her spirit. She regarded the former 
 marriage as dead, yet forbidden by law to be 
 declared dead. All the facts go to show that she 
 stepped into the empty place of wife and mother in 
 perfect good faith, from the most honorable prompt- 
 ings of her heart, and with the entire approval of 
 her reason. Why cannot Mr. Hutton have the 
 fairness to allow so much, even if he thinks she was 
 mistaken in her judgment? He does allow that both 
 before and after taking this " grave step downward " 
 there was no appearance of deterioration in her 
 character; and it is a remarkable fact that while at 
 the time most of her early friends fell away, her 
 home graduall}^ became the centre and frequent 
 resort of many of the foremost representatives of 
 English culture, and that she and her husband were 
 
George Eliot's Txvo Marriages 23 
 
 honored with the friendship of Tennyson, Lytton, 
 Herbert Spencer, and many others of the highest 
 social standing. The writer in Temple Bar seems 
 annoyed that while " living thus [in adultery] she 
 was courted by the chief and most responsible men 
 of the time, and by the best and most strait-laced 
 women." He says they tried to make themselves 
 believe all sorts of myths, as fig-leaves to cover her 
 shame or disguise the real situation. But the more 
 generous view is the more just. This resorting to 
 her of the best people does not imply that they 
 acquitted her of indiscretion, but it does imply that 
 they acquitted her of intentional wrong ; they did 
 not look on her as a dishonored or dishonorable 
 woman, or they would have shunned her house. 
 Mr. Harrison, for many years the intimate friend of 
 both, says : " He was a witness of the unbroken 
 happiness of their joint life, of their affectionate 
 performance of every domestic duty ; of their 
 scrupulous observance of all that they recognized 
 as belonging to a pure and refined home." Yet he 
 deeply regrets that they could not pledge their lives 
 with his " to fortifying in every way the marriage 
 bond and making it indissoluble by law, indissoluble 
 even by death." 
 
 We have yet to seek an answer for this most seri- 
 ous question : Did she wrong society by her irregu- 
 lar marriage ? Some would reply : " No ; society 
 wronged her and her husband by the tyrannical law 
 
24 George Eliot's Tzvo Marriages 
 
 against which their marriage was a costly protest." 
 But this may be a too hasty foreclosure. In the 
 tangle of human affairs, there is sometimes an ap- 
 parent contradiction between private and public 
 right. An act which springs from the best motives 
 and which is wholly approved as seen from within 
 and from the actor's point of view, may yet be in- 
 jurious to public interests, and therefore unsafe as a 
 precedent. Even if we may allow that strong- 
 winged and clear-seeing spirits can rise above con- 
 ventionalities and strike out clean, wide paths 
 through purer spaces, we must not forget that the 
 whole movement of human society is on lower levels 
 and along crowded ways, where the rule of the road, 
 " Keep to the right," though arbitrary, is necessary. 
 
 Every exceptional instance becomes an educator 
 to our moral sense, our discriminating facult}'. 
 George Eliot excused those who blamed her, be- 
 cause she knew " how subtle and complex are the 
 influences which mould opinion." Perhaps she may 
 have need of the same just charity for herself 
 
 The world was shocked by the execution of "old 
 John Brown." Why shocked ? Had he not vio- 
 lated the laws of the land, dippedhis hands in blood, 
 and forfeited his life ? Yes ; yet everybody was 
 obliged to look behind his aet to the motive. The 
 worst that could be said was, that he was wrong- 
 headed, deluded to the over-doing of his duty.* 
 Everybody saw that he was right-hearted, and that 
 
George Eliot's Tivo Marriages 25 
 
 the act which was outwardly illegal was inwardly 
 humane and glorious. Histor}- is full of these con- 
 tradictions. 
 
 We must look at an act both from its inside and 
 its outside. We have looked at George Eliot's mar- 
 riage from its inside, and have found it sweet and 
 pure, so far as the facts are disclosed to us ; we have 
 found it an ideal and idyllic union in its honorable 
 love, its spiritual clasp, its mutual satisfactions, its 
 inspiring power to qualify both parties for helpful- 
 ness to each other and to mankind. When we come 
 to look at it from the outside, it appears lawless and 
 disorderly, wrong in form and socially unfortunate. 
 It can never be justified on public grounds nor ap- 
 pealed to as a wise and safe precedent. Every simi- 
 lar case must be challenged precisely as if this case 
 had never occurred. Without staying to vindicate 
 or examine the local law of England, we must say 
 for marriage laws in general, that society can never 
 with safety consent to the removal or disregard of 
 those barriers which were erected because they were 
 necessary, as they still are, to resist the ever-rising 
 flood of disorders and corruptions. 
 
 If we allow that there is need of law at all to 
 define, regulate and protect marriage, we must also 
 allow that the law must express the existing and 
 prevailing convictions of society in any given coun- 
 • try ; and, while it is the right and duty of every man 
 and woman to agitate for the improvement of the 
 
26 George Eliofs Tzvo Marriages- 
 
 laws, only a case of extreme hardship and injustice 
 can justify a citizen in violating them. No thought- 
 ful person will say that the essence of marriage con- 
 sists in its legalization : every thoughtful person 
 must say that each instance of non-legal marriage, 
 like each instance of illegitimate parentage, tends to 
 disintegration and demoralization. 
 
 I cannot suppose that the discredit under which 
 George Eliot was placed in the minds of her friends 
 was due altogether to cowardice, or to mere tradi- 
 tional conformity. It sprang from a true instinct, 
 which is the product of many ages of moral culture. 
 In resigning herself to their censure, she acted so 
 far in the spirit of Socrates, who, though conscious 
 of innocence, yet honored the court which con- 
 demned him to die for violating the laws of Athens. 
 
 Looked at externally, George Eliot's marriage 
 wore an ambiguous look which she must have deeply 
 regretted. It invited criticism ; it exposed her to 
 unpleasant remark ; it might be quoted by men and 
 women of loose principles as a sort of justification. 
 Why may not any man live with any woman who 
 consents, regardless of legal forms ? To a class of 
 minds, even the beauty and happiness of George 
 Eliot's marriage supplies a plausible weapon for at- 
 tackinif the safecjuard which law has thrown around 
 a hundred million households." Thas very class, too, 
 has most need of the restraint of the law which she 
 defied. 
 
George Eliot's Tzuo Marriages 27 
 
 No one of us — no two of us — can have a right to 
 set up a world of our own and legislate privately for 
 our own lives, so long as we are dwelling in the com- 
 munity. We ought not to wish to escape from the 
 wholesome restraint which comes from the eyes and 
 the criticism of our fellows ; we ought gladly to en- 
 large and enlighten our private judgment by the 
 breadth and radiance of the common mind, and cer- 
 tainly we are bound to adjust our relations and regu- 
 late our conduct in conformity with principles which 
 will promote the common weal. 
 
 To what conclusion does this inquir}'' conduct us? 
 What verdict does the preponderance of evidence 
 warrant? Where does it leave George Eliot and 
 her reputation ? It leax^es her womanly purity and 
 honor unstained and bright. It condemns her act 
 as inconsistent with the welfare of society. It ac- 
 quits her as we acquit Stonewall Jackson — a true 
 patriot from the stand-point of Virginia and of his 
 own conscience — a traitor for taking up arms against 
 his country. The countr}- honqrs his character 
 "^vhile it condemns his act. 
 
 In one respect, George Eliot's marriage, like 
 Stonewall Jackson's militar\' career, gives me un- 
 mixed satisfaction. It was a rare display of self- 
 possession and soul-courage. Having taken her 
 resolution deliberately, she stood by it and faced the 
 painful consequences without whimpering". She 
 carried herself through the days of trial, as through 
 
28 George Eliot's Tzuo Alarriagcs 
 
 the years of exhausting toil, with dignity, as if hid- 
 den in some secret paviHon from the strife of 
 tongues. Even an ignoble deed sometimes acquires 
 a certain lustre from its display of masterfulness. 
 Robert Browning has taught us that even in going 
 the wrong road we may as well set the foot down 
 firmly. All character collapses from doing things 
 by the halves. 
 
 "The sin I impute to each frustrate ghost 
 Is the unlit lamp, and the ungirt loin." 
 
 If one will live by the inward law, it will not do to 
 heed the popular noises. As we honor John Brown 
 for daring to throw himself against the citadel of 
 slavery, though in a Quixotic passion of humanity, 
 so may we honor George Eliot for her courageous 
 fidelity to her bosom counsel. High and holy in- 
 spirations may be quite independent of the correct- 
 ness of our judgment; and right in the midst of 
 disorderly conditions there may work a cosmic 
 principle, a redeeming power of good. There is one 
 rule to which we need make no exception: Having 
 chosen our path in the clearest light that is given, 
 let us travel it to the end, regardless of clamor. 
 Serenity and safety and success are only to be found 
 in mindino; our own business. 
 
George Eliot's Tzvo Marriages 29 
 
 What a curious questioning feeling people have 
 about second marriages ! And the feeling increases 
 directly and with rapid intensity as marriages multi- 
 ply. A western widower was condoled with by his 
 neighbor on this wise : " I know what affliction 
 means. I am living with my fifth wife." And the 
 lone windower's face lighted up with a smile. A 
 New England woman expressed her indignation be- 
 cause the widow So-and-so was about to be mar- 
 ried a third time. " But," said her friend, " if your 
 house burns down, wouldn't you build another?" 
 " May-be I should," was the reply, "but if I'd been 
 burned out twice, I should think 'twas time to go 
 to boarding." 
 
 A second marriage is sometimes justified by the 
 failure of the first. Oftener it is a strong testimony 
 to the happiness of the first. The survivor finds life 
 empty and desolate till 'the affections clasp another 
 object. George Eliot's marriage with Mr. Cross was 
 of this kind. It produced a revulsion of feeling at 
 the time among people who knew nothing about it, 
 but who were no less ready with their opinions and 
 guesses. Probably many of her friends were dis- 
 turbed, since Mr. Cross was not known and it 
 was feared that she had taken up with an inferior 
 person. In some ways he was not her equal ; but 
 the wisdom and good taste he has shown as her 
 biographer have raised him to eminent favor. He 
 appears as a gentleman in all the best senses. His 
 
30 George Eliot's Tzvo Marriages 
 
 treatment of dead and living has been delicate and 
 magnanimous. 
 
 He was no new or hasty comer into George 
 Eliot's regards, and there was nothing frivolous in 
 their relations. She had known him for ten years ; 
 there had been a pleasant intimacy between the 
 families, and they had been drawn closer by com- 
 mon trials, sickness and death. The man who had 
 been a trusted friend of her husband and herself, and 
 who had interested himself in their business affairs, 
 rendered kindly and generous service in her day of 
 dire weakness and need, when she felt herself " a 
 bruised creature, shrinking from the tenderest 
 touch," and his companionship and support became 
 more and more necessary. The presence of this 
 strong man seemed to take out the numbness of her 
 pain and partially restore her lost life. She believed 
 in human guardian angels and needed them. He 
 was completely engrossed ; she sufficiently interested 
 to find his companionship restful, healing, strength- 
 ening, restorative. She seems to have been sur- 
 prised at the renewal of her own life, "the re-open- 
 ing of the fountain of affection " — for she had almost 
 entered the grave with her husband. She was not 
 fickle to the old love ; she confessed that " deep 
 down below there was a hidden river of sadness." 
 But she said, " I shall be a better, nhore loving crea- 
 ture than I could in solitude." To Charles Lewes 
 she wrote, " I was getting hard ; and if I had de- 
 
George Rliofs Two Marriages 31 
 
 cided differently, I think I should have become very 
 selfish. To feel daily the loveliness of a nature close 
 to me, and to feel grateful to it, is the fountain of 
 tenderness and of strength to endure." That is, she 
 married from gratitude to her rescuer — the man who 
 could help her bear life. In her depressed condition 
 she writes to Mrs. Congreve, " I have been cared for 
 with something much better than angelic tender- 
 ness." To Mrs. Bray she wrote of "this miraculous 
 affection that had chosen to watch over her," as if it 
 had actually saved her life. 
 
 From her own accounts, she was never self-de- 
 pendent, always feeling after a human support and 
 leaning on it implicitly. S3'mpathy was necessary 
 as air ; yet she was incapable of many intimacies, 
 suffered from exposure to much society, was obliged 
 to avoid mankind in order to serve mankind ; and 
 yet was quite unable to live alone. This trait was 
 only intensified by her great loss. Her loneliness 
 was of no ordinary kind. She inhabited this world 
 without half living in it. In her widowhood, the 
 sound of her own fame must have been mournful 
 to her. Mrs. Browning makes Aurora Leigh cry 
 out — 
 
 " O, my God, my God ! 
 Thou hast knowledge, only thou, 
 How dreary 'tis for women to sit still, 
 On winter nights, by solitary fires. 
 And hear the nations praising them, far off." 
 
32 George Eliot's Tivo Marriages 
 
 She had spoken of her former experience as her 
 " one perfect love." There could be nothing of the 
 ideal in this second marriage — the union of a feeble, 
 failing woman of sixty with a man much younger — 
 a grouping which never makes a successful picture. 
 There was no room for romance, no feeling left for 
 it. She herself must have felt like one who in weak- 
 ness accepts the strong arm of one who is generous 
 enough not to exact what it was not in her power to 
 give. But she surrendered herself to the new life 
 with a sort of childish delight ; and perhaps found 
 in the public wedding and the open recognition that 
 she was now a lawful wife a new and gratifying ex- 
 perience. 
 
 She was married May 6, 1880 — five years ago to- 
 day, — and died December 22, of the same year. 
 None can grudge her the bright little streak of sun- 
 hght that gilded the hastening evening. 
 
 But this portrayal of her second marriage does not 
 present her at her best — hardly at her second best. 
 There is nothing to move admiration, much to pity. 
 We see her almost clutching in her weakness at out- 
 side support as if the inward resources had failed, 
 and contenting herself with receiving a kind of 
 idolatrous affection for which she could offer no 
 equivalent. 
 
 In the light of the memoir itself, I believe the 
 thoughtful reader must see a revelation of her de- 
 clining and almost exhausted life ; a weakness 
 
George Eliot's Tivo Marriages 33 
 
 partly to be referred to broken health and heavy 
 sorrow, but still more to the fact that she had 
 neglected and starved her own higher nature by pur- 
 suing too eagerly the career of literary productive- 
 ness. The peril of diverting the whole forces of life 
 to thought and expression, even in the highest form 
 of art, can hardly be exaggerated. The hypertro- 
 phy of genius may be the atrophy of the soul. 
 Along with this, in her case was the equal peril of 
 coming to depend on being loved rather than on 
 loving. Certainly she was loving and magnanimous 
 by all her original instincts ; but think of the possi- 
 ble perversion which might result from living long 
 in the atmosphere of adulation, where every wish 
 was anticipated and every condition shaped so as to 
 supply her a maximum of attentions and leave a 
 minimum of opportunity for everything except self- 
 culture and self-expression. -What an excuse for 
 marrying — that one is losing the power to love ! 
 
 Many persons far inferior to George Eliot in in- 
 tellectual resources have yet found unfailing support 
 agai;ist the pressure of loneliness and bereavement 
 in the spiritual powers and hope and trust stored up 
 in the interior of their life. May it be possible that 
 her entire loss of faith in any Power above the 
 human intellect and will, along with her inability to 
 hope for anything beyond this little life, had left her 
 inadequately supported from within ? Here was rich 
 culture, noble activity, generous sentiment, stern 
 
34 George Eliofs Two Marriages 
 
 ethical quality, fidelity to the highest accepted 
 standard : here also was honesty of disbelief. If 
 there could have been true restful trust in a Perfect 
 Providence above and within her life and all life, and 
 in a larger destiny than what she calls " this troub- 
 lous little planet " allows to humanity, might she 
 have been spared the sombre and unsatisfying ele- 
 ment in her own history, and might we have missed 
 the mournful music — the pensive minor key — which 
 runs through her books, her letters, her character? 
 
 She could not help feeling that her heart and soul 
 were failing with her flesh. She was sincerely un- 
 able to belie\'e in any God but Humanity. In 
 Humanity she did believe with all her might; and 
 Humanity she sought to serve " with clear-eyed en- 
 deavor," and with the consecration of her splendid 
 powers. And in her last days she could turn only 
 to Humanity, — alas, as weak as herself! 
 
 If, alas! this were all there is for any of us, we 
 might still have grace to make the best of it ; and 
 since we could depend on this to last as long as we 
 do, we should need no "opium" to help us bear 
 our lot to the hastening end. But should we then 
 pity or envy those " deluded " ones whose spirits 
 seem to triumph over the crumbling form, as they 
 cry out, " My flesh and my heart fail ; but God is 
 the strength of my life and mty portion forever!" 
 
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