The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1880-05-20
MISS EVANS MARRIED AT LAST.



philadelphia Tlmes.]
"George Eliot" is pressing the prerog-
atives of genius too far. For years
past good many people have looked
rather shyly at her because of her &C.
centric personal relations with the late
George Henry Lewes, but it is safe to
say that the opinion OF every body whose
opinion is worth having has been that
those relations, if not justified, at least
were rendered pardonable by the very
peculiar circumstances of the case.
Unquestionably, the strongest argument
in favor of their living together as man
and wife when they were not married
was the great love that they bore each
other and the fact that legal marriage
was impossible. Lewes had married dis
astrously, but had corrected this error by
obtaining divorce that left him free to
marry again. Unfortunately, after going
through this experience, he once more
admitted his wife to his bed and hoard.
And go, when he met Miss Marian
Evans and they fell in love with each
other, although in the meantime, he had
been forced again to put away his wife
for cause, q marriage was imp ssible,
since he could not be twice divorced
from the same woman. After due de-
liberation, the critic and the novelist
concluded to be law unto themselves
in matters conjugal; as marriage was
impossible, they would get along as we'll
as they could without it. And because
their friends believed that their love for
each other was great, and that their
separation would but make two innocent
people suffer the burden of the sin com.
mitted by the true Mrs. Lewes. they
were forgiven for their transgression of
the law of the land. When Lewes died,
November 80. 1878, the terrible grief to
which Miss Evans fell a prey was re-
garded as still further proving the
strength and fullness of that intense
love which was at once the cause and
the justification of her lapse from social
grace. And itwas considered the most
natural thing in the world that she
should announce her inte ntion of abstain
ing from all writing in the future.
Even those who had been disposed to
see an ugly and somewhat spiteful
caricature of George Lewes in the "Cas-
sanlOw" of Middlemarch felt that
their judgment had been unjust, and
that here really was case of true love
that would be true beyond the grave.
The publication of "Theophrastus Such"
did not materially shake this belief.
Everybody who thought about the mat
ter at all felt that in the very effort to
deaden her grief hard work would be a
relief and comfort. But now, Lewes
being barely seventeen months in his
grave, this widow-by-courtesy of sud
den has abandoned her weeds and be-
slowed herself at last upon a genuine
husband! In the face of this eccentri-
city of genius the faithful love and bit
ter grief theories wholly break down.
Were Miss Evans middIe-ag woman
an excuse might be found for her hasty
re-entry into the conjugal state. But
Miss Evans is nearly or quite sixty
years old-some authorities say sixty
one. Altogether the case is not pleasant
one for the heretofore enthusiastic ad-
mirers of George Eliot to contemplate.
Even the most enthusiastic of them
must admit that the theory of intel
lectual beings rising superior to common
laws has broken down; that their be-
loved idol has turned to clay.