The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1882-08-05
George Eliot No. 2.

i
suite of offices down town the other day,
/ stepped aside at the vision of a most
graceful woman of queenly carriage and
radiant beauty, dressed in elegant sim
fplicity. who swept by, diffusing the odor
| of Parma violets. The sight of such a
| fair creature, without the semblance of q
litigous look, or weeds of widow. or
heiress just come into an estate. or the
detection or Indifference of party to a
divorce suit, was SO unexpected amid the
mstter-of-fact surroundings of a LAWYERS
Office that carried o look of inquiry
with me into the private office of the
head Of the firm. 81 see You are i'm.
pressed, he said, looking up from his
desk. "Isn't she a beauty? She is
figure in the most extraordinary case I
ever knew. An English woman of gem
tie birth and large fortune, with all of
the accomplishments that come with re.
fined education and extended travel. a
musician of classical taste and lineuist
versed in all polite tongues, she isa reso-
lutte disciple of free love, and at a sacri
foe of everything she refuses to allow
her paramour, who is my client. to ar
range for divorce with his first wife to
marry her. She says that If she felt the
yoke of matrimony about her neck she
would surely hate her husband. and
would never live with him, and that if
her lover treats their present relations in
any other way than a holy union. or
makes them serve as a ground for his
first wife to secure a divorce, she will
instantly leave him and return to Eng
land. MY client is the son of mill
ionaire, is about 27 years old, a hand
some, erratic fellow with a dash of
genius. When he was boy of nineteen
he was forced into marriage with the
daughter of distinguished author and
the granddaughter of celebrated iurist.
and hoping to hide her from disgrace. he
yielded to the demands of her parents
and ives married to her by Justice of
the Peace. He was then student of
Harvard College. H refused to live
with his wife or to see her again, and as
no event followed to make the disclosure
of their marriage necessary, it was kept
a secret and he went to Europe. He met
this beauty there and most romantic
attachment sprang up between them.
They seemed to love each other with an
ideal affection. She was ripely edu-
Gated, in the full bloom of
womanhood, and was ready to de- |
vote her life to his; but. like |
George Eliot, she did not believe in |
marriage, and when she consented to
become his companion through life It
was with the distinct understanding
that he should never give her penny,
but that she should support herself. She
was content to become wife to him but
was not willing to accept his support or
take his name. She moreover objected
to passing as his wife and while anxious
to follow him to any part of the world, |
she wishes to pay her own expenses, bear
her own name, and be wholly in
dependent. Strange to say. her |
mother, a superior woman approved to |
the letter everything she said and did. |
The young couple began to live as hus-
band and wife on these terms and now |
they have charming little child. They
came to this country on the mans busi- |
ness and have country seat near the
city. They occupy different apartments
in the house, and the servants do not |
know of their relations, or that the |
young man is the child's father. Since
their return to this country the young
man has been served with a complaint |
in limited divorce suit. He is restive |
under the situation, and is anxious to
get rid of his first wife. so as to legitima-
tize his child by marriage. but his COM
panion is as firm as Gibraltar. She
says that if her love degrades her by
having their relations judlcially treated |
as infdelity to the first wife, she will |
leave him. Moreover, if he gives his |
wife other occasions to secure an abso- |
Lutte divorce she will leave him, and that |
if he gets his liberty to marry her she
will not marry him. If the young man
is forced to remain in this dilemma I |
fear he may lose his reason and do harm
to himself, for he has gentIeman's
feeling of duty and honor toward his
child, and does not share his wife's sin
gular notions about matrimony. Il
know she said to me Just now, that J
would hate man who put the yoke of
marriage about my neck. I will not
bear the burden for any man. She ar
CUES most eloquently against marriage
so much in George Eliot's strain that
cannot help associating the two women,
and think she is as pure-minded as any
woman / ever met. The case is on the
calendar, but don't know how am GO
ing to settle it. "- New York Letter.