GEORGE ELIOT'S HUSBAND
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lovely compromise between morning and evening costume, combining
the less pleasing points of both." Some idea of the relaxed standards
of Lewes' circle when he was living with his first wife may be found in
the following anecdote from Jane Carlyle: "It is Julia Paulet who has
taken his [Lewes'] soul captive!! he raves about her 'dark, luxurious
eyes' and 'smooth, firm flesh'-! his wife asked 'how did he know? had
he been feeling it?' "
This wife, Agnes, was beautiful, intelligent, and free-spirited in a
literal and alarming way. To her children by Lewes she added two by
Thornton Hunt, the son of Leigh Hunt. Lewes endured this fantastic
intrusion for some time with a remarkable lack of rancor. Even after
his "elopement" with George Eliot good relations were kept up on all
sides. Henry James in his first visit to them found George Eliot in a
state of great anxiety because one of Lewes' sons had been injured in
an accident. She herself paid Agnes' allowance after Lewes died. The
attitudes of everyone indicate a generous, unconventional spirit of the
sort we are accustomed to find among artists and writers but would not
demand of the "respectable" and especially not where matters of such
overwhelming emotional charge are concerned. Still it was all very ir–
regular and strange. Looking back at Lewes' pacific behavior, his en–
durance of suffering and humiliation, we can see a sort of prefiguration
of the unusual position in which he later found himself. He was bright
and sympathetic and yet there is an infinite longing in his lavish, humble
love. As a husband Lewes discovered his wife's genius, or rather he
"uncovered" it as one may, peeling off the surface inch by inch, uncover
a splendid painting beneath. All this he did with excitement and delight,
as if it were his own greatness he had come upon. The most haunting
fact ever recorded about this odd man is from Charlotte Bronte: "the
aspect of Lewes's face almost moves me to tears; it is so wonderfully
like Emily's...." Perhaps what Charlotte Bronte saw in "the Ape"
was his wild and tender uniqueness, his inexplicable nature.
Suppose George Eliot had not become a famous novelist: what
then would have happened to this marriage in which it was Lewes' .
role to guide, encourage, protect the most celebrated woman in England?
Probably it would have been the same, although on a less grand and
public stage; instead of the novelist, Lewes would have protected the
diffident translator and essayist, soothed the tired editor. There is no
doubt he was profoundly respectful of his chosen lady; he understood
everything pained and precious in her nature, saw that striking union of
dutifulness and imagination. They had, after all, been introduced by
Herbert Spencer.
This grand alliance did not fail to irritate many people. A rival
