GEORGE ELIOT [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In your
issue of August 20th " M. G." asks that, in justice to Geo. Eliot's memory, some statement may be made as to the question which has been raised about daughters " of George Henry Lewes. He had only three sons, my father being the eldest, and in spite of his wife having left him, he and George Eliot supported not only the wife but her four illegitimate children—a son and three daughters.
Mr. Richard Church asks for further light on Geo. Eliot's " emotional life," and there does certainly seem some need for enlightening some of those who write of her as they do. It seems of late as though her biographers, for want of real know- ledge, seek to supply data out of their own imaginations, and the result will probably be most misleading and do actual harm possibly to a generation who did not know her.
Geo. Eliot's views on marriage were far from being " free (as surely any reader of her novels must recognize), and there seems no possible excuse for this recent idea that her associa- tion with John Chapman was more than an ordinary friend- ship. Moreover, it is quite certain that the step she took in joining her life with that of Geo. Henry Lewes was not under- taken without most serious consideration. " Settled convic- tion " had nothing to do with it.
Perhaps the best insight of the " Real George Eliot " may be learned from what Arthur Paterson writes of her in hi, George Eliot's Family Life and Letters.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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