The Late Mr Lewes and George Eliot.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume I, Issue 15, 30 October 1879, Page 4

The Late Mr Lewes and George Eliot.

{London Correspondent PPew York Times.) The recent death of George Henry Lewes is recorded in all the journals, hut not a word is said about Miss Evans (George Eliot), who has lived with him for so many years. It had been given out long ago that the distinguished novelist was Mrs Lewes, but the real wife still lives. Miss Evans always claimed for her relationship with Lewes a Platonic friendship. She had an intense admiration for his ability, his scholarship, and his wellstored mind. He was certainly nothing to look at from a woman’s point of view, and Miss Evans herself never was beautiful. They were a well-matched pair, two sympathetic companions treading the same art path and rich in a high intellectual intercourse. The one who is left behind feels deeply the loss she has sustained, and the whole world will be sorry for her, apart from any narrow social considerations. Some readers may blame me for mentioning the true relationship of this illustrious couple, but it is so well known, and biographers will deal so freely and so fairly with it, that I do not hesitate to fulfil my duty of current historian, and fill in the hiatus which the discretion of local reporters have made conspicuous in their biographical reviews. There is, indeed, it seems to me, far more unkindness in excluding Miss Evans (known as Mrs Lewes in all art and literary society) from the public sympathy by not referring to her in notices of her companion’s death, and in honestly recording a relationship of which the great novelist is not ashamed.