Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/224

 Geneva. In October she took an apartment in the house of M. d'Albert, an artist, afterwards conservateur of the Athénée, still living in 1886. He and his wife, who died in 1880, became permanent friends of Miss Evans, and he published French translations of several of her novels. She took great interest in the d'Alberts' two boys, and rested from work, giving up for the time a translation of Spinoza's ‘Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,’ begun before her father's death. She returned under M. d'Albert's escort in March 1850, reaching England on the 23rd, visiting Griff, and going to the Brays at Rosehill in the beginning of May. She made her home with them for the next sixteen months. The ‘Westminster Review’ had been made over by J. S. Mill to Mr. Hickson in the spring of 1840, and was conducted by him for ten years (, Autobiography, p. 220). Messrs. Chapman and Mackay, who were now proposing to purchase it, came to Rosehill in October 1850 to discuss the matter with Bray. It was then, or soon afterwards, proposed that Miss Evans should take part of the editorial work. She contributed to the January number a review of Mackay's ‘Progress of the Intellect.’ Arrangements for the new series were completed in the summer of 1851, and in the September of that year Miss Evans went to board with the Chapmans at 142 Strand, and to act as assistant editor of the ‘Westminster Review.’ In October 1853 she moved to Cambridge Street, and ceased her editorial work. The drudgery of editing was often very trying; she had to read proofs, get up principles of taxation, form an opinion on ‘a thick German volume,’ and have interviews with several visitors on one day (, i. 241). The ‘Review’ appears to have made satisfactory progress at first. She found time to translate Feuerbach's ‘Essence of Christianity,’ which appeared under her real name (the only book so published) in July 1854, as part of Chapman's ‘Quarterly Series.’ The opinions of Comte were now attracting much notice, especially through the writings of J. S. Mill, Miss Martineau, and G. H. Lewes. Miss Evans was much attracted by positivism; she was afterwards on intimate terms with several leaders of the positivist body, and, though her adherence to its principles was always qualified, she subscribed to its funds, while her writings show a strong sympathy with its teaching. At this time she made the acquaintance of many men of intellectual eminence, and especially of Mr. Herbert Spencer, one of her lifelong friends. Through him she came to know George Henry Lewes, at this time editor of the ‘Leader,’ towards the end of 1851. In April 1853 she says that Lewes has ‘won her regard, after having had a good deal of her vituperation,’ and pronounces him to be a ‘man of heart and conscience, wearing a mask of flippancy.’

In July 1854 she entered into the connection with Lewes which she always regarded as a marriage though without the legal sanction. Lewes's home had been broken up for two years. She gives her own view of the case in a letter to Mrs. Bray on 4 Sept. 1855 (, i. 264), the union having created a temporary coolness with Mrs. Bray and Miss Hennell. She finds it difficult to understand how any ‘unworldly, unsuperstitious person’ can regard their relations as immoral. She had at a much earlier period expressed a strong objection to the indelibility of the marriage tie (ib. i. 410). The relation, of course, involved a social isolation, for which she accounts to her friends as rendered desirable by her intellectual occupations. It placed her in many ways in a false position, and enforced a painful self-consciousness which is traceable in many passages of her writings. No legal marriage, however, could have called forth greater mutual devotion. Lewes was a man of extraordinary versatility and acuteness, a most brilliant talker, and full of restless energy. His devotion to her was unfailing and unstinted; he was the warmest, as well as the most valued, admirer of her writings, suggested and criticised, undertook all business matters with publishers, and (judiciously or otherwise) kept reviews from her sight. No masculine jealousy interfered with his enthusiastic appreciation of her merits, and it was in great measure due to him that she was able to persevere in spite of nervous depression and feeble animal spirits. Of the effect upon himself he says in 1859 that to her he owed ‘all his prosperity and all his happiness’ (ib. ii. 62).

They left England together in July 1854, spent some time at Weimar, and passed the winter at Berlin, meeting many distinguished Germans, especially Liszt and Varnhagen von Ense (her recollections of Weimar are described in ‘Fraser's Magazine,’ June 1855). The Leweses returned to England in March, and in September settled at 8 Park Street, Richmond, where they lived for three years. Lewes's ‘Life of Goethe’ was published in the beginning of 1855, with marked and permanent success. Mrs. Lewes worked at a translation of Spinoza's ‘Ethics’ (which never appeared), wrote reviews in the ‘Leader,’ and the Belles-Lettres of the ‘Westminster’ for October. They had to work for the support of his wife and her children, as well as for themselves. A review of Dr. Cumming in the same ‘Westminster’ induced Lewes to tell