Page:The Essays of George Eliot, ed. Sheppard, 1883.djvu/135

 And here is his own account of the spirit in which the book was written:

In one of these years Heine was married, and, in deference to the sentiments of his wife, married according to the rites of the Catholic Church. On this fact busy rumor afterward founded the story of his conversion to Catholicism, and could of course name the day and spot on which he abjured Protestanism. In his "Geständnisse" Heine publishes a denial of this rumor; less, he says, for the sake of depriving the Cath-