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Notes lacking, and the quiet of an orderly and beautiful home enabled him to concentrate himself more
and more on works demanding sustained intellectual effort, while Mrs. Lewes’s intensely feminine
nature found the strong man on whom to lean in the daily business of life, for which she was
physically and intellectually unfitted. Her own somewhat sombre cast of thought was cheered,
enlivened and diversified by the vivacity and versatility which characterized Mr. Lewes, and
made him seem less like an Englishman than a very agreeable foreigner.”
This marriage presents one of the curious ethical problems of literature. In this case approval and
condemnation are alike difficult. Her own teaching condemns it; her own life approves it. We
could wish it had not been, for the sake of what is purest and best; and yet it is not difficult to see
that its effects were in many ways beneficial to her. That it was ethically wrong there is no doubt.
That it was condemned by her own teaching is so plain as to cause doubt about how she could
herself approve it.
Lewes had a brilliant and versatile mind. He was not a profound thinker, but he had keen literary
tastes, a vigorous interest in science, and a remarkable alertness of intellect. His gifts were varied
rather than deep; literary rather than philosophical. As a companion, he had a wonderful charm
and magnetism; he was a graceful talker, a marvellous story-teller, and a wit seldom rivalled. His
intimate friend, Anthony Trollope, says, “There was never a man so pleasant as he with whom to
sit and talk vague literary gossip over a cup of coffee and a cigar.” By the same friend we are told
that no man related a story as he did. “No one could say that he was handsome. The long bushy hair,
and the thin cheeks, and the heavy mustache, joined as they were, alas! almost always to a look of
sickness, were not attributes of beauty. But there was a brilliance in his eye which was not to be
tamed by any sickness, by any suffering, which overcame all other feeling on looking at him.”

22.2 Views on Women

• "If a test of civilization be sought, none can be so sure as the condition of that half of society
over which the other half has power." The "test of civilization" refers to how well that
civilization protects minorities. She is saying that the acid test is how do those who are in
power treat those who are not? A wicked society oppresses them, and a moral society respects
them.
• "There is no country in the world where there is so much boasting of the 'chivalrous' treatment
she enjoys….In short, indulgence is given her as a substitute for justice." There is a saying
about people who live in a gilded cage; they are given luxury but they are imprisoned.
• Compared supposed morals to actual behavior. The Declaration of Independence express the
idea of equality, but both slavery and the treatment of women show a shortcoming of the
expressed morals. "Is it to be understood that the principles of the Declaration of Independence
bear no relation to half of the human race? If so, what is the ground of the limitation? If not
so, how is the restricted and dependent state of women to be reconciled with the proclamation
that "all are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"
• Said that women are made to believe that marriage is the only thing of real importance in a
woman's life-and that they are taught to pretend they don't think so.
• Said that the morals of women are crushed. Said that in America, "the whole apparatus of
public opinion is brought to bear offensively upon individuals among women who exercise
freedom of mind in deciding upon what duty is, and the methods by which it is to be
pursued" . Basically she says that women are denied ethical independence (form their own
ethical judgments); they can hold opinions, but are not allowed to act on them.
Marriage
• Says marriage in America seems like it is more fair and less worrisome than it is in other
countries. Marriage can never be fully successful "while the one sex overbears the other".

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