to turn on a difference of opinion as to the marriage laws, and George Eliot's only defence, if any, is that she has not entered on ' light and easily broken ties.' But as a matter of fact she would have herself owned that this was no defence against setting herself at variance with the moral instincts of ail whom she held dear. It is true that six years before she had said, à propos of Jane Eyre:—
'All self-sacrifice is good, but one would like it to be in a somewhat nobler cause than that of a diabolical law which chains a man soul and body to a putrefying carcass,'
But that would be at best an excuse for Lewes, not for herself. As a matter of fact there was no excuse, and in a very significant letter to Mrs. Taylor she practically surrenders any pleas as regards the iniquity of the marriage laws, and desires the legal title she should theoretically have despised:—
'For the last six years I have ceased to be "Miss Evans" for any one who has personal relations with me—having held myself under all the responsibilities of a married woman. I wish this to be distinctly understood; and when I tell you that we have a great boy of eighteen at home who calls me "mother," as well as two other boys, almost as tall, who write to me under the same name, you will understand that the
