And on these points I may venture to record
my opinion that she was quite right. I always used to think that the
touch of Bohemianism about Lewes had a special charm for her. It must
have offered so piquant a contrast with the middle-class surroundings
of her early life. I observed that she listened with great complacency
to his talk of theatrical things and people. Lewes was fond of
talking about acting and actors, and in telling stories of
celebrated theatrical personages, would imitate--half involuntarily
perhaps--their voice and manner. I remember especially his doing this
with reference to Macready.
Both of them loved music extremely. It was a curious, and, to me,
rather pathetic study to watch Lewes--a man naturally self-sufficient
(I do not use the word in any odious sense), of a combative turn of
intellect, and with scarcely any diffidence in his nature--so humbly
admitting, and even insisting upon, "Polly's" superiority to himself
in every department. Once when he was walking with my wife in the
garden of their house in Surrey, she turned the conversation which had
been touching other topics to speak of George Eliot. "Oh," said Lewes,
stopping short and looking at her with those bright eyes of his,
"_Your blood be on your own head_! I didn't begin it; but if you wish
to speak of her, _I_ am always ready." It was this complete candour,
and the genuineness of his admiring love for her, which made its
manifestations delightful, and freed them from offence.
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