George Eliot Review Online

 

Authors

Margaret Harris

Date of this Version

2009

Document Type

Article

Citation

The George Eliot Review 40 (2009)

Comments

Published by The George Eliot Review Online https://GeorgeEliotReview.org

Abstract

Early in 1881, John Cross, widowed after only seven months of married life, set about the task of preparing a biography of his famous wife. He faced a number of challenges. The most daunting were the various sensitivities inherent in the life story of the woman best known as George Eliot. Two events were particularly confronting: Mary Ann Evans's loss of faith in the 1840s, and Marian Evans's decision in 1854 to live with George Henry Lewes although they could not marry. For Cross, in effect George Eliot's second husband, the treatment of Lewes and her relationship with him was naturally of particular concern. From the time of the eventual publication of George Eliot's Life as related in her letters and journals in January 1885, many readers have been frustrated by its blandness.' Prime Minister Gladstone's candid verdict has become famous: 'It is not a Life at all. It is a Reticence in three volumes.,2 But Cross's caution was intelligible, and this paper offers insight into some of his decisions as he worked on the Life, notably those about the portrayal of Lewes.

It had been a chance meeting that introduced the Leweses to the Cross family. In October 1867, George Lewes was on a short walking holiday with Herbert Spencer, ironically another significant figure in George Eliot's emotional history, when they encountered Mrs. Anna Cross and several of her daughters in Weybridge. The family was already known to Spencer. It was not until 1869 that the Leweses met John Cross, the second son, in Rome, and from that time a friendship developed. Cross made himself useful in many ways to the Leweses, both of whom addressed to him as 'Nephew'. He was instrumental in the purchase of their country home at Witley, advised them on investments, organized outings to places like the Bank of England, and introduced them to tennis and badminton. He provided considerable emotional and practical support to George Eliot after Lewes's death in November 1878, but the ways in which their relationship intensified into marriage remain obscure, as to some extent does the nature of the short-lived marriage, celebrated on 6 May 1880. Cross's account is in all senses partial, cast in terms of her 'want of close companionship' which enabled the formation of a 'bond of mutual dependence' (Life, Ill, 387).4 In writing George Eliot's Life, he was resolute though self-effacing in the role of champion, developing the image of a romantic artist and vulnerable woman that was not much challenged for over a century. As Barbara Hardy points out, 'It was a labour of love, and he edited character, life, and language to construct his image.'

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