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GEORGE MOORE AND JOHN FREEMAN
proved indeed by Marian herself, who went to live with a married man and wrote under his roof Scenes From Clerical Life and other admonitory works, hanging herself out like a banner from the roof on which is inscribed the magic word: Excelsior!
Freeman: Lewes was her single transgression from the moral law.
Moore: Our information on the subject is too slight to warrant literary investigation, and further transgressions, could they be proved against her, would weaken my argument.
Freeman: You think then that the foundations of her style are to be discovered in Lewes?
Moore: Not in Lewes' writing, but in the double life she was leading.
Freeman: You trace George Eliot's style to a conflict between theory and conduct, and I think you are on surer ground now than you were in that fantastic theory that the name we bring into the world or that we assume is accountable for all our acts and thoughts.
Moore: Encouraged by your sympathy I will venture a little further into a theology which some will regard as casuistical, saying that if she had transgressed oftener her style would no longer be the same. You see, she may have gone to live with Lewes (indeed, it almost looks as if she had) for doctrinal reasons, false doctrine, of course. But if further transgressions could be urged against her we might assume that she was pussuing happiness, and happiness being in her mind would have found an outlet in her works. You see, my dear Mr Freeman, a woman who transgresses frequently, escapes (for some reason which we will not attempt to explore) the Christian conscience, and not having the Christian conscience we must acquit her of the sin against the Holy Ghost, a sin unforgivable on earth or in heaven, the one sin that the Pagan and the Christian world are agreed upon, their detestation being the same.
Freeman: If a man or woman cannot accept Christian doctrine you would advocate that he or she should lead a licentious life, escaping thereby from setting a bad example?
Moore: Licentious life! You fall into the makeshift argument of the preacher who would have us look upon Antiquity as a degrading past of which the least said the better.
Freeman: Antiquity affords the highest instances of morality.
Moore: As I have said, Antiquity and Christianity hold one sin in
