Then his mind went back to the argument in what the
lady had said--he wanted to hear more.
"If this is so, that would prove that all the very clever women of history
were immoral--do you mean that?" he asked.
The lady laughed.
"Immoral! It is so quaint a word, my Paul! Each one sees it how they
will. For me it is immoral to be false, to be mean, to steal, to cheat, to
stoop to low actions and small ends. Yet one can be and do all those
things, and if one remains as well the faithful beast of burden to one man,
one is counted in the world a moral woman! But that shining light of
hypocrisy and virtue--to judge by her sentiments in her writings--your
George Eliot, must be classed as immoral because, having chosen her mate
without the law's blessing, she yet wrote the highest sentiments of British
respectability! To me she was being immoral _only_ because she was
deliberately doing what--, again I say, judging by her writings--she felt
must be a grievous wrong. That is immoral--deliberately to still one's
conscience and indulge in a pleasure against it. But to live a life with
one's love, if it engenders the most lofty aspirations, to me is highly
moral and good. I feel myself ennobled, exalted, because you are my lover,
and our child, when it comes to us, will have a noble mind.
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