I have found in
Herbert Spencer. We see each other every day, and in everything we enjoy
a delightful comradeship. If it were not for him my life would be
singularly arid."

The Synthetic Philosophy was taking form in Spencer's mind, and
together they threshed out the straw and garnered the grain. She was
getting to be a necessity to Spencer--and he saw no reason why the
beautiful friendship should not continue just this way for years and
years. Both were literary grubbers and lived in boarding-houses of the
Class B variety.

And here George Henry Lewes appeared upon the scene. Legend says that
Spencer introduced Lewes to Miss Evans, and both Miss Evans and Mr.
Spencer were a bit in awe of him, for he was a literary success, and
they were willing to be. Lewes had written at this time sixteen
books--novels, essays, scientific treatises, poems, and a drama. He
spoke five languages, had studied medicine, theology, and had been a
lecturer and actor. He was small, had red hair, combed his whiskers by
the right oblique, and wore a yellow necktie. Thackeray says he was the
most learned and versatile man he ever knew, "and if I should see him in
Piccadilly, perched on a white elephant, I would not be in the least
surprised."

None of the various ventures of Lewes had paid very well, but he had
great hopes, and money enough to ride in a cab. He gave advice, and
radiated good-cheer wherever he went.

In Eighteen Hundred Fifty-four Lewes and Miss Evans disappeared from
London, having gone to Germany, leaving letters behind, stating that
thenceforward they wished to be considered as man and wife. Lewes was
in his fortieth year, and slightly bald; George Eliot was thirty-six,
and there were silver threads among the gold.

They had taken the philosophy of "Social Statics" in dead earnest.

Herbert Spencer lost appetite, ceased work, roamed through the park
aimlessly, and finally fell into a fit of sickness--"night air, and too
close confinement to mental tasks," the doctor said.

Spencer was not a marrying man--he was wedded to science, yet he craved
the companionship of the female mind. Had he and Miss Evans married, he
would doubtless have continued his work just the same. He would have
absorbed her into his being--they would have lived in a garret, and
possibly we might have had a better Synthetic Philosophy, if that were
possible.

But we would have had no "Adam Bede" nor "Mill on the Floss."

We often see mention, b