scientific journals.

These essays, enlarged, rewritten and revised, finally emerged in
Eighteen Hundred Fifty-one in the form of "Social Statics, or the
Conditions Essential to Human Happiness."

This book, so bold in its radical suggestions, now almost universally
admitted, was printed at the author's expense--a fact that should put a
quietus for all time upon all those indelicate and sarcastic allusions
concerning "when the author prints." There was an edition of seven
hundred fifty copies of the book, and it took every shilling the young
man had saved, and a few borrowed pounds as well, to pay the bill.

The book made no splash in the literary sea--nobody read it except a
dozen good people who did so as a matter of friendship.

After six years there were still five hundred copies left, and the
author wrote this slightly ironical line: "I am glad the public is
taking plenty of time to fully digest my work before passing judgment
upon it. Of all things, hasty criticisms are to be regretted."

Yet there was one person who read Herbert Spencer's first book with
close consideration and profound sympathy. This was a young woman, the
same age as Spencer, who had come up to London from the country to make
her fortune. Her name was Mary Ann Evans.

* * * * *

In "Notes and Comments," Spencer's last book, published two years before
his death, are several quotations and allusions to George Eliot. No
other woman is mentioned in the volume.

Herbert Spencer and Mary Ann Evans first met at the house of the editor
of the "Westminster Review" about the year Eighteen Hundred Fifty-one.
Their tastes, aptitudes and inclinations were much the same. They were
born the same year; both were brought up in the country; both were
naturalists by inclination, and scientists because they could not help
it. "Social Statics" made a profound impression on George Eliot, and she
protested to the last that it was the best book the author ever wrote.
He had read her "Essay on Spinoza," and remembered it so well that he
repeated a page of it the first time they met. They loved the same
things, and united, too, in their dislikes. Both were democrats, and the
cards, curds and custards of society were to them as naught. In a few
months after the first meeting, George Eliot wrote to a friend in
Warwickshire: "The bright side of my life, after the affection for my
old friends, is the new and delightful friendship which