This marriage presents one of the curious ethical problems of literature.  In this case approval and condemnation are alike difficult.  Her own teaching condemns it; her own life approves it.  We could wish it had not been, for the sake of what is purest and best; and yet it is not difficult to see that its effects were in many ways beneficial to her.  That it was ethically wrong there is no doubt.  That it was condemned by her own teaching is so plain as to cause doubt about how she could herself approve it.

Lewes had a brilliant and versatile mind.  He was not a profound thinker, but he had keen literary tastes, a vigorous interest in science, and a remarkable alertness of intellect.  His gifts were varied rather than deep; literary rather than philosophical.  As a companion, he had a wonderful charm and magnetism; he was a graceful talker, a marvellous story-teller, and a wit seldom rivalled.  His intimate friend, Anthony Trollope, says, “There was never a man so pleasant as he with whom to sit and talk vague literary gossip over a cup of coffee and a cigar.”  By the same friend we are told that no man related a story as he did.  “No one could say that he was handsome.  The long bushy hair, and the thin cheeks, and the heavy mustache, joined as they were, alas! almost always to a look of sickness, were not attributes of beauty.  But there was a brilliance in his eye which was not to be tamed by any sickness, by any suffering, which overcame all other feeling on looking at him.”

George Henry Lewes was born in London, April 18, 1817.  His grandfather was a well-known comedian.  His education was received in a very desultory manner.  He was at school for a time in Jersey, and also in Brittany, where he acquired a thorough command of French.  Later he attended a famous school in Greenwich, kept by a Dr. Burney.  After leaving school he went into a notary’s office, and then he became a clerk to a Russia merchant.  His mind was, however, attracted to scientific and philosophic studies, and he betrayed little interest either in the law or in commercial pursuits.  Then he took up the study of medicine, giving thorough attention to anatomy and physiology.  It is said that his horror of the dissecting-room was so great as to cause him to abandon the purpose to become a physician.  All this time his mind was steadily drawn to philosophy, and he gave as much time to it as he could.  The bent, of his mind was early developed, and in 1836, when only nineteen, he had projected a treatise on the philosophy of mind, in which he proposed to give a physiological interpretation to the doctrines of Reid, Stewart and Brown.  At the age of twenty he gave a course of lectures on this subject; and to this line of thought he held ever after.  One of the influences which led to his departure from a strict interpretation of the Scotch metaphysicians was the influence of Spinoza.  As indicating the eagerness with which he pursued his studies in all