she spoke with reverence, and sometimes even too great tolerance.  But these afternoons had the highest pleasure when London was empty, or the day was wet, and only a few friends were present, so that her conversation assumed a more sustained tone than was possible when the rooms were full of shifting groups.  It was then that, without any premeditation, her sentences fell as fully formed, as wise, as weighty, as epigrammatic, as any to be found in her books.  Always ready, but never rapid, her talk was not only good in itself, but it encouraged the same in others, since she was an excellent listener, and eager to hear.”

At these gatherings the most noted of the English disciples of Comte were to be found, and among them Frederic Harrison, Prof.  E.S.  Beesley, Dr. Congrove, the director of the London Church of Humanity, and Prof.  W.K.  Clifford.  The English positivists were represented by Herbert Spencer, Prof.  T.H.  Huxley and Moncure D. Conway.  The realistic school of poets and artists came in the persons of its most representative men.  Dante Rosetti and Millais, Tourguenief and Burne Jones, DuMaurier and Dr. Hueffner illustrated most of its phases.  The great world of general literature sent Sir Arthur Helps, Sir Theodore Martin, Anthony Trollope, C.G.  Leland, Justin McCarthy, Frederic Myers, Prof.  Mark Pattison and many another.  The rarer guests included Alfred Tennyson and Robert Browning.  It was no inconsiderable influence which could draw together such a company and hold it together for many years.  Of the part played in these gatherings by the hosts, Miss Mathilde Blind has given an account.  Lewes acted “as a social cement.  His vivacity, his ready tact, the fascination of his manners, diffused that general sense of ease and abandon so requisite to foster an harmonious flow of conversation.  He was inimitable as a raconteur, and Thackeray, Trollope and Arthur Helps were fond of quoting some of the stories which he would dramatize in the telling.  One of the images which, on these occasions, recurs oftenest to George Eliot’s friends is that of the frail-looking woman who would sit with her chair drawn close to the fire, and whose winning womanliness of bearing and manners struck every one who had the privilege of an introduction to her.  Her long, pale face, with its strongly marked features, was less rugged in the mature prime of life than in youth, the inner meanings of her nature having worked themselves more and more to the surface, the mouth, with its benignant suavity of expression, especially softening the too prominent under lip and massive jaw.  Her abundant hair, untinged with gray, whose smooth bands made a kind of frame to the face, was covered by a lace or muslin cap, with lappets of rich point or Valenciennes lace fastened under her chin.  Her gray-blue eyes, under noticeable eyelashes, expressed the same acute sensitiveness as her long, thin, beautifully shaped hands.  She had a pleasant laugh and smile, her voice being low, distinct, and intensely sympathetic in quality; it was contralto in singing, but she seldom sang or played before more than one or two friends.  Though her conversation was perfectly easy, each sentence was as finished, as perfectly formed, as the style of her published works.”