UNIVERSIT OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO 
 
 3 1822022364707
 
 ;.
 
 3 1822 02236 4707 
 
 Social Sciences & Humanities Library 
 
 University of California, San Diego 
 Please Note: This item is subject to recall. 
 
 Date Due 
 
 MAY * 3 1887
 
 famous (HJomeiu 
 
 HARRIET MARTINEAU.
 
 Already published : 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT. By Miss Blind. 
 EMILY BRONTE. By Miss Robinson. 
 GEORGE SAND. By Miss Thomas. 
 MARY LAMB. By Mrs. Gilchrist. 
 MARGARET FULLER. By Julia Ward Howe. 
 MARIA EDGEWORTH. By Miss Zimmern. 
 ELIZABETH FRY. By Mrs. E. R. Pitman. 
 THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY. By Vernon Lee. 
 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT. By Mrs. E. R. Pennell. 
 HARRIET MARTINEAU. By Mrs. F. Fenwick Miller. 
 RACHEL. By Mrs. Nina H. Kennard. 
 MADAME ROLAND. By Mathilde Blind. 
 SUSANNA WESLEY. By Eliza Clarke. 
 MARGARET OP ANGOULEME. By Miss Robinson. 
 MRS. SIDDONS. By Mrs. Nina H. Kennard. 
 MADAME DE STAEL. By Bella Duffy.
 
 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. F. FENWICK MILLER. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1887.
 
 Copyright, 1884, 
 BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS: 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE material for this biographical and critical 
 sketch of Harriet Martineau and her works 
 has been drawn from a variety of sources. 
 Some of it is quite new. Her own Autobiog- 
 raphy was completed in 1855 ; and there has 
 not hitherto been anything at all worth calling 
 a record of the twenty-one years during which 
 she lived and worked after that date. Even as 
 regards the earlier period, although, of course 
 I have drawn largely for facts upon the Auto- 
 biography, yet I have found much that is new 
 to relate. For some information and hints 
 about this period I am indebted to her relatives 
 of her own generation, Dr. James Martineau, 
 and Mrs. Henry Turner, of Nottingham, as 
 well as to one or two others. With reference 
 to the latest twenty-one years of her life, my 
 record is entirely fresh, though necessarily
 
 Vl PREFACE. 
 
 brief. Mrs. Chapman, of Boston, U. S. A., 
 has written a volume in completion of the 
 Autobiography, which should have covered this 
 later period ; but her account is little more 
 than a repetition, in a peculiar style, of the 
 story that Miss Martineau herself had told, and 
 leaves the later work of the life without syste- 
 matic record. As a well-known critic remarked 
 in Macmillan "This volume is one more illus- 
 tration of the folly of intrusting the composi- 
 tion of biography to persons who have only 
 the wholly irrelevant claim of intimate friend- 
 ship." But it should be remembered that 
 when Miss Martineau committed to Mrs. Chap- 
 man the task of writing a memorial sketch, 
 and when the latter accepted the undertaking, 
 both of them believed that the life and work 
 of the subject of it were practically over. I 
 have reason to know that if Harriet Martineau 
 had supposed it to be even remotely possible 
 that so much of her life remained to be spent 
 and recorded, she would have chosen some one 
 more skilled in literature, and more closely 
 acquainted with English literary and political 
 affairs, to complete her "Life." Having once
 
 PREFACE. vil 
 
 asked Mrs. Chapman to fulfill the task, how- 
 ever, Harriet Martineau was too loyal and gen- 
 erous a friend to remove it from her charge ; 
 and Mrs. Chapman, on her side, while contin- 
 ually begging instructions from her subject as 
 to what she was to say, and while doubtless 
 aware that she would not be adequate to the 
 undertaking which had grown so since she 
 accepted it, yet would not throw it off her 
 hands. But her volume is in no degree a rec- 
 ord of those last years, which constitute nearly 
 a third of Harriet Martineau's whole life. I 
 have had to seek facts and impressions about 
 that period almost entirely from other sources. 
 My deepest obligations are due, and must be 
 first expressed, to Mr. Henry G. Atkinson, the 
 dearest friend of Harriet Martineau's maturity. 
 It is commonly known that she forbade, by her 
 will, the publication of her private letters ; but 
 she showed her supreme faith in and value for 
 her friend, Mr. Atkinson, by specially exempt- 
 ing him from such prohibition. Her objection 
 to the publication of letters was made on gen- 
 eral grounds. Her own letters are singularly 
 beautiful specimens of their class ; and she
 
 viii . PREFACE. 
 
 declared that she would not mind if every word 
 that ever she wrote were published ; but she 
 looked upon it as a duty to uphold the principle 
 that letters should be held sacred confidences, 
 just as all honorable people hold private con- 
 versations, not to be published without leave. 
 But in authorizing Mr. Atkinson to print her 
 letters, if he pleased, she maintained that she 
 was not departing from this principle ; for it 
 was only the same as it would be if two friends 
 agreed to make their conversation known. I 
 feel deeply grateful to Mr. Atkinson for allow- 
 ing me the privilege of presenting some of her 
 letters to the public in this volume, and of 
 perusing very many more. 
 
 I have been permitted, also, to read a vast 
 number of Harriet Martineau's letters addressed 
 to other friends besides Mr. Atkinson, and how 
 much they have aided me in the following work 
 and in appreciating her personality, may easily 
 be guessed ; but, of course, I may not publish 
 these letters. Amongst many persons to whom 
 I am indebted for helping me to "get touch" 
 with my subject in this way, I must specially 
 thank two. Mr. Henry Reeve, the editor of
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 the Edinburgh Review, was a relative and inti- 
 mate friend of Harriet Martineau; and her 
 correspondence with so distinguished a man of 
 letters was, naturally, peculiarly interesting 
 not the less so because they differed altogether 
 on many matters of opinion. Her letters, which 
 Mr. Reeve has kindly allowed me to see, have 
 been of very great service to me. Miss F, 
 Arnold, of Fox How, (the youngest daughter 
 of Dr. Arnold, of Rugby,) is the second to 
 whom like particular acknowledgments is due. 
 She was young enough to have been Harriet 
 Martineau's daughter; but she was also a 
 beloved friend, and was almost a daily visitor at 
 "The Knoll" during the later years of Miss 
 Martineau's life. The letters which Miss 
 Arnold, during occasional absences from home, 
 received from her old friend, are very domestic, 
 lively, and characteristic of the writer. It has 
 been of great value to me to have seen all the 
 letters that have been lent me, but especially 
 these two sets, so different and yet so similiar 
 as I have found them to be. 
 
 I have visited Norwich, and seen the house 
 where Harriet Martineau was born ; Tyne-
 
 x PREFACE. 
 
 mouth, where she lay ill ; Ambleside, where 
 she lived so long and died at last ; and Birming- 
 ham, to see my valued friends, her nieces and 
 nephew. If I should thank by name all with 
 whom I have talked of her, and from whom I 
 have learned something about her, the list would 
 grow over-long ; and so I must content myself 
 with thus comprehensively expressing my sense 
 of individual obligations to all who have laid 
 even a small stone to this little memorial cairn. 
 
 F. F. M.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 THE CHILD AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL . . i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 EARLY WOMANHOOD ; DEVELOPING INFLUENCES 29 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 EARLIEST WRITINGS 49 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE, AND PROGRESS ... 67 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS 100 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS 130 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FIVE YEARS OF ILLNESS, AND THE MESMERIC 
 
 RECOVERY 155
 
 xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 THE HOME LIFE 178 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 IN THE MATURITY OF HER POWERS . . . 200 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 IN RETREAT ; JOURNALISM 231 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 THE LAST YEARS 264
 
 HARRIET MARTINE.AU. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CHILD AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. 
 
 WHEN Louis XIV. of France revoked the 
 Edict of Nantes, in 1688, a large number of 
 the Protestants who were driven out of France 
 by the impending persecutions came to seek 
 refuge in this favored land of liberty of ours. 
 Many who thus settled in our midst were 
 amongst the most skillful and industrious work- 
 ers, of various grades, that could have been 
 found in the dominions of the persecuting king 
 who drove them forth. They must have been, 
 too, in the nature of the case, strong-hearted, 
 clear in the comprehension of their principles, 
 and truthful and conscientious about matters of 
 opinion ; for the cowardly, the weak, and the 
 false could stay in their own land. From the 
 good stock of these exiles for conscience-sake 
 sprang Harriet Martineau. 
 
 Her paternal Huguenot ancestor was a sur-
 
 2 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 geon, who was married to a fellow-country- 
 woman and co-religionist of the name of Pierre. 
 This couple of exiles for freedom of opinion 
 settled in Norwich, where the husband pursued 
 his profession. Their descendants supplied a 
 constant succession of highly-respected sur- 
 geons to the same town, without intermission, 
 until the early part of this century, when the 
 line of medical practitioners was closed by the 
 death of Harriet Martineau's elder brother at 
 less than thirty years old. The Martineau 
 family thus long occupied a good professional 
 position in the town of Norwich. 
 
 Harriet's father, however, was not a surgeon, 
 but a manufacturer of stuffs, the very names of 
 which are now strange in our ears bomba- 
 zines and camlets. His wife was Elizabeth 
 Rankin, the daughter of a sugar-refiner of New- 
 castle-on-Tyne. A true Northumbrian woman 
 was Mrs. Martineau ; with a strong sense of 
 duty, but little warmth of temperament ; with 
 the faults of an imperious disposition, and its 
 correlative virtues of self-reliance and strength 
 of will. These qualities become abundantly 
 apparent in her in the story of her relationship 
 with her famous daughter. On both sides, 
 therefore, Harriet Martineau was endowed by 
 hereditary descent with the strong qualities 
 the power, the clear-headedness, and the keen
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. 3 
 
 conscience which she interfused into all the 
 work of her life. 
 
 Thomas and Elizabeth Martineau, her father 
 and mother, were the parents of eight children, 
 two of whom became widely known and influ- 
 ential as thinkers and writers. Harriet was 
 the sixth of the family, and was born at Nor- 
 wich, in Magdalen street, on the I2th of June, 
 1802, the mother being at that time thirty 
 I years old. The next child, born in 1805, was 
 the boy who grew up to become known as Dr. 
 James Martineau; so that the two who were to 
 make the family name famous were next to 
 each other in age. Another child followed in 
 this family group, but not until 1811, when 
 Harriet was nine years old, so that she could 
 experience with reference to this baby some of 
 that tender, protective affection which is such 
 an education for elder children, and so delight- 
 ful to girls with strong maternal instincts such 
 as she possessed. 
 
 The sixth child in a family of eight is likely 
 to be a personage of but small consequence. 
 The parents' pride has been somewhat satiated 
 by previous experiences of the wonders of the 
 dawning faculties of their children ; and the 
 indulgence which seems naturally given to " the 
 baby " gets comparatively soon transferred 
 from poor number six to that interloper number
 
 4 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 seven. Mrs. Martineau, too, was one of that 
 sort of women who, as they would say, do not 
 " spoil " their children. Ready to work for 
 them, to endure for them, to struggle to pro- 
 vide them with all necessary comforts, and even 
 with pleasures, at the cost, if need be, of per- 
 sonal sacrifice of comfort and pleasure, such 
 mothers yet do not give to their children that 
 bountiful outpouring of tender, caressing, ma- 
 ternal love, which the young as much require 
 for their due and free growth as plants do the 
 floods of the summer sunshine. To starve the 
 emotions in a child is not less cruel than to 
 stint its body of food. To repress and chain 
 up the feelings is to impose as great a hardship 
 as it would be to fetter the freedom of the 
 limbs. Mothers who have labored and suf- 
 fered through long years for the welfare of their 
 children, are often grieved and pained in after 
 days to find themselves regarded with respect 
 rather than with fondness ; but it was they 
 themselves who put the seal upon the fountains 
 of affection at the time when they might have 
 been opened freely and whose fault is it if, 
 later, the outflow is found to be checked for 
 evermore ? 
 
 The pity of it is that such mischief is often 
 wrought by parents who love their children 
 intensely, but who err in the management of
 
 A T HOME AND A T SCHOOL. 5 
 
 them for want of the wisdom of the heart, the 
 power of sympathetic feeling, which is seen so 
 much stronger sometimes in comparatively shal- 
 low natures than in the deeper ones that have 
 really more of love and of self-sacrifice in their 
 souls. Those who lack tenderness either of 
 manner or feeling, those to whom the full and 
 free expression of affection is difficult or seems 
 a folly, may perhaps be led to reflect, by the 
 story of Harriet Martineau's childhood, on the 
 suffering and error that may result from a 
 neglect of the moral command : " Parents, pro- 
 voke not your children to wrath." 
 
 " My life has had no spring," wrote Harriet 
 Martineau, sadly ; yet there was nothing in the 
 outer circumstances of her childhood and youth 
 to justify this feeling. Her mother's temper 
 and character were largely responsible for what 
 Harriet calls her " habit of misery " during 
 childhood. It is right to explain, however, that 
 this unhappiness was doubtless partly due to 
 physical causes. She was a weakly child, her 
 health having been undermined by the dis- 
 honesty of the wet nurse employed for her 
 during the first three months of her life. The 
 woman lost her milk, and managed to conceal 
 the fact until the baby was found to be in 
 an almost dying condition from the conse- 
 quences of want of nourishment. How far her
 
 6 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 frequent ill-health, during many succeeding 
 years, was to be ascribed to this cannot be 
 known ; but her mother naturally attributed all 
 Harriet's delicacy of health to this cause, even 
 the deafness from which she suffered, although 
 this did not become pronounced till she was 
 over twelve years of age. 
 
 Her deafness, which was the most commonly 
 known of her deficiencies of sensation, was not 
 her earliest deprivation of a sense. She was 
 never able to smell, that she could remember; 
 and as smell and taste are intimately joined 
 together, and a large part of what we believe 
 to be flavor is really odor, it naturally followed 
 that she was also nearly destitute of the sense 
 of taste. Thus two of the avenues by which 
 the mind receives impressions from the outer 
 world were closed to her all her life, and a 
 third was also stopped before she reached wo- 
 manhood. The senses are the gates by which 
 pleasure as well as pain enter into the citadel 
 where consciousness resides. Of all the senses, 
 those which most frequently give entrance to 
 pleasure and seldomest to pain, were those which 
 she had lost. "When three senses out of five 
 are deficient," as she said, "the difficulty of 
 cheerful living is great, and the terms of life 
 are truly hard." 
 
 She suffered greatly, even as a little child,
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. 7 
 
 from indigestion. Milk in particular disagreed 
 with her; but it was held essential by Mrs. 
 Martineau that children should eat bread and 
 milk, and for years poor Harriet endured daily 
 a lump at her chest and an oppression of the 
 spirits, induced by her inability to digest her 
 breakfast and supper. Nightmares and cause- 
 less apprehensions in the day also afflicted the 
 nervous and sensitive girl, and she had "hardly 
 any respite from terror." 
 
 A child so delicate in health could not have 
 been very happy under any home conditions. 
 Only a truly wise and tender maternal guardian- 
 ship could have made the life of such an one at 
 all tolerable; but Harriet Martineau was one 
 of the large family of a sharp-tempered, mas- 
 terful, stern, though devoted mother, whose 
 cleverness found vent in incessant sarcasm, and 
 in whom the love of power natural to a capable, 
 determined person degenerated, as it so often 
 does in domestic life, into a severe despotism. 
 
 Mrs. Martineau's circumstances were such as 
 to increase her natural tendency to stern and 
 decided rule. Dr. Martineau tells me that all 
 who knew his mother feel that Harriet does 
 not do justice in her "Autobiography" to that 
 mother's nobler qualities, both moral and intel- 
 lectual, and especially the latter. Harriet and 
 James Martineau, like so many other men and
 
 8 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 women of mark, were the children of a mother 
 of uncommon mental capacity. Her business 
 faculties were so good, and her judgment so 
 clear, that her husband (a man of a sweet and 
 gentle disposition) invariably took counsel with 
 her about all his affairs, and acted by her advice. 
 There are still inhabitants of Norwich who 
 remember Mrs. Martineau, and their testimony 
 of her is identical with her son's. "She was 
 the ruling spirit in that house," says one of 
 them. "Whatever was done there, you under- 
 stood that it was she who did it." The way in 
 which this gentleman came to know so much 
 of her corroborates Dr. Martineau's declaration 
 that "she was really devoted to her children, 
 and would do anything for them; if we were 
 miserable in our childhood (a fact which he 
 does not dispute) it could not be said to be con- 
 sciously her fault." Mr. was the husband 
 
 of a lady who had been reared from early child- 
 hood by Mrs. Martineau, having been adopted 
 by her simply in order to provide her little 
 daughter, Ellen, who was nine years younger 
 than Harriet, with a child companion somewhat 
 about her own age. This lady, her widowed 
 husband tells me, retained a most warm 
 
 admiration and affection for Mrs. Martineau. 
 
 x 
 
 Mothers who have brought up eight children 
 of their own can appreciate the self-devotedness
 
 A T HOME AND A T SCHOOL. 9 
 
 of this mother in receiving a ninth child by 
 adoption in order to increase the well-being of 
 her own little daughter. 
 
 Several other instances were told to me of 
 Mrs. Martineau's benevolence and kindness of 
 disposition. Young men belonging to her 
 religious body, and living in lodgings in Nor- 
 wich, were uniformly made welcome to her 
 house, as a home, every Sunday evening. One 
 of the Norwich residents, -with whom I have 
 talked about her, received a presentation from 
 her to the Unitarian Free School, and after- 
 wards, in his school life, met with constant 
 encouragement and patronage at her hands. 
 He tells me that he has never forgotten the 
 stately and impressive address with which she 
 gave him the presentation ticket, concluding 
 with a reminder that if he made good use of 
 this opportunity he might even hope one day 
 to become a member of the Town Council of 
 that city,- and at that giddy eminence her 
 protigt now stands. 
 
 For the sake of the lesson, it should be 
 understood that she was thus truly benevolent 
 and kindly, and no vulgar termagant or scold. 
 It is for us to see how such a nature can be 
 spoiled for daily life by too unchecked a course 
 of arbitrary rule, and by repression of outward 
 signs of tenderness.
 
 10 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Not the least evil which a stern parent, who 
 maintains a reserve of demeanor, and who 
 requires strictness of discipline within the 
 home, may do to himself and his children, is 
 that by denying expression to the children's 
 feelings he closes to himself the possibility of 
 knowing what goes on in their young minds. 
 Thus, a child so restrained may for years suffer 
 under a sense of injustice, and of undue 
 favoritism shown to another, or under a belief 
 that the parent's love is lacking, when a few 
 words might have cleared away the misappre- 
 hension, and given the child the natural happi- 
 ness of its age. 
 
 Speaking of her childhood, Harriet says : " I 
 had a devouring passion for justice; justice, 
 first, to my own precious self, and then to other 
 oppressed people. Justice was precisely what 
 was least understood in our house, in regard to 
 servants and children. Now and then I des- 
 perately poured out my complaints ; but in 
 general I brooded over my injuries and those 
 of others who dared not speak, and then the 
 temptation to suicide was very strong." 
 
 The most vivid picture that she has drawn of 
 the discipline under which such emotions were 
 induced in her is found in a story, The Crofton 
 Boys, which she wrote during a severe illness, 
 and under the impression that it would contain
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. II 
 
 her last words uttered through the press. Mrs. 
 Proctor, in The Crofton Boys, is depicted with 
 remarkable vividness by a series of little 
 touches, and in a succession of trivial details, 
 with an avoidance of direct description, that 
 reminds us of the method of Jane Austen. 
 Harriet never achieved any other portrait of a 
 character such as this one; for this is treated 
 with such minute fidelity, and such evident 
 unconsciousness, that we feel sure, as we some- 
 times do with a picture, that the likeness must 
 be an exact one. So distinct an individuality 
 is shown to us, and at the same time, the evi- 
 dences of the artist's close and careful observa- 
 tion of his model are so obvious, that, without 
 having seen the subject, we/^/the accuracy of 
 the likeness. So does the "portrait of a 
 mother " in that tale which Harriet wrote for 
 her last words through the press, show us the 
 nature of Mrs. Martineau in her maternal 
 relation. 
 
 " Mrs. Proctor so seldom praised anybody 
 that 'her words of esteem went a great way . . . 
 Everyone in the house was in the habit of hid- 
 ing tearsxfrom Mrs. Proctor, who rarely shed 
 them herself, and was known to think that 
 they might generally be suppressed, and should 
 be so." 
 
 If any person were weak enough to express
 
 12 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 emotion in this way in her presence, Mrs. Proc- 
 tor would promptly and sternly intimate her 
 disapproval of such indulgence of the feelings. 
 When the little lad was leaving home for the 
 first time, all the rest of the household became 
 a little unhappy o.ver the parting. 
 
 " Susan came in about the cord for his box, 
 and her eyes were red, and at the sight of 
 her Agnes began to cry again ; and Jane bent 
 down over the glove she was mending for him, 
 and her needle stopped. 
 
 " ' Jane,' said her mother, gravely, ' if you are 
 not mending that glove, give it to me. It is 
 getting late.' 
 
 "Jane brushed her hand across her eyes, and 
 stitched away again. Then she threw the 
 gloves to Hugh without looking at him, and ran 
 to get ready to go to the coach." 
 
 So little allowance was ordinarily made in 
 that house for signs of affection, or manifesta- 
 tions of personal attachment, that the child 
 who was going away for six months was 
 "amazed to find that his sisters were giving up 
 an hour of their lessons that they might go 
 with him to the coach." Even when Hugh got 
 his foot so crushed it had to be amputated, 
 though his mother came to him and gave him 
 every proper attention, yet " Hugh saw no tears 
 from her " ; nothing more than that " her face
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. 13 
 
 was very pale and grave." His anticipations of 
 her coming had not been warm ; his one anxiety 
 had been that he might bear his pain resolutely 
 before her. " As Hugh cried, he said he bore 
 it so very badly he did not know what his 
 mother would say if she saw him." And it 
 was well that he had not anticipated any out- 
 burst of pity or expression of sympathy from 
 her, for, when she did come, " she kissed him 
 with a long, long kiss ; but she did not speak." 
 Her first words in the hearing of her agonized 
 child were spoken to give him an intimation 
 that the surgeons were waiting to take off his 
 foot. The boy's reply was not to cling to her 
 for support, and to nestle in her bosom for com- 
 fort in the most terrible moment of his young 
 life, but " Do not stay now ; this pain is so 
 bad ! I can't bear it well at all. Do go, now, 
 and bid them make haste, will you ? " 
 
 Later, when the leg was better, the poor 
 boy's mental misery once overpowered him, 
 even in his mother's presence. Sitting with 
 her and his sister "... He said, 'He did 
 not know how he should bear his misfortune. 
 When he thought of the long, long days, and 
 months, and years, to the end of his life, and 
 that he should never run and play, and never 
 be like other people, and never able to do the 
 commonest things without labor and trouble,
 
 14 HAKRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 he wished he was dead. He would rather have 
 died ! ' Agnes thought he must be miserable 
 indeed if he would venture to say this to his 
 mother." Such was the idea that these chil- 
 dren had of maternal sympathy and love ! So 
 little did they look upon their mother as the 
 one person above all others to whom their 
 secret troubles should be opened ! 
 
 It is proper to observe that the mother came 
 out of this test well. There is no record that 
 Mrs. Martineau was ever found wanting in due 
 care for her children when the pent-up agony 
 of their bodies or spirits became so violent as 
 to burst the bonds of reserve that her general 
 demeanor and method of management imposed 
 upon them. Her children's misery (for Harriet 
 was not the only one of the family whose child- 
 hood was wretched) came not from any inten- 
 tional neglect, or even from any indifference on 
 her part to their comfort and happiness, but 
 solely, let it be repeated, from her arbitrary 
 manner and her quickness of temper. It is 
 worth repeating (if biography be of value for 
 the lessons which may be drawn from it for the 
 conduct of other lives) that the mother whose 
 children were so spirit-tossed and desolate was, 
 nevertheless, one who gave herself up to their 
 interests, and labored incessantly and unself- 
 ishly for their welfare. It was not love that
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. 15 
 
 really was wanting ; far less was it faithfulness 
 in the performance of a mother's material duties 
 to her children ; all that was lacking was the 
 free play of the emotions on the surface, the 
 kisses, the loving phrases, the fond tones, 
 which are assuredly neither weaknesses nor 
 works of supererogation in family life. By 
 means of candid expression alone can the emo- 
 tions of one mind touch those of another; and 
 from the lack of such contact between a child 
 and its mother there must come, in so close a 
 life relationship, misery to the younger and dis- 
 appointment to the elder of the two. 
 
 "I really think," says Harriet, "if I had once 
 conceived that anybody cared for me, nearly all 
 the sins and sorrows of my anxious childhood 
 would have been spared me." Yet, not only 
 was she well fed, well clothed, well educated, 
 and sent to amusements to give her pleasure 
 (magic lanterns, parties and seaside trips are all 
 mentioned) ; but besides all this, when she did 
 burst forth, like Hugh Proctor in the book, 
 with the expression of her suffering, she was 
 soothed and cared for. But this last happened 
 so rarely of course entirely because it was 
 made so difficult for her to express herself 
 that the occasions lived in her memory all her 
 life. 
 
 The moral consequences of all this were
 
 1 6 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 naturally bad. Even with all motherly sympa- 
 thy and encouragement, so sickly a child would 
 have been likely to suffer from timidity, and to 
 fall into occasional fits of despondency and 
 irritability; but, with fear continually excited 
 in her mind, and with an eternal storm of 
 passionate opposition to arbitrary authority 
 raging in her soul, it is no wonder that the 
 poor child made for herself a character for will- 
 fulness and obstinacy, while internally she suf- 
 fered dreadfully from her conscience. "In my 
 childhood," she says, "I would assert or deny 
 anything to my mother that would bring me 
 through most easily. . . . This was so ex- 
 clusively to one person that, though there was 
 remonstrance and punishment, I was never 
 regarded as a liar in the family." Her strength 
 of will was very great ; and when she had been 
 placed in a false position by her dread of re- 
 buke, the powerful will came into play to main- 
 tain a dogged, stubborn, indifferent appearance. 
 Yet all the while her conscientiousness the 
 strong convictions as to what was right, and the 
 ardent desire to do it, which marked her whole 
 career was at work within her, causing a 
 mental shame and distress which might have 
 been easily aided by gentle treatment to over- 
 come the fear and the firmness which were 
 acting together to make her miserable and a 
 sinner.
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. I/ 
 
 It is altogether a sad story, but I have not 
 told it at length without reason. The fact that 
 other children are suffering similarly every 
 day makes the record worth repeating. But, 
 besides this, her vivid remembrance of her 
 childish pangs tends to show how warm and 
 strong were her natural affections. If Harriet 
 Martineau's mind had not been sensitive and 
 emotional, and if her love for those united to 
 her by family ties had not been ardent, she 
 would not have felt as she did in her childhood, 
 and she would not have remembered, all through 
 her life, how she had suffered in her early years 
 from unsatisfied affection. Now, this soft, 
 loving, emotional side of her character must be 
 recognized before her life and her work can be 
 properly appreciated. 
 
 The intellectual influences of her home life 
 were not more happy than the moral ones. 
 She was thought by her family anything but a 
 clever child. Indeed, Dr. James Martineau 
 (whose recollections are peculiarly valuable, 
 both from his nearness to Harriet in age and 
 from their great attachment in early life) still 
 thinks that she really was a dull child. Her 
 intelligence, he believes, awoke only in her 
 later youth, coincidentally with some improve- 
 ment in health. It is hard to guess what the 
 impression of her childish intellectual powers
 
 1 8 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 might have been under different conditions. 
 She suggestively remarks*: " It should never 
 be forgotten that the happier a child is the 
 cleverer he will be. This is not only because 
 in a state of happiness the mind is free, and at 
 liberty for the exercise of its faculties instead 
 of spending its thoughts and energy in brood- 
 ing over troubles, but also because the action 
 of the brain is stronger when the frame is in a 
 state of hilarity ; the ideas are more clear, 
 impressions of outward objects are more vivid, 
 and the memory will not let them slip." More- 
 over, it is a fact worthy of note that the recog- 
 nition by her family of her mental development 
 followed upon her return home after she had 
 been away for a time, and had been learning at 
 a boarding-school under "the first person of 
 whom she never felt afraid." Still, the fact 
 remains that Harriet was the ugly duckling of 
 her family, and supposed to be the most stupid 
 of the group of Martineau children. 
 
 She was active-minded enough, however, to 
 begin early that spontaneous self-education 
 which only intellects of real power undertake, 
 either in childhood or in later years. 
 
 Milton was her master. When she was 
 seven years old she came by accident upon a 
 copy of Paradise Lost lying open upon a table. 
 
 * Household Education, p. 202.
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. 19 
 
 Taking it up, she saw the heading "Argument," 
 and in the text her eye caught the word 
 "Satan." Instantly the mind which her rela- 
 tions thought so sluggish was fired by the 
 desire to know how Satan could be argued 
 about. She sought the passage which tells 
 how the arch-fiend was 
 
 Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky, 
 With hideous ruin and combustion, down 
 To bottomless perdition, there to dwell 
 In adamantine chains and penal fire. 
 
 For the ensuing seven years her thoughts 
 dwelt daily in the midst of the solemn scenes, 
 and moved to the sound of the sonorous music 
 of Milton's poetry. " I wonder how much of it 
 I knew by heart enough to be always repeat- 
 ing it to myself with every change of light and 
 darkness, and sound, and silence, the moods of 
 the day and the seasons of the year." The 
 dull child, who neglected her multiplication 
 . table, did so because her mind was pre-occupied 
 with thoughts of this grander order. 
 
 Her love of books increased, and her range 
 of reading became wide. Milton, although the 
 favorite, was by no means her only beloved 
 author. She read rapidly, and, as clever chil- 
 dren often do, voraciously. Whole pages or 
 scenes from Shakespeare, Goldsmith, Thomp-
 
 20 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 son, and Milton she learned by heart, until she 
 knew enough poetry to have fitted her for the 
 occupation of a wandering reciter. In this way 
 her self-education in the English classics, and 
 in literary style, went on at the same time with 
 her daily education by living teachers. 
 
 Harriet's formal education was somewhat 
 desultory ; but it is a noteworthy fact that it 
 was, so far as it went, what would have been 
 called a "boy's education." In this respect 
 the history of her mental development is the 
 same as that of many other illustrious women 
 of the past. Girls' High Schools, and Univer- 
 sity examinations for young women, are prod- 
 ucts of the present day, and are rapidly ren- 
 dering obsolete the old ideas about the neces- 
 sary differences and distinctions between the 
 education of boys and girls. But up to the 
 first quarter of this century, the minds of boys 
 and of girls were commonly submitted to entirely 
 different courses of training. While the boys 
 learned precision in reasoning from mathematics, 
 the girls were considered sufficiently equipped 
 for their lot in life by a knowledge of the 
 first three rules of arithmetic. While any fac- 
 ulty of language that a lad possessed was trained 
 and exercised by the study of the classics, his 
 sister was thought to require no more teaching 
 in composition and grammar than would enable
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. 21 
 
 her to write a letter. Elaborate samplers, spec- 
 imens of fine stitching, of hemming done by a 
 thread on the most delicate cambric, of marking 
 in tiny stitches and wonderful designs, and of 
 lace more noticeable for difficulty in the doing 
 than for beauty, have come down to us from 
 our grandmothers' days, to show us how the 
 school-time of the girls was being disposed of, 
 while the boys were studying Euclid, Virgil, 
 and Homer. If we have changed all that, and 
 are now beginning to give a considerable pro- 
 portion of our girls the same mental diet for 
 the growth and sustenance of their minds witK 
 that which is supplied to boys, it is largely 
 owing to the direct efforts in favor of such a 
 course put forth by women such as Harriet 
 Martineau, who had themselves been, at least 
 partially, educated "like boys," and were con- 
 scious that to such education they owed much 
 of their mental superiority over average women. 
 In her earlier years Harriet was taught at 
 home by her elder brothers and sisters, with 
 the addition of lessons in some subjects from 
 masters. She was well grounded in this man- 
 ner in Latin, French and the ordinary element- 
 ary subjects. But her systematic education did 
 not begin until she was eleven, when she and 
 her sister Rachel were sent to a school kept by 
 a good master, at which boys also were receiv- 
 ing their education.
 
 22 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 The school-life was delectable to Harriet. 
 Mr. Perry, the master, was gentle in his man- 
 ner, and methodical in his style of teaching ; 
 and under his tuition the shy, nervous child felt 
 for the first time encouraged to do her best, and 
 aided not merely to learn her lessons, but also 
 to expand her mental faculties. The two years 
 that she remained at Mr. Perry's school gave 
 her a fair insight into Latin and French, and 
 enabled her to discover that arithmetic was to 
 her mind a delightful pastime rather than a 
 difficult study. English composition was for- 
 mally and carefully taught. This was Harriet's 
 favorite lesson ; but she would spend her play- 
 time in covering a slate with sums for the mere 
 pleasure of the exercise 
 
 When Harriet had been at this school for 
 about two years, Mr. Perry left Norwich. The 
 home system of education was then resumed. 
 She had visiting masters in Latin, French, and 
 music. For the rest, Mrs. Martineau selected 
 a course of reading on history, biography, and 
 literature. One of the girls read aloud daily 
 while the others did needle-work. 
 
 "The amount of time we spent in sewing now 
 appears frightful ; but it was the way in those 
 days among people like ourselves." Harriet be- 
 came a thoroughly accomplished needle-woman. 
 She had, indeed, a liking for the occupation,
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. 23 
 
 and continued to do much of it all through 
 her life. Many of her friends can show hand- 
 some pieces of fancy-work done by her hands. 
 Again and again she contributed to public 
 objects by sending a piece of her own beautiful 
 needle-work to be sold for the benefit of a 
 society's funds. Not even in the busiest time 
 of her literary life did she ever entirely cease 
 to exercise her skill in this feminine occupa- 
 tion. In fact, she made wool-work her artistic 
 recreation. 
 
 But with all her liking for needle-work, and 
 with all the use that she made of her skill in 
 the art, she did feel very keenly how much her 
 time and strength had been wasted in child- 
 hood upon the practice of this mechanical occu- 
 pation that should have been employed in the 
 cultivation of her mental powers. A girl then 
 was required to become a proficient in the 
 making of every kind of garment. It was con- 
 sidered a good test of her capacity to know at 
 an early age how to cut out and put together a 
 shirt for her father; drawing threads to cut it 
 by, and drawing threads to do the rows of fine 
 stitching by, and stitching evenly and regularly, 
 only two threads of the finest material being 
 taken for each stitch ! The expenditure of time 
 out of a girl's life, involved in making her capa- 
 ble of doing all this, was something shocking.
 
 24 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 In these days, when the development of the 
 means of communication has made division of 
 labor more generally practicable than of old, 
 and when nearly all men and women, from the 
 richest to the artizan classes, wear garments 
 made chiefly by machinery, I doubt if many 
 readers can be got to realize how much a girl's 
 intellectual training was diminished when Har- 
 riet Martineau was a child by the vast amount 
 of time consumed in training her as a seam- 
 stress. Harriet was taught how to make all 
 her own clothes, even to covering shoes with 
 silk for dancing, and to plaiting straw bonnets. 
 It is as though every boy were taught in his 
 school-life to be a thorough carpenter, so as to 
 be able, in youth, to turn out, unaided, any arti- 
 cle of furniture. It is obvious how much time 
 such technical training must swallow up. To 
 conceive how a girl was held back by it, we 
 must ask ourselves : What was her brother 
 doing while she was learning needle-work ? 
 
 The matter did not end with the waste of 
 time alone. Health, strength and nerve-force 
 in a word, power was squandered upon it 
 to a degree truly lamentable. Harriet Marti- 
 neau's testimony* upon this point may be 
 taken, because of her real fondness for the 
 employment and the skill which she displayed 
 in it : 
 
 * Household Education, p. 286.
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. 2$ 
 
 " I believe it is now generally agreed among 
 those who know best that the practice of 
 sewing has been carried much too far for 
 health, even in houses where there is no poverty 
 or pressure of any kind. No one can well be 
 more fond of sewing than I am, and few, except 
 professional seamstresses, have done more of 
 it, and my testimony is that it is a most hurtful 
 occupation, except where great moderation is 
 observed. I think it is not so much the sitting 
 and stooping posture as the incessant monoto- 
 nous action and position of the arms that 
 causes such wear and tear. Whatever it may 
 be, there is something in prolonged sewing 
 which is remarkably exhausting to the strength, 
 and irritating beyond endurance to the nerves. 
 The censorious gossip, during sewing, which 
 was the bane of our youth," she adds, "wasted 
 more of our precious youthful powers and dis- 
 positions than any repentance and amendment 
 in after life could repair." 
 
 Harriet's reading for pleasure in childhood 
 had mostly to be done by snatches. She 
 learned much poetry by keeping the book 
 under her work, on her lap, and glancing at a 
 line now and another then. Shakespeare she 
 first enjoyed, while a child, by stealing away 
 from table in the evenings of one winter, and 
 reading by the light of the drawing-room fire, 
 while the rest lingered over dessert in the 
 dining-room. In this way, too, she had to read 
 the newspaper.
 
 26 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 The older she grew, the less time was afforded 
 her from domestic duties for study. She was 
 sent, at the age of fourteen, to a boarding- 
 school near Bristol, kept by an aunt of her 
 own, where she stayed fifteen months, and on 
 her return home her education was considered 
 finished. Thenceforth it was a struggle to 
 obtain permission to spend any time in reading 
 or writing, and such opportunities as she got, 
 or could make, had to be taken advantage of 
 in secresy. 
 
 It is melancholy to read of her "spending a 
 frightful amount of time in sewing," and being 
 " expected always to sit down in the parlor to 
 sew," instead of studying; of her being "at 
 the work-table regularly after breakfast, making 
 my own clothes or the shirts of the household, 
 or about some fancy work, or if ever I shut 
 myself into my own room for an hour of soli- 
 tude, I knew it was at the risk of being sent 
 for to join the sewing-circle;" and of the 
 necessity that she lay under to find time for 
 study by stealing secret hours from sleep. But 
 it is needful to lay stress upon these hindrances 
 through which the growing girl fought her 
 way to mental development. Wide though her 
 knowledge was, great though her mental powers 
 became, who can tell how much was taken from 
 her possibilities (as from those of all other
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. 2? 
 
 great women of the past) by such waste of her 
 powers in childhood and youth ? 
 
 It is distressing to think about. The only 
 comfort is that it was inevitable. Of all the 
 causes that unite to make the women of the 
 present more favorably circumstanced than 
 those of the past, none is more potent than 
 the progress of mechanical discovery having 
 relieved them from the necessity of making all 
 the clothing of mankind with their own hands. 
 From the era when Errina, the Greek poetess, 
 mournfully lamented that her mother tied 
 her to her distaff, down to the days in which 
 Harriet Martineau studied by snatches, and 
 spent her days in making shirts in the parlor, 
 an enormous amount of feminine power has 
 been squandered wastefully in this direction. If 
 women hereafter draw out a Comtist calendar 
 of days upon which to reverence the memory 
 of those who have helped them on in the scale 
 of beings, assuredly they must find places for 
 the inventors of the spinning-mule, the stock- 
 ing-loom and the sewing-machine. 
 
 Religion formed the chief source of happi- 
 ness to Harriet Martineau in childhood and 
 early youth. Her parents were Unitarians, and 
 their child's theology was, therefore, of a mild 
 type, lacking a hell, a personal devil, a theory 
 of original sin, and the like. She did not fear
 
 28 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 God, while she feared almost all human beings, 
 and her devotion was thus a source of great joy 
 and little misery. 
 
 When she was at the Bristol boarding-school, 
 she came under the ministerial influence of the 
 great Unitarian preacher, the Rev. Dr. Car- 
 penter. The power of his teaching increased 
 the ardor of her religious sentiments. She was 
 just at an intense age between fourteen and 
 sixteen. Dr. Carpenter's religious instructions 
 made the theism in which she had been edu- 
 cated become a firm personal conviction, and 
 caused the natural action of ' a sensitive con- 
 science, the self-devotion and humility of a 
 deep power of veneration, and the truthfulness 
 and sincerity of a rare courage, to be blended 
 indistinguishably in their exercise with emo- 
 tional outpourings of the spirit in worship, and 
 with attachment to certain theological tenets. 
 
 Her younger sister well remembers that 
 Harriet's fervent and somewhat gloomy piety 
 was the cause of a good deal of quizzing 
 amongst her elders, when she returned home 
 from Bristol ; their amusement being mixed, 
 however, with much respect for her sincerity 
 and conscientiousness. But, as her mind 
 expanded, she thought as well as felt about her 
 theology, and her religious development did not 
 end with childhood.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EARLY WOMANHOOD : DEVELOPING INFLUENCES. 
 
 OLD Norwich, in the early years of this century, 
 was a somewhat exceptional place. It so 
 chanced that besides the exclusiveness natural 
 even now to the society of a cathedral town 
 besides the insular tone of thought and man- 
 ners which most towns possessed in those pre- 
 railway days, and while our continental wars 
 were holding our country-people isolated from 
 foreign nations besides all this, Norwich then 
 prided herself upon having produced a good deal 
 of literary ability. Her William Taylor was 
 considered to be almost the only German scholar 
 in England, and other men, whose names are 
 now nearly forgotten, but who in their day were 
 looked up to as lights of learning and litera- 
 ture Sayers, Smith, Enfield, Aklerson, and 
 others, gave a tone to the society of Norwich, 
 which, if somewhat pedantic, was, nevertheless, 
 favorable to the intellectual life. It is no small 
 testimony to the healthy and stimulating men- 
 tal atmosphere of old Norwich that there sue-
 
 30 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 cessively came out from her, in an age when 
 individuality and intellect in woman were stead- 
 ily repressed, three women of such mark as 
 Amelia Opie, Elizabeth Fry and Harriet Mar- 
 tineau. 
 
 But even in Norwich the repression just 
 alluded to was felt by women. Even there it 
 was held, to say the least, peculiar and unde- 
 sirable for a girl to wish to study deep subjects. 
 "When I was young," Miss Martineau writes, 
 "it was not thought proper for young ladies to 
 study very conspicuously; and especially with 
 pen in hand." They were required to be always 
 ready "to receive callers, without any sign of 
 blue-stockingism which could be reported abroad. 
 My first studies in philosophy were carried on 
 with great care and reserve. ... I won time 
 for what my heart was set upon either in the 
 early morning or late at night." 
 
 It was thus at unseasonable hours, and with- 
 out the encouraging support of that public 
 feeling of the value and desirability of knowl- 
 edge, and the honorableness of its acquisition, 
 by which a young man's studies are uncon- 
 sciously aided, that Harriet in her young woman- 
 hood continued to learn. She read Latin with 
 her brother James, and translated from the 
 classics by herself. Her cousin, Mr. Lee, read 
 Italian with her and her sister ; and in course
 
 EARLY WOMANHOOD. 31 
 
 of time they undertook the translation of 
 Petrarch's sonnets into English verse. She read 
 Blair's Rhetoric repeatedly. Her Biblical stud- 
 ies were continued until she was in that position 
 which, according to Macaulay, is necessary " for 
 a critic of the niceties of the English language ; " 
 she had "the Bible at her fingers' ends." 
 
 But her solitary studies went also into heavier 
 and less frequented paths.. Dr. Carpenter had 
 taught her to interest herself in mental and 
 moral philosophy. She read about these sub- 
 jects at first because he had written upon them, 
 and afterwards because she found them really 
 congenial to her mind. Locke and Hartley 
 were the authors whom she studied most closely. 
 Then the works of Priestley, and the study of his 
 life and opinions which she naturally under- 
 took, because Dr. Priestley was the great apos- 
 tle and martyr of Unitarianism led her to 
 make a very full acquaintance with the meta- 
 physicians of the Scotch school. 
 
 To how much purpose she thus read the best 
 books then available, upon some of the highest 
 topics that can engage the attention, soon 
 became apparent when she began to write ; but 
 of this I must speak in due course later on. 
 Two other of the most important events, or 
 rather trains of events, in the history of her 
 young womanhood, must be mentioned first.
 
 32 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 The earlier of these was the gradual on- 
 coming and increase of her deafness. She 
 began to be slightly deaf while she was at Mr. 
 Perry's school, and the fact was there recognized 
 so far as to cause her to be placed next to her 
 teacher in the class. How keenly she even then 
 felt this loss, she has in part revealed in the 
 story of Hugh Procter ; and a few lines from an 
 essay of hers on Scott may here be added : 
 
 "Few have any idea of the all-powerful influ- 
 ence which the sense of personal infirmity 
 exerts over the mind of a child. If it were 
 known, its apparent disproportionateness to 
 other influences would, to the careless observer, 
 appear absurd ; to the thoughtful it would afford 
 new lights respecting the conduct of educa- 
 tional discipline ; it would also pierce the heart 
 of many a parent who now believes that he 
 knows all, and who feels so tender a regret for 
 what he knows that even the sufferer wonders 
 at its extent. But this is a species of suffering 
 which can never obtain sufficient sympathy, 
 because the sufferer himself is not aware, till he 
 has made comparison of this with other pains, 
 how light all others are in comparison." 
 
 As pathetically, but more briefly, she says 
 about herself : " My deafness, when new, was 
 the uppermost thing in my mind day and 
 night."
 
 EARLY WOMANHOOD. 33 
 
 Her inability to hear continued to increase 
 by slow degrees during the next six years ; and 
 when she was eighteen "a sort of accident" 
 suddenly increased it. Music had, until then, 
 been one of her great delights, and it shows 
 how gradual was the progress of her deafness, 
 that she found herself able to hear at an orches- 
 tral concert, provided she could get a seat with 
 a back against which she could press her 
 shoulder-blades, for a long time after the music 
 had become inaudible without this assistance. 
 Such a gradual deprivation of a most important 
 sense is surely far more trying than a quick, 
 unexpected, and obviously irremediable loss 
 would be. The alternations of hope and de- 
 spair, the difficulty of inducing the sufferer's 
 friends to recognize how serious the case is, 
 the perhaps yet greater difficulty to the patient 
 to resolutely step out of the ranks of ordinary 
 people and take up the position of one deficient 
 in a sense, the mortifications which have to 
 be endured again and again both from the igno- 
 rance of strangers and the mistaken sympathy 
 of friends all these make up the special trial 
 of one who becomes by degrees the subject of 
 a chronic affection. No sensitive person can 
 possibly pass through this fiery trial unchanged. 
 Such an experience must either refine or 
 harden ; must either strengthen the powers of
 
 34 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 endurance or break down the mind to querulous 
 ill-temper ; must either make self the centre of 
 creation or greatly add to the power of putting 
 personal interests aside for the sake of wider 
 and more unselfish thoughts and feelings. 
 Which class of influences Harriet Martineau 
 accepted from her trial the history of her cour- 
 ageous, resolute life-work, and her devotion to 
 truth and duty as she saw them, will sufficiently 
 show. 
 
 How much she suffered in mind was quite 
 unknown to her family at the time. She was 
 always reserved in speaking about her own 
 feelings and emotions to her mother, and in 
 this particular case Mrs. Martineau, with the 
 kindest intentions, discouraged, as far as possi- 
 ble, all recognition of the growing infirmity. 
 The society of Norwich had never been very 
 attractive to the young girl, who was above the 
 average in natural abilities, and still further 
 removed from the petty and frivolous gossip of 
 the commonplace evening party, by the exten- 
 sive and elevating course of study through 
 which her mind had passed. Had she been 
 well able to hear, she could have quietly ac- 
 cepted what such intercourse could give her. 
 This would have been much. Kindliness and 
 good feeling, common sense, and ideas about 
 man and his circumstances, are to be enjoyed
 
 EARLY WOMANHOOD. 35 
 
 and gained quite as much in ordinary as in what 
 is commonly called intellectual society. But 
 in the freshness of her sensitive suffering Har- 
 riet shrank from the Norwich evening parties. 
 Her mother, however, insisted upon her taking 
 her full share of visiting. 
 
 The case was made worse by the customary 
 errors in the treatment of deaf persons ; namely, 
 the endeavoring to keep up the illusion that 
 she was not deaf, the occasional assurances that 
 she could hear as well as ever if it were not 
 for her habits of abstraction, and so forth, and 
 the imploring her to always ask when she did 
 not hear what was said, followed by scoldings 
 (kindly meant, but none the less irritating to 
 the object) when it was found that she had 
 been silently losing the larger part of a conver- 
 sation. False pride, pretence, and selfish exac- 
 tions were thus sought to be nourished in her ; 
 while the blessings of an open recognition of 
 her trouble, and a full and free sympathy with 
 her pain and her difficulty in learning to bear 
 it, were at the same time withheld. 
 
 I have spoken of this method of treatment 
 of such a case as erroneous. But in such a 
 matter only those who have gone through the 
 experience and have come out of it at last, as 
 she did, with the moral nature strengthened, 
 and the power of self-management increased,
 
 36 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 can be really competent to express an opinion 
 upon the proper method of behavior to similar 
 sufferers. I hasten to add, therefore, that in 
 substance the view that I have given is that 
 expressed in Harriet Martineau's Letter to the 
 Deaf, published in 1834. In that remarkable 
 fragment of autobiography she appealed to 
 the large number of people who suffered like 
 herself, to insist upon the frank recognition of 
 their infirmity, and to themselves acquiesce 
 with patience in all the deprivations and morti- 
 fications which the loss of a sense must bring. 
 The revelation in this essay of her own suffer- 
 ings is most touching ; and very noble and 
 beautiful is the way in which she urges that the 
 misery must be met, and the humiliation must 
 be turned aside, by no other means than cour- 
 age, candor, patience, and an unselfish deter- 
 mination to consider first the convenience and 
 happiness of others instead of the sufferer's 
 own. 
 
 "Instead of putting the singularity out of 
 sight we should acknowledge it in words, pre- 
 pare for it in habits, and act upon it in social 
 intercourse. Thus only can we save others 
 from being uneasy in our presence, and sad 
 when they think of us. That we can thus alone 
 make ourselves sought and beloved is an infe- 
 rior consideration, though an important one to 
 us, to whom warmth and kindness are as pecu-
 
 EARLY WOMANHOOD. 37 
 
 liarly animating as sunshine to the caged bird. 
 This frankness, simplicity, and cheerfulness 
 can only grow out of a perfect acquiescence in 
 our circumstances. Submission is not enough. 
 Pride fails at the most critical moment. But 
 hearty acquiescence cannot fail to bring forth 
 cheerfulness. The thrill of delight which 
 arises during the ready agreement to profit by 
 pain (emphatically the joy with which no 
 stranger intermeddleth) must subside like all 
 other emotions ; but it does not depart without 
 leaving the spirit lightened and cheered ; and 
 every visitation leaves it in a more genial state 
 than the last. ... I had infinitely rather bear 
 the perpetual sense of* privation than become 
 unaware of anything which is true of my 
 intellectual deficiences, of my disqualifications 
 for society, of my errors in matter of fact, and 
 of the burdens that I necessarily impose on 
 those who surround me. We can never get 
 beyond the necessity of keeping in full view 
 the worst and the best that can be made of our 
 lot. The worst is either to sink under the trial 
 or to be made callous by it. The best is to be 
 as wise as possible under a great disability, and 
 as happy as possible under a great privation." 
 
 It is essential, for a correct understanding of 
 her character, that this great trial of her youth 
 should be presented amidst the moulding influ- 
 ences of that time with as much strength as it 
 was experienced. But it is difficult, within the 
 necessary limits of quotation, to convey an idea
 
 38 HAKRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 to the reader of either the intensity and bitter- 
 ness of the suffering revealed, or of the firm- 
 ness and beauty of the spirit with which the 
 trial was met. Nor was the advice that she 
 gave to others mere talk, which she herself 
 never put in practice. If her family did not 
 realize at the time how deeply she suffered, still 
 less could her friends in later life discover by 
 anything in her manners that her soul had been 
 so searched and her spirits so tried. So frankly 
 and candidly, and with such an utter absence of 
 affectation, did she accept this condition of her 
 life, that those around her hardly realized that 
 she felt it as a deprivation ; and a few lines 
 in her autobiography, in which she mentions 
 how conscious she was of intellectual fatigue 
 from the lack of those distractions to the mind 
 which enter continually through the normal ear, 
 came like a painful shock to her friends, mak- 
 ing them feel that they had been unconscious 
 of a need ever present with her throughout life. 
 For some time after the deafness began, she 
 did not use an ear-trumpet. Like many in a 
 similar position, she persuaded herself that her 
 deafness was not sufficiently great to cause any 
 considerable inconvenience to others in conver- 
 sation. At length, however, she was enlight- 
 ened upon this point. An account appeared in 
 a Unitarian paper of two remarkable cures of
 
 EARLY WOMANHOOD. 39 
 
 deafness by galvanism, and Harriet's friends 
 persuaded her to try this new remedy. For a 
 brief while, hope was revived in her ; the treat- 
 ment threw her into a state of nervous fever, 
 during which she regained considerable sensi- 
 bility in the organ of hearing. The improve- 
 ment was very temporary, but it lasted suffi- 
 ciently long to let her know how much her 
 friends had been straining their throats for her 
 sake. From that time she invariably carried 
 and used an ear-trumpet, commencing with an 
 india-rubber tube, with a cup at the end for 
 the speaker to take into his hand, but after- 
 wards employing an ordinary stiff trumpet. 
 
 Into this existence, which had hitherto been 
 so full of sadness, there came at length the 
 bright-tinted and vivid shower of light, which 
 means so much to a woman. Love came to 
 brighten the life so dark hitherto for lack of that 
 sunshine. Much as it is to any woman to know 
 herself beloved by the man whom she loves, to 
 Harriet Martineau it was even more than to 
 most. It was not only that her character was 
 a strong one, and that to such a nature all influ- 
 ences that are accepted become powerful forces, 
 but besides this she had always loved more than 
 she had been loved ; and her self-esteem had 
 been systematically suppressed by her mother's 
 stern discipline, and afterwards injured by the
 
 40 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 mortifications to which the on-coming of her 
 deafness gave rise. How much, in such a case, 
 it must have been, when the hour at last came 
 for the history of the heart to be written ! How 
 delightful the time when she could cherish in 
 her thoughts a love which was at once an equal 
 friendship and a vivid passion ! How great the 
 revolution in her mind when she found that the 
 man whom she could love would choose her 
 from all the world of women to be his dearest, 
 the partner of his life ! 
 
 It would be a proof, if proof were needed at 
 this time of day, that it is well-nigh impossible 
 for any person to give a candid, full and uner- 
 ring record of his own past, and the circum- 
 stances in it which have most influenced his 
 development, to turn from the brief and cursory 
 record which Harriet Martineau's autobiography 
 gives of this attachment, to the complete story 
 as I have it to tell, her^and in a future chapter. 
 
 The strongest of all the family affections of 
 her childhood and youth was that which she 
 felt for her brother James. He was two years 
 younger than herself. They had been play- 
 mates in childhood, and companions in study 
 later on. Harriet's first attraction to Mr. 
 Worthington was that he was her brother's 
 friend. The two young men were fellow- 
 students at college, preparing for the Unitarian
 
 EARLY WOMANHOOD. 41 
 
 ministry. Worthington was already well known 
 to Harriet from her brother's letters before 
 she saw him. He then went on a visit to 
 Norwich, to spend a part of the vacation with 
 James, and the interest which the friend and 
 the sister already felt in each other, from their 
 mutual affection for the brother, soon ripened 
 into love. This was, I believe, in 1822, when 
 she was twenty years old. 
 
 Her father and mother looked not unkindly 
 upon the dawning of this affection. The 
 brother, however, who knew the two so well, 
 felt quite certain that they were not suited for 
 each other. Harriet was of a strong, decided 
 temper, even somewhat arbitrary and hasty, 
 quick in her judgments, and firm in her 
 opinions. The temperament of Worthington, 
 on the other hand, was, I am told, gentle, im- 
 pressionable and sensitive in the extreme. He 
 was highly conscientious, and ultra-tender in 
 his treatment of the characters and opinions 
 of others. The two seemed in many respects 
 the antipodes of each other. He who knew 
 them both best was convinced that they would 
 not be happy together, and that opinion he has 
 never changed. 
 
 It is above all things difficult to predict 
 beforehand whether two apparently antago- 
 nistic characters will really clash and jar in the
 
 42 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 close union of married life, or whether, on 
 the contrary, the deficiencies of the one will 
 be supplemented by those opposite tendencies 
 which are rather in excess in the other. It is 
 notorious that marriages are seldom perfect 
 matches in the view of outsiders ; the incon- 
 gruities in the temperaments and the habits of 
 life and thought, are more easily discerned than 
 the fusing influence of ardent love can be 
 measured. Nor, indeed, can the changes which 
 will be worked in the disposition by a surrender 
 to the free play of emotion be accurately fore- 
 seen. Considerations such as these, however, 
 do not have much weight in the mind of a 
 young man whose experience of the mysteries 
 of the human heart is yet to come ; and James 
 Martineau was strongly averse to the engage- 
 ment of his sister and his friend. Their 
 attachment was not then permitted to become 
 an engagement. Worthington was poor was 
 still only a student Harriet was supposed, at 
 that time, to be well portioned ; the sensitive 
 temperament of the young lover felt the variety 
 of discouragements placed in the path of his 
 affection, and so that affection which should 
 have brought only joy became, in fact, to 
 Harriet the cause of sorrow, suspense and 
 anxiety. Yet its vivifying influence was felt, 
 and the true happiness which is inseparable
 
 EARLY WOMANHOOD. 43 
 
 from mutual love, however the emotion be 
 checked and denied its full expression, was not 
 lacking. For some insight into what Harriet 
 Martineau knew and felt of love, we must look 
 elsewhere than in the formal record of the 
 Autobiography.* But this, like all the other 
 chief events of her life, has found a place in 
 her works under a thin veiling of her person- 
 ality. Let us see from one of her early essays 
 how Harriet Martineau learned to regard love. 
 The essay is called "In a Hermit's Cave." 
 
 " The place was not ill-chosen by the holy man, 
 if the circumstances could but have been adapted 
 to that highest worship the service of the life. 
 . . . But there is yet wanting the altar of the 
 human heart, on which alone a fire is kindled 
 from above to shine in the faces of all true wor- 
 
 * Mr. H. G. Atkinson writes to me : " She had written 
 much more at length (than is published) in her Autobiography 
 about her courtship; but she consulted me about publishing 
 it, and I advised her not to do so the matter counted for 
 so little in such a life as hers." The quotation which I give 
 here shows for what it did really count in the history of her 
 mental development. But so difficult must it needs be for 
 the writer of an autobiography to speak frankly of the more 
 sacred experiences of the life, that it is not surprising that 
 Harriet Martineau " destroyed what she had written," when 
 so advised by the friend whom she consulted. I need only 
 add that the many new details about the facts of this matter, 
 which I am able to give, I have received from two of her 
 own generation, both of whom were very intimate friends of 
 hers at the time when all this occurred.
 
 44 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 shippers for ever. Where this flame, the glow 
 of human love, is burning, there is the temple 
 of worship, be it only beside the humblest vil- 
 lage hearth : where it has not been kindled there 
 is no sanctuary ; and the loftiest amphitheatre 
 of mountains, lighted up by the ever-burning 
 stars, is no more the dwelling-place of Jehovah 
 than the Temple of Solomon before it was filled 
 with the glory of the Presence. . . . 
 
 Yes, Love is worship, authorized and approved. 
 . . . Many are the gradations through which 
 this service rises until it has reached that on 
 which God has bestowed His most manifest 
 benediction, on which Jesus smiled at Cana, 
 but which the devotee presumed to decline. 
 Not more express were the ordinances of Sinai 
 than the Divine provisions for wedded love ; 
 never was it more certain that Jehovah benig- 
 nantly regarded the festivals of His people than 
 it is daily that He has appointed those mutual 
 rejoicings of the affections, which need but to 
 be referred to Him to become a holy homage. 
 Yet there have been many who pronounce com- 
 mon that which God has purified, and reject or 
 disdain that which He has proffered and blest 
 How ignorant must such be of the growth of 
 that within ! How unobservant of what passes 
 without ! Would that all could know how from 
 the first flow of the affections, until they are 
 shed abroad in their plentitude, the purposes of 
 creation become fulfilled. Would that all could 
 know how, by this mighty impulse, new strength 
 is given to every power ; how the intellect is 
 vivified and enlarged ; how the spirit becomes
 
 EARLY WOMANHOOD. 45 
 
 bold to explore the path of life, and clear-sighted 
 to discern its issues. .... For that piety which 
 has humanity for its object must not that 
 heart feel most of which tenderness has become 
 the element ? Must not the spirit which is most 
 exercised in hope and fear be most familiar with 
 hope and fear wherever found ? 
 
 How distinctly I saw all this in those who are 
 now sanctifying their first Sabbath of wedded 
 love. . . . The one was at peace with all that 
 world which had appeared so long at war with 
 him. He feared nothing, he possessed all ; and 
 of the overflowings of his love he could spare to 
 every living thing. The other thought of no 
 world but the bright one above, and the quiet 
 one before her, in each of which dwelt one in 
 whom she had perfect trust. . . . In her the pro- 
 gression has been so regular, and the work so 
 perfect, that any return to the former per- 
 turbations of her spirit seems impossible. She 
 entered upon a new life when her love began ; 
 and it is as easy to conceive that there is one 
 Life Giver to the body, and another to the spirit, 
 as that this progression is not the highest work 
 of God on earth, and its results abounding to 
 His praise. . . . To those who know them as I 
 know them, they appear already possessed of an 
 experience in comparison with which it would 
 appear little to have looked abroad from the 
 Andes, or explored the treasure-caves of the 
 deep, or to have conversed with every nation 
 under the sun. If they could see all that the 
 eyes of the firmament look upon, and hear all 
 the whispered secrets that the roving winds bear
 
 46 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 in their bosoms, they could learn but little new ; 
 for the deepest mysteries are those of human 
 love, and the vastest knowledge is that of the 
 human heart." 
 
 Even more vividly, at a later period, she told 
 something of her experiences in one of her 
 fictions, under the guise of a conversation 
 between a young husband and wife : 
 
 " Do you really think there are any people 
 that have passed through life without knowing 
 what that moment was, that stir in one's heart 
 on being first sure that one is beloved? It is 
 most like the soul getting free of the body and 
 rushing into Paradise, I should think. Do you 
 suppose anybody ever lived a life without hav- 
 ing felt this ? " 
 
 Walter feared it might be so ; but, if so, a 
 man missed the moment that made a man of 
 one that was but an unthinking creature before ; 
 and a woman the moment best worth living 
 for. . . 
 
 " It seems to me," said Effie, "that though 
 God has kindly given this token of blessedness 
 to all or to so many that we may nearly say 
 all without distinction of great or humble, 
 rich or poor, the great and the lowly use them- 
 selves to the opposite faults. The great do not 
 seem to think it the most natural thing to 
 marry where they first love ; and the lowly are 
 too ready to love." 
 
 " That is because the great have too many 
 things to look to besides love ; and the lowly
 
 EARLY WOMANHOOD. 47 
 
 have too few. The rich have their lighted 
 palaces to bask in, as well as the sunshine ; and 
 they must have a host of admirers, as well as 
 one bosom friend. And when the poor man 
 finds that there is one bliss that no power on 
 earth can shut him out from, and one that 
 drives out all evils for the time one that 
 makes him forget the noon-day heats, and one 
 that tempers the keen north wind, and makes 
 him walk at his full height when his superiors 
 lounge past him in the street no wonder he 
 is eager to meet it, and jogs the time-glass to 
 make it come at the soonest. If such a man is 
 imprudent, I had rather be he than one that 
 first lets it slip through cowardice, and would 
 then bring it back to gratify his low ambition! " 
 
 "And for those who let it go by for con- 
 science sake, and do not ask for it again ? " 
 
 " Why, they are happy in having learned what 
 the one feeling is that life is wortJi living for. 
 They may make themselves happy upon it for 
 ever, after that. Oh! Effie, you would not 
 believe, nothing could make you believe, what 
 I was the day before and the day after I saw 
 that sudden change of look of yours that told 
 me all. The one day, I was shrinking inwardly 
 from everything I had to do, and every word of 
 my father's, and everybody I met ; and was 
 always trying to make myself happy in myself 
 alone, with the sense of God being near me 
 and with me. The other day, I looked down 
 upon everybody, in a kindly way ; and yet I 
 looked up to them, too, for I felt a respect that 
 I never knew before for all that were suffering
 
 48 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 and enjoying; and I felt as if I could have 
 brought the whole world nearer to God, if they 
 would have listened to me. I shall never forget 
 the best moment of all when my mind had 
 suddenly ceased being in a great tumult, which 
 had as much pain as pleasure in it. When I 
 said distinctly to myself, 'She loves me,' 
 Heaven came down round about me that 
 minute." 51 
 
 This tells how Harriet Martineau could love 
 in her youth. Perhaps the stream ran all the 
 more powerfully for its course being checked ; 
 for it was over three years after she met and 
 became attached to Mr. Worthington before 
 their love was allowed to be declared, and their 
 engagement was permitted a long period for 
 hope and fear to do their painful office in the 
 soul, a long test of the reality of the love on 
 both sides. 
 
 Her extensive and deep studies, her suffer- 
 ings and inward strivings from her deafness, 
 and the joys and anxieties of her love, were 
 the chief moulding influences of her early 
 womanhood. We shall soon see how she came 
 to seek expression for the results of all these 
 in literature. 
 
 * Illustrations of Political Economy : " A Tale of the Tyne," 
 pp. 54, et seq. This passage is doubly interesting from the 
 fact that Mr. Malthus, the discoverer of the Population Law, 
 sent specially to thank her for having written it.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 EARLIEST WRITINGS. 
 
 HARRIET MARTINEAU'S first attempt to write 
 for publication was made in the same year that 
 her acquaintance with Mr. Worthington was 
 formed; in 1822, when she was twenty years 
 old. It was, apparently, at the close of the 
 vacation in which Worthington had visited his 
 friend Martineau at Norwich, that she com- 
 menced a paper with the design of offering it 
 to the Unitarian magazine, The MontJdy Re- 
 pository. She had told James that when he 
 had returned to college she should be miser- 
 able, and he had, with equal kindness and sense, 
 advised her to try to forget her feelings about 
 the parting by an attempt at authorship. On a 
 bright September morning, therefore, when she 
 had seen him start by the early coach, soon 
 after six, she sat down in her own room with a 
 supply of foolscap paper before her to write 
 her first article. 
 
 The account which she writing from mem- 
 ory gives in her autobiography, of this little
 
 50 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 transaction, is curiously inaccurate, as far as the 
 trifling details are concerned. Her own state- 
 ment is that she took the letter "V" for her 
 signature, and that she found her paper printed 
 in the next number of the magazine, " and in 
 the 'Notices to Correspondents' a request to 
 hear more from 'V of Norwich." Her little 
 errors about these facts must be corrected, 
 because the truth of the matter is at once sug- 
 gestive and amusing. 
 
 The article may be found in the Monthly 
 Repository for October, 1822. It is signed, not 
 "V," but "Discipulus." This, it need hardly 
 be pointed out, is the masculine form of the 
 Latin for learner, or apprentice. The note in 
 the correspondents' column is not in that same 
 month's magazine ; but in the number for the 
 succeeding month, the editor says in his 
 answers to correspondents : "The continuation 
 of ' Discipulus ' has come to hand. His other 
 proposed communications will probably be 
 acceptable." If more proofs than these were 
 required that the youthful authoress had pre- 
 sented herself to her editor in a manly disguise, 
 it would be furnished by a passage in one of 
 these " Discipulus " articles, in which she defi- 
 nitely figures herself as a masculine writer, 
 speaking of " our sex " (i. c. the male sex) as a 
 man would do. The interesting fact is thus
 
 EARLIEST WRITINGS. 51 
 
 disclosed that Harriet Martineau adds another 
 to the group of the most eminent women writers 
 of this century who thought it necessary to 
 assume the masculine sex in order to obtain a 
 fair hearing and an impartial judgment for their 
 earliest work. Surely, as our " Discipulus " 
 takes her place in this list with George Eliot, 
 George Sand, and Currer, Ellis, and Acton 
 Bell, great deal is disclosed to us about how 
 women in the past have had to make their way 
 to recognition against the tide of public opinion. 
 
 That first printed essay is interesting because 
 it was the precursor of so long a course of liter- 
 ary work, rather than for itself. Yet it is not 
 without its own interest, and is very far indeed 
 from being the crude, imperfect performance 
 of the ordinary amateur. The subject is "Fe- 
 male Writers of Practical Divinity." Here are 
 the first words that Harriet Martineau uttered 
 through the press : 
 
 " I do not know whether it has been re- 
 marked by others as well as myself, that some 
 of the finest and most useful English works on 
 the subject of practical Divinity are by female 
 authors. I suppose it is owing to the peculiar 
 susceptibility of the female mind, and its con- 
 sequent warmth of feeling, that its productions, 
 when they are really valuable, find a more 
 ready way to the heart than those of the other
 
 52 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 sex ; and it gives me great pleasure to see 
 women gifted with superior talents applying 
 those talents to promote the cause of religion 
 and virtue." 
 
 There is nothing remarkable in the literary 
 form of this first article. How soon she came 
 to have a style of her own, vivid, stirring, and 
 instinct with a powerful individuality, may have 
 been gathered already from the quotations 
 given in our last chapter. But in her first 
 paper the style is coldly correct ; imitative of 
 good but severe models, and displaying none 
 of the writer's individuality. Two points as 
 regards the matter of the essay are of special 
 interest, and thoroughly characteristic. It is 
 interesting, in the first place, to know that she 
 who was destined to do probably more than any 
 other one woman of her century for the en- 
 largement of the sphere of her sex in the field 
 of letters, should have written her first article 
 on the subject of the capacity of women to 
 teach through their writings. The second 
 point worth noticing is that her idea of "prac- 
 tical Divinity " is simply, good conduct. The- 
 ological disputation and dogma do not disturb 
 her pages. Her view of practical Divinity is 
 that it teaches morals ; and it is largely because 
 the women to whose writings she draws atten- 
 tion have occupied themselves with the attempt
 
 EARLIEST WRITINGS. 53 
 
 to trace out rules of conduct, that she is inter- 
 ested in their writings, and rejoices in their 
 labors. Indeed, she only alludes once to the 
 opinions on dogmatic theology of the writers 
 whom she quotes, and then she does it only to 
 put aside with scorn the idea that morality and 
 teaching should be rejected because of differ- 
 ences upon points of theology. 
 
 Encouraged by the few stately words with 
 which the editor of the Repository had received 
 the offer of more contributions, " Discipulus " 
 continued his literary labors, and the result 
 appeared in a paper on "Female Education," 
 published in the Monthly Repository of Febru- 
 ary, 1823. This is a noble and powerful appeal 
 for the higher education of girls and the full 
 development of all the powers of our sex. It 
 is written with gentleness and tact, but it 
 courageously asserts and demands much that 
 was strange indeed to the tone of that day, 
 though it has become quite commonplace in 
 ours. 
 
 The author (supposed to be a man, be it 
 remembered,) disclaimed any intention of prov- 
 ing that the minds of women were equal to 
 those of men, but only desired to show that 
 what little powers the female intellect might 
 possess should be fully cultivated. Neverthe- 
 less, the fact was pointed out that women had
 
 54 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 seldom had a chance of showing how near they 
 might be able to equal men intellectually, for 
 while the lad was at the higher school and 
 college, preparing his mind for a future, "the 
 girl is probably confined to low pursuits, her 
 aspirings after knowledge are subdued, she is 
 taught to believe that solid information is 
 unbecoming her sex ; almost her whole time is 
 expended on low accomplishments, and thus, 
 before she is sensible of her powers, they are 
 checked in their growth and chained down to 
 mean objects, to rise no more; and when the 
 natural consequences of this mode of treatment 
 are seen, all mankind agree that the abilities 
 of women are far inferior to those of men." 
 Having shown reasons to believe that women 
 would take advantage of higher opportunities 
 if such were allowed them, "Discipulus" main- 
 tained in detail that the cultivation of their 
 minds would improve them for all the accepted 
 feminine duties of life, charitable, domestic 
 and social, and that the consequent elevation 
 of the female character would react beneficially 
 on the male; cited the works of a cluster of 
 eminent authoresses, as showing that women 
 could think upon "the noblest subjects that 
 can exercise the human mind ; " and closed with 
 the following paragraph, wherein occurred the 
 phrases by which it is shown that our " Disci-
 
 EARLIEST WRITINGS. 55 
 
 pulus " of twenty is masquerading as a man, 
 more decisively even than by the termination 
 of the Latin nom de guerre : 
 
 "I cannot better conclude than with the 
 hope that these examples of what may be done 
 may excite a noble emulation in their own sex, 
 and in ours such a conviction of the value of 
 the female mind, as shall overcome our long- 
 cherished prejudices, and induce us to give our 
 earnest endeavors to the promotion of women s 
 best interests." 
 
 It is most interesting to thus discover that 
 Harriet Martineau's first writings were upon 
 that "woman question" which she lived to 
 see make such wonderful advances, and which 
 she so much forwarded, both by her direct 
 advocacy, and by the indirect influence of the 
 proof which she afforded, that a woman may be 
 a thinker upon high topics and a teacher and 
 leader of men in practical politics, and yet not 
 only be irreproachable in her private life, but 
 even show herself throughout it, in the best 
 sense, truly feminine. 
 
 Harriet contributed nothing more to the 
 Monthly Repository after this (so far as can now 
 be ascertained), for a considerable time. En- 
 couraged by the success of her first attempts 
 with periodicals, she commenced a book of a 
 distinctly religious character, which was issued
 
 56 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 in the autumn of the same year, 1823, by Hunter, 
 of St. Paul's Churchyard. 
 
 The little volume was published anonymously. 
 Its title-page runs thus : "Devotional Exercises; 
 consisting of Reflections and Prayers for the 
 use of Young Persons. To which is added an 
 Address on Baptism. By a lady." 
 
 The character of the work is perhaps suffi- 
 ciently indicated by the title. But it would be 
 a mistake to suppose that the book is a common- 
 place one. It contains a good deal of dogma- 
 tism and many platitudes. It contains, likewise, 
 however, many a noble thought and many a 
 high aspiration, expressed in words equally 
 flowing and fervent. A "Reflection" (some- 
 thing like a short sermon) and a prayer are sup- 
 plied for each morning and each evening of the - 
 seven days of the week. She had already 
 attained to such an insight into the human mind 
 as to recognize that religious devotion is an 
 exercise of the emotions. Proof, too, is given 
 in this little work of the fullness with which she 
 realized that true religion must be expressed by 
 service to mankind ; to those nearest to one first, 
 and afterwards to others ; and indeed, that a 
 high sense of social duty, with a fervent and 
 unselfish devotion to it, is religion, rather than 
 either the spiritual dram-drinking, or the dog- 
 matic irrationality to which that name of high 
 import is frequently applied.
 
 EARLIEST WRITINGS. $? 
 
 The prayers in this little volume differ much 
 from the supplications for personal benefits 
 which are commonly called prayers. 
 
 These are rather aspirations, or meditations. 
 The highest moral attributes, personified in 
 God, are held up for the worship of the imper- 
 fect human creature, with fervent aspiration to 
 approach as nearly as possible towards that light 
 of unsullied goodness. 
 
 The lack of petitions for material benefits 
 which appears in these "Devotions" was by no 
 means unconscious, instinctive, or accidental. 
 She had deliberately given up the practice of 
 praying for personal benefits, partly because 
 she held that, since it is impossible for us to 
 foresee how far our highest interests may be 
 served or hindered by changes in our external 
 circumstances, it is not for us to attempt to 
 indicate, or even to form a desire, as to what 
 those circumstances shall be. As regarded the 
 emotional side of her religion, she had come to 
 prefer to leave herself and her fate to the unques- 
 tioned direction of a higher power. 
 
 But there was more than this in it. In her 
 philosophical studies, she had, of course, met 
 with the eternal debates of metaphysicians and 
 theologians on Foreknowledge, Fate, and Free- 
 dom of the Will. The difficult question had, 
 indeed, presented itself to her active and acute
 
 58 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 young mind long before those studies began. 
 She remembered that when she was but eleven 
 years old she found courage to offer her question- 
 ings upon this point to her elder brother 
 Thomas. She asked : If God foreknew from 
 eternity all the evil deeds that every one of us 
 should do in our lives, how can He justly punish 
 us for those actions, when the time comes that 
 we are born, and in due course commit them ? 
 Her brother replied merely that she was not 
 yet old enough to understand the point. The 
 answer did not satisfy the child. She knew 
 that if she were old enough to feel the difficulty, 
 she must also be mentally fit to receive some 
 kind of explanation. But under the pastoral 
 influence of Dr. Carpenter, the emotional side 
 of her religion was cultivated, and such doubts 
 and difficulties of the reason were put away for 
 the time. 
 
 Not for all time, however, could the problem 
 be shirked by so active, logical, and earnest a 
 mind. It recurred to her when she was left to 
 her own spiritual guidance. Long before the 
 date of these " Devotions " she had fought out 
 the battle in her own mind, and had reached 
 the standpoint from which her Prayers are writ- 
 ten. She had convinced herself of the truth 
 of the Necessitarian doctrine, that we are what 
 we are, we do what we do, because of the
 
 EARLIEST WRITINGS. 59 
 
 impulses given by our previous training and 
 circumstances ; and that the way to amend any 
 human beings or all mankind is to improve 
 their education, and to give them good sur- 
 roundings and influences, and mental associa- 
 tions ; in short, that physical and psychological 
 phenomena alike depend upon antecedent 
 phenomena, called causes. 
 
 As soon as she had thus settled her mind in 
 the doctrine of Necessity, she perceived that 
 prayer, in the ordinary sense of the term, had 
 become impossible. If it be believed that all 
 that happe-ns in the world is the consequence of 
 the course of the events which have happened 
 before, it is clear that no petitions can alter the 
 state of things at any given moment. A belief 
 in the efficacy of "beseiging Heaven with 
 prayers " implies a supposition that a Supreme 
 Ruler of the Universe interferes arbitrarily 
 with the sequence of events. Those whose 
 minds are clear that no such arbitrary inter- 
 ference ever does take place, but that, on the 
 contrary, like events always and invariably fol- 
 low from like causes, cannot rationally ask for 
 this fundamental rule of the government of the 
 universe to be set aside for their behoof ; even 
 although they may believe in an all-powerful 
 Divine Ruler, who has appointed this sequence 
 of events for the law under which His creatures 
 shall live and develop.
 
 60 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Still, however, Harriet Martineau supplicated 
 for spiritual benefits, as we have seen in the 
 little volume of Devotional Exercises. These 
 aspirations not only gave her an emotional 
 satisfaction, but were, she then thought, justifi- 
 able on necessitarian principles ; for each time 
 that we place our minds in a certain attitude we 
 increase their " set " in the same direction ; 
 and she believed at that time that a holy life 
 was in this way aided by frequent reflections 
 on and aspirations towards the highest ideal of 
 holiness personified in the name of God. 
 
 Her religious belief was, then, pure Theism. 
 To her, it was still very good to be a worship- 
 per of Jehovah, the Eternal Presence, the Ever- 
 living Supreme; and Jesus was His Messenger, 
 the highest type that He had ever permitted to 
 be revealed to man of the excellencies of the 
 divine nature. But there was no Atonement, 
 no personal Evil One, no hell, no verbally- 
 inspired revelation in her creed. 
 
 It will be unnecessary to say more about her 
 theological beliefs till the next twenty years 
 have been recorded, for in that period there 
 was substantially no change in her views. 
 There did come, indeed, a change in her method 
 of self-management and in her opinions as to 
 the way in which religious feelings should 
 affect daily life. She soon concluded that we
 
 EARLIEST WRITINGS. 6 1 
 
 are best when least self-conscious about our 
 own goodness, and that, therefore, we should 
 rely upon receiving inspiration to right and 
 elevated feelings from passing influences, and 
 should refrain from putting our minds, by a 
 regular exercise of volition, into affected post- 
 ures in anticipation of those high emotions 
 which we cannot command. Under these 
 beliefs she soon ceased all formal prayer. 
 Meantime she was still, at twenty-one years 
 old, in the condition of mind to write Devo- 
 tional Exercises. 
 
 The little book met with a favorable accept- 
 ance among the Unitarians, and speedily went 
 into the second edition. Thus encouraged, 
 Harriet began another volume of the same 
 character. Such work could not proceed very 
 fast, however, for her domestic duties were not 
 light, and her writing was still looked upon in 
 her family as a mere recreation. She labored 
 under all the disadvantages of the amateur. 
 But events soon began to crowd into her life 
 to alter-this view of the case, and to prepare 
 the way for her beginning to do the work of 
 her life in the only fashion in which such labor 
 can be effectively carried on as a serious 
 occupation, the principal feature of every day's 
 duties. 
 
 After a long period of poverty and distress,
 
 62 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 caused by the Napoleonic wars, England, in 
 1824, experienced the special dangers of a time 
 of rapidly increasing wealth. There was more 
 real wealth in the country, owing to the expan- 
 sion of trade, which followed on the re-opening 
 of the continent to our commerce, but specula- 
 tion made this development appear far greater 
 than it was in reality 
 
 There was, at that time, no sort of check 
 upon the issue of paper money. Not only did 
 the Bank of England send out notes without 
 limit ; not only could every established bank 
 multiply its drafts recklessly ; but any small 
 tradesman who pleased might embark in the 
 same business, and put forth paper money 
 without check or control. Thus there was 
 money in abundance, the rate of interest was 
 low, and prices rose. 
 
 The natural and inevitable consequence of 
 this state of things, at a moment when trade 
 was suddenly revived, was a rage for specula- 
 tion. Not only merchants and manufacturers 
 were seized with this epidemic ; the desire for 
 higher profits than could be obtained by quiet 
 and perfectly safe investments spread amongst 
 every class. "As for what the speculation 
 was like, it can hardly be recorded on the open 
 page of history without a blush. Besides the 
 joint-stock companies who undertook baking,
 
 EARLIEST WRITINGS. 63 
 
 washing, baths, life insurance, brewing, coal- 
 portage, wool-growing, and the like, there was 
 such a rage for steam navigation, canals and 
 railroads, that in the session of 1825, 438 
 petitions for private Bills were presented, and 
 286 private Acts were passed. ... It is on 
 record that a single share of a mine on which 
 jC?o had been paid, yielded 200 per cent, hav- 
 ing risen speedily to a premium of 1400 per 
 share."* 
 
 Periods of such inflation invariably and neces- 
 sarily close in scenes of disaster. Gold becomes 
 scarce ; engagements that have been recklessly 
 entered into cannot be met; goods have been 
 produced in response to a speculative instead of 
 a legitimate demand, and therefore will not sell; 
 the locked-up capital cannot be released, nor 
 can it be temporarily supplied, except upon ruin- 
 ous terms. Panic commences ; it spreads over 
 the business world like fire over the dry prairies. 
 The badly-managed banks and the most specu- 
 lative business houses begin to totter ; the 
 weakest of them fall, and the crash brings 
 down others like a house of cards ; and in the 
 depreciation of goods and the disappearance of 
 capital, the prudent, sagacious and honorable 
 merchant suffers for the folly, the recklessness, 
 the avarice and the dishonesty of others. 
 
 * Harriet Martineau's History of the Peace, book ii, p. 8.
 
 64 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Such a crash came, from such causes, in the 
 early winter of 1825. Harriet Martineau's 
 father was one of those injured by the panic, 
 without having been a party to the errors which 
 produced it. He had resisted the speculative 
 mania, and allowed it to sweep by him to its 
 flood. It was, therefore, by no fault of his 
 own that he was caught by the ebbing wave, 
 and carried backwards, to be stranded in the 
 shallows. His house did not fail ; but the 
 struggle was a cruel one for many months. 
 How severe the crisis was may be judged from 
 the fact that between sixty and seventy banks 
 stopped payment within six weeks. 
 
 The strain of this business anxiety told 
 heavily upon the already delicate health of Mr. 
 Thomas Martineau. In the early spring of 
 1 826 it became clear that his days were num- 
 bered. Up to the commencement of that 
 troubled winter it had been supposed that his 
 daughters would be amply provided for in the ' 
 event of his death. But so much had been 
 lost in the crisis, that he found himself, in his 
 last weeks, compelled to alter his will, and was 
 only able to leave to his wife and daughters a 
 bare maintenance. He lingered on till June, 
 and in that month he died. 
 
 It was while'Mr. Martineau lay ill, that Har- 
 riet's second book, Addresses, Prayers, and
 
 EARLIEST WRITINGS. 65 
 
 Hymns, passed through the press, and the dying 
 father took great interest and found great com- 
 fort in his child's work. Much of it he must 
 have read with feelings rendered solemn by his 
 situation. 
 
 This little volume so closely resembles the 
 Devotional Exercises, that it is unnecessary to 
 refer to it at greater length. The hymns, 
 which are the special feature of this volume, 
 do not call for much notice. They are not 
 quite commonplace ; but verse was not Har- 
 riet's natural medium of expression : she wrote 
 a considerable quantity of it in her early days, 
 as most young authors do ; but she soon came 
 to see for herself that her gift of expression in 
 its most elevated form was rather that which 
 makes the orator than the poet. 
 
 The comparative poverty to which the family 
 were reduced on Mr. Martineau's death at once 
 freed Harriet, to a considerable extent, from 
 the obstacles which had previously been inter- 
 posed to her spending time in writing. It was 
 still far from being recognized that literature 
 was to be her profession ; but it was obvious 
 that if her pen could bring any small additions 
 to her income they would be very serviceable. 
 A friend gave her an introduction to Mr. Houl- 
 ston, then publishing at Wellington, Shrop- 
 shire ; and a few little tales, which she had 
 3
 
 66 HAKRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 lying by, were offered to him. He accepted 
 them, issued them in tiny volumes, and paid 
 her five guineas for the copyright of each story. 
 This, then, was the beginning of Harriet Mar- 
 tineau's professional authorship.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 
 
 
 
 THE loss of pecuniary position did something 
 more for Harriet Martineau besides opening the 
 way to work in literature. The knowledge that 
 she was now poor gave her lover courage to 
 declare himself, and to seek her for his wife. 
 Poverty, therefore, brought her that experience 
 which is so much in a woman's mental history, 
 however little it, perhaps, goes for in a man's. 
 A love in youth, fervent, powerful, and pure ; 
 a love, happy and successful in the essential 
 point that it is reciprocated by its object, how- 
 ever fate may deny it outward fruition ; such a 
 love once filling a woman's soul, sweetens it and 
 preserves it for her whole life through. Pity the 
 shriveled and decayed old hearts which were not 
 thus embalmed in youth ! Harriet Martineau 
 did have this precious experience ; and her 
 womanliness of nature remained fresh and true 
 and sweet to the end of her days because of it. 
 There may be many married women old maids 
 in heart to be so is the punishment of those
 
 68 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 who marry without love ; and there are many, 
 like Harriet Martineau, who are single in life, 
 but whose hearts have been mated, and so made 
 alive. I do not know that she would have gained 
 by marriage, in any way, except in the chance of 
 motherhood, a yet greater fact than love itself 
 to a woman. On the other hand, her work must 
 have been hindered by the duties of married 
 life, even if her marriage had been thoroughly 
 happy, and her lot free from exceptional 
 material cares. Matronage is a profession in 
 itself. The duties of a wife and mother, as 
 domestic life is at present arranged, absorb 
 much time and strength, and so diminish the 
 possibilities of intellectual labor. Moreover, 
 the laws regulating marriage are still, and fifty 
 years ago were far more, in a very bad state ; 
 and, leaving a woman wholly dependent for 
 fair treatment, whether as a wife or mother, 
 upon the mercy and goodness of the man she 
 marries, justify Harriet Martineau's observa- 
 tion : " The older I have grown, the more serious 
 have seemed to me the evils and disadvantages 
 of married life, as it exists among us at this 
 time." The wife who is beloved and treated as 
 an equal partner in life, the mother whose, natural 
 rights in the guardianship of her family are 
 respected, the mistress of a home in which she 
 is the sunshine of husband and children, must
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 69 
 
 ever be the happiest of women. But far better 
 is it to be as Harriet Martineau was a widow 
 of the heart by death than to have the affec- 
 tions torn through long years by neglect and 
 cruelty, springing less from natural badness 
 than from the evil teaching of vile laws and 
 customs. Fifty years ago marriage was a 
 dangerous step for a woman ; and Harriet Mar- 
 tineau had reason for saying at last : "Thus, I 
 am not only entirely satisfied with my lot, but 
 think it the very best for me." 
 
 For a while, however, the happy prospect of 
 a beloved wifehood cheered her struggling and 
 anxious life. But it was not for long. Her 
 actual and acknowledged engagement lasted, 
 I believe, only a few months. Mr. Worthington 
 had, at this time, but lately completed his course 
 as a Divinity student ; and he had been appoint- 
 ed to the joint charge of a very large Unitarian 
 Church at Manchester. Conscientiousness was 
 one of the most marked features of his character, 
 according to his college friend ; and Harriet 
 herself declares that she "venerated his moral 
 nature." He had thrown himself into the very 
 heavy pastoral work committed to him with all 
 the devotion of this high characteristic. More- 
 over, the long doubt and suspense of his love 
 for her before their engagement, had, doubtless, 
 worked unfavorably upon his nervous system.
 
 70 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 The end of it was, that he was suddenly seized 
 with a brain fever, in which he became delirious. 
 He was removed to his father's home in Leices- 
 tershire, to be nursed ; and in process of time, 
 the fever was subdued. But the mind did not 
 regain its balance. He was still, as she says, 
 "insane" ; but from one of her dear and early 
 friends, I hear that " his family did not call it 
 insanity," only a feeble and unhinged state, 
 from which recovery might have been expected 
 hopefully. 
 
 In this state of things it was thought desirable 
 that the woman he loved should be brought to 
 see him. The beloved presence, his physician 
 believed, might revive old impressions and happy 
 anticipations, and might be the one thing need- 
 ful to induce a favorable change in his condition. 
 His mother wrote to beg Harriet Martineau to 
 come to him ; Harriet eagerly sought her 
 mother's permission to hasten to his side ; and 
 Mrs. Martineau forbade her daughter to go. 
 The old habit of obedience to her mother, and 
 the early implanted ideas of filial duty, were 
 too strong for Harriet at once to break through 
 them ; she did not defy her mother and go ; 
 and in a few more weeks terrible weeks of 
 doubt and mental storm they must have been, 
 between her love and her obedience dragging 
 her different ways Worthington died, and
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 7 1 
 
 left her to her life of heart-widowhood, 
 darkened by this shadow of arbitrary separa- 
 ration to the last. " The calamity was aggra- 
 vated to me," she says, "by the unaccountable 
 insults I received from his family, whom I had 
 never seen. Years after, the mystery was 
 explained. They had been given to understand, 
 by cautious insinuation, that I was actually 
 engaged to another while receiving my friend's 
 addresses." They had not appreciated how 
 submissive she was as a daughter ; and their 
 belief that her love was insincere was not an 
 unnatural one in the circumstances. 
 
 Had those relatives of the dead lover lived to 
 read Harriet Martineau's Autobiography, they 
 would not have been made to think differently 
 of her feelings towards him ; for there she goes 
 calmly on, after the passage above quoted, to 
 say only: "Considering what I was in those 
 days, it was happiest for us both that our union 
 was prevented." As we have had to look out- 
 side the Autobiography for a record of what 
 love was to her, and what it did for her, so we 
 must seek elsewhere for the cry of agony which 
 tells how she felt her loss. But the record 
 exists ; it is found in an essay entitled In a 
 Death Chamber, one of that autobiographical 
 series published in The Monthly Repository, 
 from which I have previously quoted.
 
 72 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 This beautiful piece of writing far more of 
 a poem in essence than anything which she ever 
 published in verse is spoiled as a composi- 
 tion by mutilation in quoting. But its length 
 leaves me no option but to select from it only a 
 few of the more confessional passages, to aid us 
 in our psychological study : 
 
 This weary watch ! In watching by the couch 
 of another there is no weariness ; but this lonely 
 tending of one's own sick heart is more than 
 the worn-out spirit can bear. What an age of 
 woe since the midnight clock gave warning that 
 my first day of loneliness was beginning to 
 others a Sabbath, to me a day of expiation. 
 
 All is dull, cold and dreary before me, until I 
 also can escape to the region where there is no 
 bereavement, no blasting root and branch, no 
 rending of the heart-strings. What is aught to 
 me, in the midst of this all-pervading, thrilling 
 torture, when all I want is to be dead ? The 
 future is loathsome, and I will not look upon it ; 
 the past, too, which it breaks my heart to think 
 about what has it been ? It might have been 
 happy, if there is such a thing as happiness ; but 
 I myself embittered it at the time, and for ever. 
 What a folly has mine been ! Multitudes of 
 sins now rise up in the shape of besetting griefs. 
 Looks of rebuke from those now in the grave ; 
 thoughts which they would have rebuked if they 
 had known them ; moments of anger, of cold- 
 ness ; sympathy withheld when looked for ; 
 repression of its signs through selfish pride ;
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 73 
 
 and worse, far worse even than this ... all 
 comes over me now. O \ if there be pity, if 
 there be pardon, let it come in the form of insen- 
 sibility ; for these long echoes of condemnation 
 will make me desperate. 
 
 But was there ever human love unwithered 
 by crime by crime of which no human law 
 takes cognizance, but the unwritten everlasting 
 laws of the affections ? Many will call me thus 
 innocent. The departed breathed out thanks 
 and blessing, and I felt them not then as 
 reproaches. If, indeed, I am only as others, 
 shame, shame on the impurity of human affec- 
 tions ; or, rather, alas ! for the infirmity of the 
 human heart ! For I know not that I could love 
 more than I have loved. 
 
 Since the love itself is wrecked, let me gather 
 up its relics, and guard them more tenderly, 
 more steadily, more gratefully. This seems to 
 open up glimpses of peace. O grant me power 
 to retain them the light and music of emotion, 
 the flow of domestic wisdom and chastened 
 mirth, the life-long watchfulness of benevolence, 
 the thousand thoughts are these gone in their 
 reality ? ' Must I forget them as others forget ? 
 
 If I were to see my departed one that insen- 
 sible, wasted form standing before me as it 
 was wont to stand, with whom would I exchange 
 my joy ? . . . But it is not possible to lose all. 
 The shadows of the past may have as great 
 power as their substance ever had, and the spirit 
 of human love may ever be nigh, invested with 
 a majesty worthy to succeed the lustre of its 
 mortal days.
 
 74 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 This is the poem of Harriet Martineau's love. 
 This is what remains to show that the girl whose 
 intellect was so powerful, and who had habitually 
 and of choice exercised her mind upon the most 
 abstruse studies and the most difficult thoughts 
 which can engage the attention, could neverthe- 
 less feel at least as fervently, and deliver her- 
 self up to her emotions at least as fully, as any 
 feeble, ignorant, or narrow-minded creature that 
 ever lived. Surely, with the truth emphasized 
 by such an example, the common but stupid 
 delusion that the development of the intellect 
 diminishes the capacity for passion and tender- 
 ness, must fade away ! This girl's mental power 
 and her mental culture were both unusually 
 large ; but here is the core of her heart, and is 
 it not verily womanly ? 
 
 This experience did more than give her hours 
 of happiness ; it did more than bring to her that 
 enlargement of the spirit which she so well 
 described ; for it taught her to appreciate, and 
 to properly value, the influence of the emotions 
 in life. Never in one of her works, never in a 
 single phrase, is she found guilty of that blas- 
 phemy against the individual affections, into 
 which some who have yet sought to pose as high 
 priests of the religion of humanity have fallen 
 and lost themselves. In all her writings one 
 finds the continual recognition of the great truth
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 75 
 
 which was in the mind of him who said : " If a 
 man love not his brother whom he hath seen, 
 how shall he love God whom he hath not seen ?" 
 a truth of the very first consequence to those 
 who aim at expressing their religion by service 
 to the progress of mankind. 
 
 The year 1826, to Harriet crowded so full of 
 trouble, came to an end soon after Mr. Worth- 
 ington's death. In the following year, though 
 she was in very bad health, she wrote a vast 
 quantity of manuscript. Some of it was pub- 
 lished at once. Other portions waited in her 
 desk for a couple of years, when her contribu- 
 tions to The Monthly Repository recommenced, 
 after a change in its editorship. 
 
 She wrote in the year 1827 various short sto- 
 ries, which were published by Houlston, of 
 Shrewsbury, without her name on their title- 
 pages. Their character may be guessed by the 
 fact that they were circulated as Mrs. Sher- 
 wood's writings ! In tone, they resemble the 
 ordinary Sunday-school story-book ; but there 
 is a fire, an earnestness, and an originality 
 often discoverable in them which are enough 
 to mark them out from common hack-writing. 
 Two of them, The Rioters and The Turn Out, 
 deal with topics of political economy ; but the 
 questions were thought out (very accurately) in 
 her own mind, for at that time she had never 
 read a book upon the subject.
 
 76 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 These little stories were so successful that 
 the publisher invited her to write a longer one, 
 which should have her name attached to it. 
 She went to work, accordingly, and produced a 
 good little tale, of one hundred and fifty pages 
 of print, which she called Principle and Prac- 
 tice. It recounts the struggles of an orphan 
 family in their efforts after independence. As 
 in all her writings of this kind, her own expe- 
 rience is interfused into the fiction. No part 
 of this story is so interesting as that where a 
 young man who has met with an accident has 
 to reconcile his mind to the anticipation of life- 
 long lameness as she to deafness. The sis- 
 ters of this orphan family, too, make money by 
 a kind of fancy-work by which she herself was 
 earning a few guineas from the wealthier mem- 
 bers of her family, namely, by cutting bags and 
 baskets out of pasteboard, fitting them together 
 with silk and gold braid, and painting plaques 
 upon their sides. Principle and Practice was 
 so warmly received in the circle to which it 
 was suited that the publisher called for a sequel, 
 which was accordingly written early in the fol- 
 lowing year. 
 
 There was a vast quantity of writing in all 
 these publications ; and, besides this, she was 
 continually at work with her needle. Such 
 unremitting sedentary occupation, together
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 77 
 
 with her sorrow, caused a serious illness, from 
 which she suffered during 1828. It was an 
 affection of the liver and stomach, for which 
 she went to be treated by her brother-in-law, 
 Mr. Greenhow, a surgeon at Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne. 
 
 Her remarkable powers of steady application, 
 and her untiring industry, were always* amongst 
 her most noteworthy characteristics as, in- 
 deed, is proved by the vast quantity of work 
 she achieved. In each of her various illnesses, 
 friends who had watched with wonder and 
 alarm how much she wrote, and how unceas- 
 ingly she worked, either with pen, or book, or 
 needle in hand, told her that her suffering was 
 caused by her merciless industry. Her "stay- 
 ing power " was great ; she rarely felt utterly 
 exhausted, and therefore she was impatient of 
 being told that she had, in fact, over-exerted 
 her strength. Sometimes, indeed, she admitted 
 that she worked too much, and pleaded only 
 that she could not help it that the work 
 needed doing, or that the thoughts pressed for 
 
 * " I should think there never was such an industrious 
 lady," said the maid who was with her for the last eleven 
 years of her life; "when I caught sight of her, just once, 
 leaning back in her chair, with her arms hanging down, and 
 looking as though she wasn't even thinking about anything, 
 it gave me quite a turn. I felt she must be ill to sit like 
 that I "
 
 78 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 utterance, and she could not refuse the call of 
 duty. But more often she said, as in a letter 
 to Mr. Atkinson, which lies before me, " My 
 best aid and support in the miseries of my life 
 has been in work in the intellectual labor 
 which I believe has done me nothing but good." 
 So her immense industry in 1827 may have 
 seemed to her a relief from her heart-sorrows 
 at the moment ; but none the less it probably 
 was the chief cause of her partial breakdown 
 in the next year. A blister relieves internal 
 inflammation ; but a succession of such stimuli 
 too long continued will exhaust the strength, 
 and render the condition more critical than it 
 would have been without such treatment. 
 
 At Newcastle there was a brief cessation 
 from work, under the doctor's orders. But in 
 the middle of 1828 Harriet began to write again 
 for the Repository, in response to an appeal put 
 forth by the editor for gratutious literary aid. 
 That editor was the well-known Unitarian 
 preacher, William Johnston Fox, of South Place 
 Chapel. Mr. Fox became Harriet Martineau's 
 first literary friend. He had no money with 
 which to reward her work for his magazine ; 
 but he paid her amply in a course of frank, full, 
 and generous private criticism and encourage- 
 ment. " His correspondence with me," she 
 says, "was unquestionably the occasion, and, in
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 79 
 
 great measure, the cause, of the greatest intel- 
 lectual progress I ever made before the age of 
 thirty." Mr Fox was so acute a critic that he 
 ere long predicted that " she would be one of 
 the first authors of the age if she continued to 
 write ; " while, at the same time, he offered sug- 
 gestions for improvement, and made corrections 
 in her work upon occasion. Her advance in 
 literary capacity was now very rapid. Her 
 style went on improving, as it should do, till 
 her latest years ; but it now first became an 
 individual one, easy, flowing, forcible, and often 
 most moving and eloquent. 
 
 During the latter half of 1828 and the early 
 part of the succeeding year, she contributed, 
 more or less, to nearly every monthly number 
 of the Repository, without receiving any pay- 
 ment. She wrote essays, poems, and so-called 
 reviews, which last, however, were really 
 thoughtful and original papers, suggested by the 
 subject of a new book. Some of these contri- 
 butions were signed " V " ; but others, including 
 all the reviews, were anonymous. 
 
 Most of these articles are on philosophical sub- 
 jects, and are written with the calmness of style 
 suitable to logical and argumentative essays. 
 In the Repository for February, 1829, and the 
 succeeding month, for instance, there appeared 
 two papers, headed, " On the Agency of Feelings
 
 80 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 in the Formation of Habits," which are simply 
 an accurate, clear, and forcibly-reasoned state- 
 ment of the philosophical doctrine of Associa- 
 tion, with which that of Necessity is inseparably 
 connected. These were, it has been already 
 observed, the theories by which she was learning 
 both to guide her own action and to see that 
 society is moulded, however unconsciously, as 
 regards most of the individuals composing it. 
 A clearer statement of the doctrines, or a more 
 forcible indication of how they can be made to 
 serve as a moral impulse, cannot be imagined. 
 Here is very different work from Devotional 
 Exercises, or Principle and Practice. But it 
 brought its author neither fame nor money. 
 
 Another piece of work done in 1828, or early 
 in the following year, was a Life of Howard, 
 which was written on a positive commission 
 from a member of the Committee of Lord 
 Brougham's " Society for the Diffusion of Use- 
 ful Knowledge," who promised her thirty 
 pounds for it. The MS. was at first said to be 
 lost at the office ; eventually she found that its 
 contents were liberally cribbed by the writer 
 of the Life which was published ; but she 
 never received a penny of the promised pay- 
 ment. These were her times of stress, and 
 struggle, and suffering, and disappointment, in 
 literature as in ordinary life. Her great success,
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 8 1 
 
 when at last it did come, was so sudden that her 
 previous work was obscured and pushed out ot 
 sight in the blaze of triumph. But these years 
 of labor, unrecognized and almost unrewarded, 
 must not be left out of our view, if we would 
 judge fairly of her character. Courage, resolu- 
 tion, self-reliance, determination to conquer in 
 a field once entered upon, are displayed by her 
 quiet industrious perseverance through those 
 laborious years. Harriet Martineau did not 
 make a sudden and easy rush far up the ladder 
 of fame all at once ; her climb, like that of 
 most great men and women, was arduous and 
 slow, and her final success proved not only that 
 she had literary ability, but also the strength of 
 character which could work on while waiting 
 for recognition. 
 
 Fresh trouble was yet impending. After 
 Mr. Martineau's death, his son Henry remained 
 a partner in the weaving business which the 
 father had carried on so long ; and the incomes 
 (small, but sufficient for a maintenance) of the 
 widow and unmarried daughters had to be paid 
 out of the profits of the factory. Just three 
 years after Mr. Martineau's death, however, in 
 June, 1829, the old house became bankrupt, with 
 but small assets. Mrs. Martineau and her 
 daughters were thus deprived suddenly of all 
 means of support.
 
 82 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 The whole family met this final blow to their 
 fortunes with calm courage. It was soon settled 
 that the two girls who possessed all their senses 
 should go out to teach ; but Harriet could not 
 be set to work in the same way for pupils 
 could not easily be found who would say their 
 lessons into an ear-trumpet. The husband of 
 the lady brought up by Mrs. Martineau with her 
 youngest daughter tells me that upon this 
 occasion Harriet's mother said to her adopted 
 child, " I have no fear for any of my daughters, 
 except poor Harriet ; the others can work, but, 
 with her deafness, I do not know how she can 
 ever earn her own bread ! " 
 
 The first resource for Harriet was fancy work 
 of different kinds. " I could make shirts and 
 puddings," she declares, "and iron, and mend, 
 and get my bread by my needle, if necessary 
 as it was necessary, for a few months, before I 
 won a better place and occupation with my pen." 
 During the winter which followed the failure of 
 the old Norwich house, she spent the entire 
 daylight hours poring over fancy-work, by which 
 alone she could with certainty earn money. 
 But she did not lay aside the sterner implement 
 of labor for that bright little bread-winner, the 
 needle. After dark she began a long day's 
 literary labor in her own room.
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 83 
 
 Every night, I believe, I was writing till two, 
 or even three, in the morning, obeying always 
 the rule of the house of being present at the 
 breakfast-table as the clock struck eight. Many 
 a time I was in such a state of nervous exhaus- 
 tion and distress that I was obliged to walk to 
 and fro in the room before I could put on paper 
 the last line of a page, or the last half -sentence 
 of an essay or review. Yet was I very happy. 
 The deep-felt sense of progress and expansion 
 was delightful ; and so was the exertion of all my 
 faculties ; and not least, that of Will to over- 
 come my obstructions, and force my way to that 
 power of public speech of which I believed 
 myself more or less worthy. *J 
 
 She offered the results of this nightly liter- 
 ary toil to a great number of magazine editors 
 and publishers, but without the slightest suc- 
 cess. Totally unknown in London society, 
 having no literary friends or connections beyond 
 the editor of the obscure magazine of her sect, 
 her manuscripts were scarcely looked at. 
 Everything that she wrote was returned upon 
 her hands, until she offered it in despair to the 
 Monthly Repository, where she was as invari- 
 ably successful. Her work, when published 
 there, however, brought her not an atom of 
 fame, and only the most trifling pecuniary 
 return. She wrote to Mr. Fox, when she found 
 herself penniless, to tell him that it would be 
 impossible for her to continue to render as
 
 84 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 much gratuitous service as she had been doing 
 to the Repository ; but he could only reply that 
 the means at his disposal were very limited, 
 and that the utmost he could offer her was 
 .15 a year, for which she was to write "as 
 much as she thought proper." With this let- 
 ter he forwarded her a parcel of nine books to 
 review, as a commencement. A considerable 
 portion of the space in his magazine was filled 
 by Miss Martineau for the next two years on 
 these terms. 
 
 The essay previously referred to, on the 
 "Agency of Feelings in the Formation of 
 Habits," which appeared in the Repository for 
 February and March, 1829, was Harriet Mar- 
 tineau's first marked work. It was followed 
 up by a series, commencing in the August of 
 the same year, of " Essays on the Art of 
 Thinking," which were continued in the mag- 
 azine until December, when two chapters were 
 given in the one number, in order, as the editor 
 remarked, that his readers "might possess 
 entire in one volume this valuable manual of 
 the Art of Thought." 
 
 "V," the writer of these articles, was sup- 
 posed to be of the superior sex. In those days, 
 Mr. Fox would have shown rare courage if he 
 had informed his readers that they were " re- 
 ceiving valuable instruction " in how to exer-
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 85 
 
 else their ratiocinative faculties from the pen 
 of a woman. In the Index, I find the refer- 
 ences run "V.'s" "Ode to Religious Lib- 
 erty"; his "Last Tree of the Forest"; his 
 "Essays on the Art of Thinking," etc., etc. 
 
 The " Essays on the Art of Thinking " are 
 nothing less than an outline of Logic. In sub- 
 stance, they present no great originality ; but 
 they display full internal evidence that the 
 thoughts presented were the writer's own, and 
 not merely copied from authority. It is really 
 no light test of clearness and depth of thought 
 to write on an abstruse science in lucid, per- 
 spicuous fashion, giving a brief but complete 
 view of all its parts in their true relations. 
 Only an accurate thinker, with a mind both 
 capacious and orderly, can perform such a task. 
 The highest function of the human mind is, 
 doubtless, that of the discoverer. The original 
 thinker, he who observes his facts from nature 
 at first hand, who compares them, and reasons 
 about them, and combines them, and general- 
 izes a principle from them, is the one whom 
 posterity to all time must honor and reverence 
 for his additions to the store of human knowl- 
 edge. But not far inferior in power, and equal 
 in immediate usefulness, is the disciple who 
 can judge the originator's work, and, finding it 
 perfectly in accordance with facts as known to
 
 86 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 him, can receive it into his mind, arrange it in 
 order, deck it with illustration, illuminate it 
 with power of language, and represent it in a 
 form suitable for general comprehension. 
 There is originality of mind needed for such 
 work ; that which is done, the adaptation of 
 the truths to be received to the receptive 
 powers of the multitude, is an original work 
 performed upon the truths, hardly inferior in 
 difficulty and utility to that of him who first 
 discerns them. This was the class of work 
 which Harriet Martineau was beginning to do, 
 and to do well. But there was more than this 
 in her purposes. 
 
 As these articles, though vastly inferior in 
 execution to what she afterwards did, neverthe- 
 less show the essential characteristics of her 
 work, this seems to be the most favorable 
 opportunity to pause to inquire what was the 
 special feature of her writings. For, various 
 though her subjects appear to be, ranging from 
 the humblest topics, such as the duties of 
 maids-of-all-work, up to the highest themes of 
 mental and political philosophy, yet I find one 
 informing idea, one and the same moving 
 impulse to the pen of the writer, throughout 
 the whole series. Let us see what it was that 
 she really, though half unconsciously perhaps, 
 kept before her as her aim.
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 87 
 
 It is obvious at once that her writings are all 
 designed to teach. A little closer consideration 
 shows that what they seek to teach is always 
 wJiat is rigJit conduct. Abstract truth merely 
 as such does not content her. She seeks its 
 practical concrete application to daily life. 
 Further, not merely has she the aim of teach- 
 ing morals, but she invariably makes facts and 
 reasonings from facts the basis of her moral 
 teachings. In other words, she approaches 
 morals from the scientific instead of the intui- 
 tional side ; and to thus influence conduct is 
 the invariable final object of her writings. 
 
 It would sound simpler to say that she wrote 
 on the science of morals. But the term " moral 
 science " has already been appropriated to a 
 class of writing than which nothing could, very 
 often, less deserve the name of science. The 
 work which Harriet Martineau spent her whole 
 life in doing, was, however, true work in moral 
 science. What she was ever seeking to do was 
 to find out how men should live from what men 
 and their surroundings are. She must be rec- 
 ognized as one of the first thinkers to uniformly 
 consider practical morals as derived from rea- 
 soned science. 
 
 Many of the articles contributed to the Repos- 
 itory were naturally, from the character of the 
 publication, upon theology. Much that is
 
 88 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 noticeable might be culled from amongst them ; 
 as, indeed, could be inferred from the fact that 
 an able leader of her religious body allowed 
 her to fill so very large a portion of the pages 
 by which, under his guidance, the Unitarian 
 public were instructed. In all the essays, a 
 distinguishing feature is the earnestness of the 
 effort put forth to judge the questions at issue 
 by reason, and not by prejudice. It is true 
 that the effort often fails. There comes the 
 moment at which faith in dogma intervenes, 
 and submerges the pure argument ; but none 
 the less do the spirit of justice and fairness, 
 and the love of truth, irradiate the whole of 
 these compositions. 
 
 Mr. Fox soon asked her if she thought that 
 any of her ideas could be expressed through the 
 medium of fiction. It so happened that the 
 suggestion precisely fell in with a thought that 
 had already occurred to her that "of all delight- 
 ful tasks, the most delightful would be to 
 describe, with all possible fidelity, the aspect 
 of the life and land of the Hebrews, at the 
 critical period of the full expectation of the 
 Messiah." She wrote a story which she called 
 The Hope of the Hebrews, in which a company 
 of young people, relatives and friends, were 
 shown as undergoing the alternations of doubt 
 and hope about whether this teacher was indeed
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 89 
 
 Messiah, on the first appearance of Jesus in 
 Palestine. The day after this story appeared 
 in the Repository Mr. Fox was at an anniver- 
 sary dinner of the sect, where so many per- 
 sons spoke to him about the tale, that he wrote 
 and generously advised Harriet not to publish 
 any more such stories in his magazine, but to 
 make a book of them. She adopted the sug- 
 gestion ; the little volume was issued with her 
 name, and proved her first decisive success. 
 Not only was it well circulated and highly 
 appreciated in England, but it was translated 
 into French, under high ecclesiastical sanction, 
 and was also immediately reproduced in the 
 United States. 
 
 While this book was in the press, she went 
 to stay for a short time in London. Mr. Fox, 
 hearing from her how anxious she was to earn 
 her livelihood by literature, succeeded in obtain- 
 ing from a printer friend of his an offer for her 
 to do "proof correcting and other drudgery," 
 if she liked to remain in London for the work. 
 This would have given her a small but certain 
 income, and there could be little doubt that, if 
 she stayed in London, she would gradually get 
 into some journalistic employment which would 
 enable her to support herself tolerably well. 
 There were no great hopes in the matter. Mr. 
 Fox told her that " one hundred or one hundred
 
 90 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 and fifty pounds a year is as much as our most 
 successful writers usually make " success here 
 meaning, of course, full employment in hack- 
 work. It had not yet occurred, even to Mr. 
 Fox, that she was to be really a successful 
 author. But to do even this drudgery, and to 
 take the poor chance now offered to her, implied 
 that she must make her home in London ; and 
 she wrote to inform her mother of this fact. 
 
 The same post which carried Harriet's letter 
 to this effect, bore to Mrs. Martineau a second 
 missive, from the relative with whom her 
 daughter was staying, which strongly advised 
 that Harriet should be recalled home, there to 
 pursue the needle-work by which she had proved 
 she could earn money. The good lady had been 
 wont to ask Harriet day by day " how much she 
 would get " for the literary labor upon which 
 she had expended some hours ; and the poor 
 young author's reply not being satisfactory or 
 precise, her hostess looked upon the time spent 
 at the desk as so much wasted. She gave 
 Harriet some pieces of silk, "lilac, blue, and 
 pink," and advised her to keep to making little 
 bags and baskets, which the kind friend gener- 
 ously promised to assist in disposing of for good 
 coin of the realm. 
 
 The mother who had stood between her full- 
 grown daughter and the bed of a dying
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 9 1 
 
 betrothed, now thought herself justified in 
 interposing between the woman of twenty-seven 
 and the work which she desired to undertake 
 for her independence. Mrs. Martineau sent 
 Harriet a stern letter, peremptorily ordering 
 her to return home forthwith. Bitterly disap- 
 pointed at seeing this chance of independence 
 in the vocation she loved thus snatched away, 
 Harriet's sense of filial duty led her to obey 
 her mother's commands. She went home with 
 a heavy heart ; and with equal sadness, her 
 little sister of eighteen turned out of home, at 
 the same despotic bidding, to go a-governessing. 
 " My mother received me very tenderly. She 
 had no other idea at the moment than that she 
 had been doing her best for my good." 
 
 Harriet did not return to Norwich entirely 
 discouraged. Resolution such as hers was not 
 easily broken down. The British and Foreign 
 Unitarian Association had advertised three 
 prizes for the best essays designed to convert 
 Roman Catholics, Jews and Mohammedans 
 respectively to Unitarianism. The sum offered 
 for each was but small : ten guineas for the 
 Catholic, fifteen for the Jewish, and twenty for 
 the Mohammedan essays. But it was less the 
 money than interest in the cause, and desire to 
 see if she could succeed in competition with 
 others, that led Harriet to form the intention of 
 trying for all three prizes.
 
 92 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 She went to work immediately upon the 
 Catholic essay, which was to be adjudicated upon 
 six months earlier than the other two. When it 
 was finished, she paid a schoolboy, who wrote a 
 good hand, a sovereign that she could ill spare, 
 for copying the essay, which was about two- 
 thirds the length of this volume. The essays 
 were to be superscribed, as usual in such competi- 
 tions, with a motto, and the writer's name and 
 address had to be forwarded in a sealed envelope, 
 with the same motto outside. In September, 
 1830, she received the gratifying news that 
 the committee of adjudication had unanimously 
 awarded this prize to her. 
 
 The other two essays were commenced with 
 the spirit induced by this success. One of them 
 was copied out by a poor woman, the other by a 
 schoolmaster. Harriet was careful even to have 
 the two essays written upon different sorts of 
 paper, to do them up in differently shaped pack- 
 ages, and to use separate kinds of wax and seals. 
 
 The sequel may be told, with all the freshness 
 of the moment, in a quotation from the Monthly 
 Repository for May, 1831 : "We were about to 
 review it \i. e. the Catholic essay] when the 
 somewhat startling fact transpired of her having 
 carried off the other premiums offered by the 
 Association's committee for tracts addressed to 
 the Mohammedans and the Jews. We shall not
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 93 
 
 now stop to inquire how it has happened that 
 our ministers would not or could not prevent the 
 honor of championing the cause of pure Chris- 
 tianity against the whole theological world from 
 developing upon a young lady. However that 
 may be, she has won the honor and well deserves 
 to wear it." 
 
 The essays were published by the Unitarian 
 Association. There can be little doubt that, 
 however many ministers may have competed, 
 the Committee did select the best papers offered 
 to their choice. The learning in all is remarka- 
 ble ; the freedom from sectarian bitterness, from 
 bigotry, and from the insolent assumption of 
 moral and religious superiority, is even more 
 striking, in such proselytising compositions. 
 
 While waiting the result of the prize compe- 
 tition, Harriet wrote a long story for young 
 people, which she called Five Years of Youth. 
 It is one of the prettiest and most attractive of 
 all her writings of this class. It has a moral 
 object, of course a somewhat similar one to 
 that of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility; but 
 the warning against allowing sensitiveness to 
 pass into sentimentality is here directed to girls 
 just budding into womanhood; and the punish- 
 ment for the error is not a love disappointment, 
 but the diminution of the power of domestic and 
 social helpfulness.
 
 94 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Harriet's work of this year, 1830, comprised 
 the doing of much fancy-work for sale, making 
 and mending everything that she herself wore, 
 knitting stockings even while reading, studying 
 a course of German literature, and writing 
 for the press the following quantity of literary 
 matter : Traditions of Palestine, a duodecimo 
 volume of 1 70 printed pages ; Five Years of 
 Youth, 264 small octavo pages ; three theo- 
 logical essays, making a closely printed crown 
 octavo volume of 300 pages ; and fifty-two 
 articles of various lengths in the twelve numbers 
 of the Monthly Repository. 
 
 And now she had touched the highest point 
 of sectarian fame. The chosen expositor to the 
 outer world of her form of religion, and the 
 writer of its favorite Sunday School story-book 
 of the hour, she must already have felt that her 
 industrions, resolute labor through many years 
 had at last borne some fruit. 
 
 But the moment for wider fame and a greater 
 usefulness was now at hand. In the autumn of 
 1827 she had read Mrs. Marcet's Conversations 
 on Political Economy, and had become aware 
 that the subject which she had thought out for 
 herself, and treated in her little stories of The 
 Rioters, and The Turn-Out, was a recognized 
 science. She followed this up by a study of 
 Adam Smith, and other economists, and the idea
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 95 
 
 then occurred to her that it might be possible 
 to illustrate the whole system of political econ- 
 omy by tales similar in style to those she had 
 already written. The thought had lain working 
 in her mind for long, and, in this autumn of 
 1831, the idea began to press upon her as a 
 duty. 
 
 There were many reasons why it was espe- 
 cially necessary just then that the people should 
 be brought to think about Social Science. The 
 times were bitter with the evils arising from 
 unwise laws. None knew better than she did 
 how largely the well-being of mankind depends 
 upon causes which cannot be affected by laws. 
 It is individual conduct which must make or mar 
 the prosperity of the nation. But, on the other 
 hand, laws are potent, both as direct causes of 
 evil conditions (and in a less degree of good 
 conditions), and from their educational influence 
 upon the people. Harriet Martineau felt that 
 she had come to see more clearly than the masses 
 of her fellow-countrymen exactly how far the 
 miseries under which English society groaned 
 were caused directly or indirectly by mischiev- 
 ious legislative acts. Moreover, the circum- 
 stances of the moment made the imparting of 
 such knowledge not only possible, but specially 
 opportune. The Bishops had just thrown out 
 the Reform Bill ; but no person who watched
 
 g6 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 the temper of the time could doubt that their 
 feeble opposition would be speedily swept aside, 
 and that self-government was about to be 
 extended to a new class of the people. Most 
 suitable was the occasion, then, for offering 
 information to these upon the science and art 
 of society. Harriet was right in her judgment 
 when she started her project of a series of tales 
 illustrative of Political Economy, under a 
 "thorough, well-considered, steady conviction 
 that the work was wanted, was even craved for 
 by the popular mind. 
 
 She began to write the first of her stories. 
 The next business was to find a publisher to 
 share her belief that the undertaking would be 
 acceptable to the public. She wrote to one 
 after another of the great London publishers, 
 receiving instant refusal to undertake the series 
 from all but two ; and even these two, after giving 
 her a little of that delusive hope which ends by 
 plunging the mind into deeper despair, joined 
 with their brethren in declining to have any- 
 thing to do with the scheme. 
 
 Finally, she went to London to try if per- 
 sonal interviews would bring her any better 
 success. She stayed in a house attached to a 
 brewery (Whitbread's), belonging to a cousin 
 of hers, and situated near the City Road. 
 Thence, she tramped about through the mud
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 97 
 
 and sleet of December to the publishers' offices 
 day after day for nearly three weeks. The 
 result was always failure. But though she 
 returned to the house worn-out and dispirited, 
 her determination that the work should be 
 done never wavered, and night after night she 
 sat up till long after the brewery clock struck 
 twelve, the pen pushing on in her trembling 
 hand, preparing the first two numbers of the 
 series, to be ready for publication when the 
 means should be found. 
 
 It was the kind friend who had helped her 
 before who came to the rescue at last at this 
 crisis. Mr. W. J. Fox induced his brother 
 Charles to make her proposals for publishing 
 her series. 
 
 Mr. Charles Fox took care to offer only such 
 arrangement as should indemnify him from all 
 risk in the undertaking. He required, first, 
 that five hundred subscribers should be obtained 
 for the work ; and second, that he, the pub- 
 lisher, should receive about seventy-five per 
 cent of the possible profits. Hopeless of any- 
 thing better, she accepted these hard terms, 
 and it was arranged that the first number 
 should appear with February, 1832. 
 
 The original stipulation as to the time that 
 this agreement should run was that the engage- 
 ment should be terminable by either party at 
 
 4
 
 98 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 the end of every five numbers. But a few 
 days afterwards, when Harriet called upon Mr. 
 W. J. Fox to show him her circular inviting 
 subscribers for the series, she found that Mr. 
 Charles Fox had decided to say that he would 
 not publish more than two numbers, unless a 
 thousand copies of No. I were sold in the first 
 fortnight ! This decision had been arrived at 
 chiefly in consequence of a conversation which 
 W. J. Fox had held with James Mill, in which 
 the distinguished political economist had pro- 
 nounced against the essential point of the 
 scheme the narrative form and had advised 
 that, if the young lady must try her hand at 
 Political Economy, she should write it in the 
 orthodox didactic style. 
 
 Mr. Fox lived at Dalston. When Harriet 
 left his house, after receiving this unreasonable 
 and discouraging ultimatum, she "set out to 
 walk the four miles and a half to the Brewery. 
 I could not afford to ride more or less ; but> 
 weary already, I now felt almost too ill to walk 
 at all. On the road, not far from Shoreditch, I 
 became too giddy to stand without some support ; 
 and I leaned over some dirty palings, pretend- 
 ing to look at a cabbage-bed, but saying to my- 
 self as I stood with closed eyes, ' My book 
 will do yet.' ' 
 
 That very night she wrote the long, thought-
 
 GRIEF STRUGGLE AND PROGRESS. 99 
 
 ful, and collected preface to her work. After 
 she had finished it she sat over the fire in her 
 bedroom, in the deepest depression ; she cried, 
 with her feet on the fender, till four o'clock, 
 and then she went to bed, and cried there till 
 six, when she fell asleep. But if any persons 
 suppose that because the feminine temperament 
 finds a relief in tears, the fact argues weakness, 
 they will be instructed by hearing that she 
 was up by half-past eight, continuing her work 
 as firmly resolved as ever that it should be 
 published.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE work which had struggled into printed 
 existence with such extreme difficulty raised its 
 author at a bound to fame. Ten days after the 
 publication of the first number, Charles Fox 
 sent Harriet word that not only were the fif- 
 teen hundred copies which formed the first edi- 
 tion all sold off, but he had such orders in hand 
 that he proposed to print another five thousand 
 at once. The people had taken up the work 
 instantly. The press followed, instead of lead- 
 ing the public in this instance ; but it, too, was 
 enthusiastic in praise, both of the scheme and 
 the execution of the stories. 
 
 More than one publisher who had previously 
 rejected the series made overtures for it now. 
 Its refusal, as they saw, had been one of those 
 striking blunders of which literary history has 
 not a few to tell. But there is no occasion to 
 cry out about the stupidity of publishers. 
 They can judge well how far a work written 
 on lines already popular will meet the demand
 
 GREAT SUCCESS. IOI 
 
 of the market ; but an entirely original idea, or 
 the work of an original writer, is a mere lottery. 
 There is no telling how the public will take it 
 until it has been tried. Publishers put into a 
 good many such lotteries, and often lose by 
 them ; then nothing more is heard of the mat- 
 ter. But the cases where they decline a spec- 
 ulation which afterwards turns out to have been 
 a good one are never forgotten. Still, the fact 
 remains that it was Harriet Martineau alone 
 who saw that the people needed her work, and 
 whose wonderful courage and resolution brought 
 it out for the public to accept. 
 
 Her success grew, as an avalanche gains in 
 volume, by its own momentum. Besides the 
 publishers' communications she had letters, 
 and pamphlets, and blue-books, and magazines 
 forwarded to her in piles, in order that she 
 might include the advocacy of the senders' 
 hobbies in her series. One day the postmaster 
 sent her a message that she must let a barrow 
 be fetched for her share of the mail, as it was 
 too bulky to come in any other way. Lord 
 Brougham declared, that it made him tear his 
 hair to think that the Society for the Diffusion 
 of Knowledge, which he had instituted for the 
 very purpose of doing such work as she was 
 undertaking, seemed not to have a man in it 
 with as much sense of what was wanted as this
 
 102 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 little deaf girl at Norwich. The public interest 
 in the work was, perhaps, heightened by the 
 fact that so ignorant was everybody of her per- 
 sonality, that this description of Brougham's 
 passed muster. But she was not little, and she 
 was now twenty-nine years of age. 
 
 She stayed in Norwich, going on writing 
 hard, until the November of 1832, by which 
 time eight numbers of her series had appeared. 
 Then she went to London, taking lodgings 
 with an old servant of Mrs. Martineau's, who 
 lived in Conduit street. In the course of a 
 few months, however, Mrs. Martineau settled 
 herself in London, and her daughter again 
 resided with her, in a house in Fludyer street, 
 Westminster. 
 
 The purely literary success which she had 
 hitherto enjoyed was now turned into a social 
 triumph. However she might strive against 
 being lionized she could not avoid the attentions 
 and honors that were poured upon her. It is 
 little to say that all the distinguished people in 
 town hastened to know her; it was even con- 
 sidered to give distinction to a party if she 
 could be secured to attend it. Literary celebri- 
 ties, titled people, and members of Parliament, 
 competed for the small space of time that she 
 could spare for society. 
 
 This was not very much, for the work she had
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS. 103 
 
 undertaken was heavy enough to absorb all her 
 energies. She had engaged to produce one of 
 her stories every month. They were issued in 
 small paper-covered volumes of from one hun- 
 dred and twenty to one hundred and fifty pages 
 of print. She began publication with only two 
 or three numbers ready written. Thus, to keep 
 on with her series, she had to write one whole 
 number every month. It would have been hard 
 work had it been simple story-telling, had she 
 been merely imaginatively reproducing scenes 
 and characters from her past experience, or 
 writing according to her fancy. But it was, in 
 fact, a much more difficult labor upon which she 
 was engaged. Her scheme required that she 
 should embody every shade of variety of the 
 human character ; that her scenes should be laid 
 in different parts of the world, with topography 
 and surroundings appropriate to the story ; and 
 that the governments and social state of all these 
 various places should be accurately represented. 
 In addition to all this she had to lay down for 
 each tale the propositions which had to be illus- 
 trated in it ; to assure herself that she clearly 
 saw the truth and the bearings of every doctrine 
 of political economy ; and then to work into a 
 connected fiction in a concrete form the abstract 
 truths of the science representing them as 
 exemplified in the lives of individuals.
 
 104 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Political economy treats of the production, 
 distribution and consumption, or use, of all the 
 material objects of human desire, which are 
 called by the general name of wealth. Thus, it 
 is a subject which concerns every one of us in 
 our daily lives, and not merely a matter belong- 
 ing (as its name unfortunately leads many to 
 suppose) entirely to the province of the legisla- 
 tor. The great mass of mankind are producers 
 of wealth. All are necessarily consumers 
 for the bare maintenance of existence demands 
 the consumption of wealth. The well-being of 
 the community depends upon the industry and 
 skill with which wealth is produced ; upon the 
 distribution of it in such a manner as to encour- 
 age future production ; and upon the consump- 
 tion of it with due regard to the claims of the 
 future. It is individuals who, as the business of 
 common life, produce, exchange, divide and con- 
 sume wealth ; it is, therefore, each individual's 
 business to comprehend the science which treats 
 of his daily life. A science is nothing but a 
 collection of facts, considered in their relation- 
 ship to each other. Miss Martineau's plan, in 
 her series, was strictly what I have indicated 
 as being always her aim ; namely, to deduce 
 from an abstract science rules for daily life - 
 the secondary, practical or concrete science. It 
 was the union of a scientific basis with practical
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS. 105 
 
 morals that made this subject attractive to her 
 mind, and led her (in the words of her preface,) 
 to "propose to convey the leading truths of 
 political economy, as soundly, as systematically, 
 as clearly and faithfully, as the utmost painstak- 
 ing and the strongest attachment to the subject 
 will enable us to do." 
 
 She did her work very methodically. Having 
 first noted down her own ideas on the branch 
 of the subject before her, she read over the 
 chapters relating to it in the various standard 
 works that she had at hand, making references 
 as she read. The next thing to do was to draw 
 out as clearly and concisely as possible the 
 truths that she had to illustrate ; this " summary 
 of principles," as she called it, was affixed to 
 each tale. By this time she would see in what 
 part of the world, and amongst what class of 
 people, the principles in question were operat- 
 ing most manifestly ; and if this consideration 
 dictated the choice of a foreign background, 
 the next thing to be done was to get from a 
 library works of travel and topography, and 
 to glean hints from them for local coloring. 
 
 The material thus all before her in sheets of 
 notes, she reduced it to chapters ; sketching 
 out the characters of her dramatis persona, 
 their action, and the features of the scenes, 
 and also the political economy which they had
 
 106 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 to convey either by exemplification or by 
 conversation. Finally, she paged her paper. 
 Then " the story went off like a letter. I did 
 it," she says, " as I write letters ; never alter- 
 ing the expression as it came fresh from my 
 brain." 
 
 I have seen the original manuscript of one of 
 the Political Economy Tales. It shows the 
 statement just quoted to be entirely accurate. 
 The writing has evidently been done as rapidly 
 as the hand could move ; every word that will 
 admit of it is contracted, to save time. " Socy.," 
 "opporty., " "agst," "abt.," "independce.," 
 these were amongst the abbreviations submitted 
 to the printer's intelligence ; not to mention 
 commoner and more simple words, such as wh., 
 wd., and the like. The calligraphy, though 
 very readable, has a somewhat~slipshod look. 
 Thus, there is every token of extremely rapid 
 composition. Yet the corrections on the MS. 
 are few and trifling ; the structure of a sentence 
 is never altered, and there are but seldom 
 emendations even of principal words. The 
 manuscript is written (in defiance of law and 
 order) on both sides of the paper ; the latter 
 being quarto, of the size now commonly called 
 sermon paper, but, in those pre-envelope ages, 
 it was letter paper. 
 
 Her course of life in London was as follows :
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS. IO/ 
 
 she wrote in the morning, rising, and making 
 her own coffee at seven, and going to work 
 immediately after breakfast until two. From 
 two till four she saw visitors. Having an im- 
 mense acquaintance, she declined undertaking 
 to make morning calls ; but people might call 
 upon her any afternoon. She was charged with 
 vanity about this arrangement ; but, with the 
 work on her hands and the competition for her 
 company, she really could not do differently. 
 Still, Sydney Smith suggested a better plan; 
 he told her she should "hire a carriage, and 
 engage an inferior authoress to go round in it 
 to drop the cards!" After any visitors left, 
 she went out for her daily "duty walk," and 
 returned to glance over the newspapers, and to 
 dress for dinner. Almost invariably she dined 
 out, her host's or some other friend's carriage 
 being commonly sent to fetch her. One or two 
 evening parties would conclude the day, unless 
 the literary pressure was extreme, in which case 
 she would sometimes write letters after return- 
 ing home. During the whole time of writing 
 her series, she was satisfied with from five to 
 six hours' sleep out of the twenty-four; and 
 though she was not a teetotaller, but drank 
 wine at dinner, still she took no sort of 
 stimulant to help her in her work. 
 This was the course of life that a woman, of
 
 108 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 no extraordinary physical strength, was able to 
 maintain with but little cessation or interval for 
 two years. When I look at the thirty-four lit- 
 tle volumes which she produced in less than as 
 many months, and when I consider the character 
 of their contents, I am bound to say that I con- 
 sider the feat of mere industry unparalleled, 
 within my knowledge. 
 
 The Illustrations of Political Economy are 
 plainly and inevitably damaged, as works of 
 art, by the fact that they are written to convey 
 definite lessons. The fetters in which the story 
 moves are necessarily far closer than in the or- 
 dinary "novel with a purpose;" for here the 
 object is not merely to show the results, upon 
 particular characters or upon individual careers, 
 of a certain course of conduct, and thence to 
 argue that in similar special circumstances all 
 persons would experience similar consequences : 
 but the task here is to show in operation those 
 springs of the social machinery by which we 
 are all, generally quite unconsciously, guided in 
 our every-day actions, the natural laws by which 
 all our lives are inevitably governed. To do this, 
 the author was compelled to select scenes from 
 common life, and to eschew the striking and the 
 unusual. Again, it was absolutely necessary 
 that much of the doctrine which had to be 
 taught must be conveyed by dialogue; not
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS. 109 
 
 because it would not be possible to exemplify in 
 action every theory of political economy for all 
 those theories have originally been derived from 
 observation of the facts of human history but 
 because no such a small group of persons and 
 such a limited space of time as must be taken to 
 tell a stoty about, can possibly display the whole 
 consequences of many of the laws of social 
 science. The results of our daily actions as 
 members of society are not so easily visible as 
 they would be if we could wholly trace them out 
 amongst our own acquaintances or in our own 
 careers. The consequences of our own conduct, 
 good or bad, must come round 'to us, it is true, but 
 often only as members of the body politic. Thus, 
 they are very often in a form as little distin- 
 guishable to the uninstructed mind as we may 
 suppose it would be comprehensible to the brain, 
 if the organs of the body had a separate con- 
 sciousness, that it was responsible for its own 
 aches arising from the disturbance of the liver 
 consequent upon intemperance. But in a tale it 
 is obviously impossible to show in action any 
 more of the working of events than can be ex- 
 emplified in one or two groups of persons, all 
 of whom must be, however slightly, personally 
 associated. The larger questions and principles 
 at issue must be expounded and argued out in 
 conversations, or else by means of an entire lapse
 
 110 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 from the illustrative to the didactic method. 
 Now, as ordinary people do not go about the 
 world holding long conversations or delivering 
 themselves of dissertations on political economy, 
 it is clear that the introduction of such talks 
 and preachments detracts from the excellence of 
 the story as a work of art. Still less artistic- 
 ally admirable does the fiction become when a 
 lesson is introduced as a separate argument 
 intruded into the course of the tale. 
 
 Political economy as a science was then but 
 fifty years old. Adam Smith had first promul- 
 gated its fundamental truths in his immortal 
 Wealth of Nations, in 1776. Malthus, Ricardo, 
 and one or two others had since added to the 
 exposition of the facts and the relationship 
 between the facts (that is to say, the science) 
 of social arrangements. But it was not then 
 nor is it, indeed, yet, in an age when the great 
 rewards of physical research have attracted 
 into that field nearly all the best intellects for 
 science of the time a complete body of 
 reasoned truths. Some of the positions laid 
 down by all the earlier writers are now dis- 
 credited ; others are questioned. In a few pas- 
 sages, accordingly, these tales teach theories 
 which would now require revision. It must be 
 added at once that these instances are few and 
 far between. The reasoning, the grasp of the
 
 THE GREA T SUCCESS. 1 1 1 
 
 facts of social life and the logical acumen with 
 which they are dissected and explained in these 
 tales are, generally speaking, nearly perfect, 
 and therefore such as all competent students of 
 the subject would at this day indorse. The 
 slips in exposition of the science as it was then 
 understood are exceedingly rare. Greater clear- 
 ness, and more precision, and better arrange- 
 ment could hardly have been attained had years 
 been spent upon the work, in revising, correct- 
 ing, and re-copying, instead of each " Illustra- 
 tion" being written in a month, and sent to 
 press with hardly a phrase amended. 
 
 The accuracy and excellence in the presenta- 
 tion of the science were admitted at once by 
 the highest authorities. Mr. James Mill early 
 made honorable amends for his previous doubts 
 as to the possibility of Miss Martineau's suc- 
 cess. VVhately and Malthus expressed their 
 admiration of the work. Lord Brougham 
 called upon her, and engaged her pen to illus- 
 trate the necessity for reform in the treatment 
 of the social canker of pauperism. The Gur- 
 neys, and the rest of the Quaker members of 
 Parliament got Mrs. Fry to make an appoint- 
 ment to ask Miss Martineau's advice as to their 
 action in the House on the same subject, when 
 it was ripe for legislation. The Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer (Lord Althorp) even sent his
 
 1 1 2 HARRIET MARTINEA U. 
 
 private secretary (Mr. Drummond, the author 
 of the world-famous phrase " Property has its 
 duties as well as its rights ") to supply Miss 
 Martineau with information to enable her to 
 prepare the public for the forthcoming Budget. 
 The chairman of the Royal Commission on 
 Excise Taxes gave her the manuscript of the 
 evidence taken, and the draft of the report of 
 the Commission, before they were formally 
 presented to the Ministers of the Crown (a 
 thing without precedent ! ), in order that she 
 might use the facts to pave the way for the 
 reception of the report in the House and by 
 the people. The whole public of male stu- 
 dents of her science paid her work what men 
 consider in their unconscious insolence to be 
 the highest compliment that they can pay a 
 woman's work : the milder-mannered ones said 
 she had "a masculine intelligence"; the 
 stronger characters went further, and declared 
 that the books were so good that it was impos- 
 sible to believe them to be written by a woman. 
 Newspaper critics not infrequently attributed 
 them to Lord Brougham, then Lord Chancel- 
 lor ; that versatile and (at the moment) most 
 popular politician was supposed either to write 
 them all himself, or to supply their main 
 features for the inferior mind to throw into 
 shape.
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS, 113 
 
 While statesmen, politicians, thinkers, and 
 students were thus praising the clearness and 
 appreciating the power of the work as political 
 economy, the general public eagerly bought 
 and read the books, both for their bearing on 
 the legislative questions of the day and for 
 their vividness and interest as stories. And 
 indeed, they richly deserved to be read as 
 works of fiction. Remembering the limita- 
 tions to their artistic excellence previously 
 adverted to, they may be with justice praised 
 for most of the essential features of good 
 novel-writing. 
 
 The characters are the strongest point. 
 Clearly individualized, consistently carried out, 
 thinking, speaking, and acting in accordance 
 with their nature, the characters are always 
 personages ; and some of them must live long 
 in the memories of those who have made their 
 acquaintance. The sterner virtues in Cousin 
 
 Marshall, in Lady F , in Ella of Garveloch, 
 
 and in Mary Kay, are no less clearly and attrac- 
 tively depicted than the milder and more pass- 
 ive ones in the patience of Christian Vanderput, 
 in the unconscious devotion to duty of Nicholas, 
 in the industry and hopefulness of Frank and 
 Ellen Castle, in the wifely love and agony of 
 Hester Morrison, in the quiet public spirit of 
 Charles Guyon, in the proved patriotism of the
 
 114 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Polish exiles, and in a dozen other instances. 
 Her feelings and her spirit are at home in 
 depicting these virtues of the character ; but 
 none the less does she well succeed in realizing 
 both vice and folly. Her real insight into char- 
 acter was quite remarkable ; as Dr. Martineau 
 observed to me, when he said, " My sister's 
 powers of observation were extraordinary." If, 
 on the one hand, her deafness often prevented 
 her from appreciating the delicacies and the 
 chances of verbal expression (which really re- 
 veal so much of the nature) in those around 
 her, so that she was apt to draw sharper lines 
 than most people do between the sheep and the 
 goats in her estimation ; on the other hand, she 
 saw more than those whose minds are distracted 
 by sounds, the light and play of the countenance, 
 and the indications of character in trivial actions. 
 The excellence of her character-drawing in these 
 novels gives abundant evidence that the dis- 
 qualification was more than counterbalanced by 
 the cultivation of the other faculty. 
 
 The unconsciousness of her mental analysis 
 is at once its greatest charm and the best token 
 of its truthfulness. Florence Nightingale real- 
 ized how fully this was so with reference to 
 the finer qualities of morals. In her tribute to 
 Harriet Martineau's memory Miss Nightingale 
 justly observes :
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS. 115 
 
 In many parts of her Illustrations of Political 
 Economy for example, the death of a poor 
 drinking-woman, "Mrs Kay," what higher 
 religious feeling (or one should rather say in- 
 stinct) could there be ? To the last she had 
 religious feeling in the sense of good working 
 out of evil into a supreme wisdom penetrating 
 and moulding the whole universe ; into the 
 natural subordination of intellect and intellect- 
 ual purposes and of intellectual self to purposes 
 of good, even were these merely the small pur- 
 poses of social or domestic life. 
 
 On the other side of the human character in 
 her delineation of the bad qualities, she as in- 
 stinctively seeks and finds causes for the errors 
 and evils of the minds she displays. Foolish- 
 ness, and ignorance, and poverty are traced, 
 entirely without affectation and " cant," in their 
 action as misleading influences in the lives of 
 the poor sinners and sufferers. 
 
 The stories told in the Illustrations are fre- 
 quently very interesting. In this respect, there 
 is a notable advance in the course of the series. 
 The earlier tales, such as Life in the Wilds and 
 Brooke Farm, are not to be compared, as mere 
 stories, with even those written later on by only 
 eight or nine stirring eventful months, such as 
 Ireland and The Loom and the Lugger. Still 
 better are the latest tales. The Illustrations 
 of Taxation and Illustrations of Poor-Laws and
 
 1 1 6 HA RRIE T MAR TINEA U. 
 
 Paupers are, despite the unattractiveness of 
 their topics, of the highest interest. The Parish, 
 The Town, The Jcrseymen Meeting, The Jersey- 
 men Parting, and The Scholars of Arnside, would 
 assuredly be eagerly read by any lover of fiction 
 almost without consciousness that there was 
 anything in the pages except a deeply interest- 
 ing story. 
 
 Archbishop Whately pronounced The Parish 
 the best thing she had done. Vanderpnt and 
 Snook, the story dealing with bills of exchange, 
 was the favorite with Mr. Hallam. Lord Broug- 
 ham, on whose engagement she did the five 
 " Poor-Law " stories, wrote most enthusiastically 
 that they surpassed all the expections that her 
 previous works had led him to form. Coleridge 
 told her that he " looked eagerly every month " 
 for the new number ; and Lord Durham re- 
 counted to her how one evening he was at 
 Kensington Palace (where the widowed Duch- 
 ess of Kent was then residing, and devoting 
 herself to that education which has made her 
 daughter the best sovereign of her dynasty), 
 when the little Princess Victoria came running 
 from an inner room to show her mother, with 
 delight, the advertisement of the " Taxation " 
 tales ; for the young Princess was being allowed 
 to read the Illustrations, and found them her 
 most fascinating story-books.
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS. II 7 
 
 Harriet's experiences, however, were not all 
 quite so agreeable. Mrs. Marcet, who "had a 
 great opinion of great people of people great 
 by any distinction, ability, office, birth, and what 
 not and innocently supposed her own taste to 
 be universal," formed a warm and generous 
 friendship for Miss Martineau, and used to de- 
 light in carrying to her the " homages " of the 
 savants and the aristocratic readers of the 
 Illustrations in France, where Mrs. Marcet's 
 acquaintance was extensive. She one day told 
 Miss Martineau, with much delight, that Louis 
 Philippe, the then King of the French, had 
 ordered a copy of the series for each member of 
 his family, and had also requested M. Guizot to 
 have the stories translated, and introduced into 
 the French national schools. This was pres- 
 ently confirmed by a large order from France 
 for copies, and by a note from the officially- 
 appointed translator requesting Harriet Mar- 
 tineau to favor him with some particulars of 
 her personal history, for introduction into a 
 periodical which was being issued by the Gov- 
 ernment for the promotion of education amongst 
 the French people. The writer added that M. 
 Guizot wished to have Miss Martineau's series 
 specially noticed in connection with her own 
 personality, since she afforded the first instance 
 on record of a woman who was not born to
 
 Il8 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 sovereign station affecting practical legislation 
 otherwise than through a man. 
 
 At the very time that she received this flat- 
 tering note, Harriet was engaged in writing her 
 twelfth number, French Wines and Politics. 
 The topic treated in this story is that of value, 
 with the subsidiary questions relating to prices 
 and their fluctuations. The tale takes up the 
 period of the great French Revolution, and shows 
 how the fortunes of certain wine-merchants near 
 Bordeaux, and of the head of the Paris house in 
 connection, were affected by the course of that 
 great social convulsion. The scene was unques- 
 tionably happily chosen. The circumstances 
 were abnormal, it is true ; but the causes which 
 created such vast fluctuations in prices, and such 
 changes in the value of goods, were, in fact, 
 only the same fundamental causes as are always 
 at the basis of such alterations in price and 
 value ; it was merely the rapidity and violence 
 of the movement which were peculiar. The 
 story was well put together ; and the " Illus- 
 tration "'was in every way admirable for every 
 possible desirable object, except only for the 
 one of being pleasant to the ruling powers in 
 the France of 1833. 
 
 Harriet Martineau's constant sympathy with 
 democracy, her hatred of oppression and tyranny, 
 and her aversion to class government, all became
 
 THE GRE/{T SUCCESS. 1 19 
 
 conspicuous in this story. "The greatest happi- 
 ness of the greatest number" of mankind was 
 her ideal of the aim of legislation ; and she well 
 knew, as Bentham saw, that only the democratic 
 form of government can produce a body of laws 
 approximating to this ideal. Her efforts were 
 constant, therefore, to prepare the people to 
 demand, and to afterwards wisely use, the power 
 of governing themselves. Now, though Louis 
 Philippe was the citizen-king, though he was the 
 head of a republican monarchy, though his leg- 
 islative chamber rejected in that same year a 
 ministerial document because it spoke of the 
 people as "subjects," yet it may be easily 
 understood that this king and his ministers did 
 not care to stimulate the democratic feeling of 
 the nation any more than they found inevitable. 
 The whole tone of this work would be objection- 
 able to them ; and a dozen passages might be 
 readily quoted to show why royal and aristocratic 
 rulers were little likely to aid its circulation 
 amongst the people whom they governed.. 
 Here, for instance, is a portion of the passage 
 on the storming of the Bastile : 
 
 The spectacles of a life-time were indeed to be 
 beheld within the compass of this one scene. . . 
 Here were the terrors which sooner or later chill 
 the marrow of despotism, and the stern joy with 
 which its retribution fires the heart of the patriot.
 
 120 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Here were the servants of tyranny quailing 
 before the glance of the people. . . . The towers 
 of palaces might be seen afar, where princes 
 were quaking at this final assurance of the 
 downfall of their despotic sway, knowing that the 
 assumed sanctity of royalty was being wafted 
 away with every puff of smoke which spread 
 itself over the sky, and their irresponsibility melt- 
 ing in fires lighted by the hands which they had 
 vainly attempted to fetter, and blown by the 
 breath which they had imagined they could stifle. 
 They had denied the birth of that liberty whose 
 baptism in fire and in blood was now being cele- 
 brated in a many-voiced chant with which the 
 earth should ring for centuries. Some from 
 other lands were already present to hear and 
 join in jt; some free Britons to aid, some won- 
 dering slaves of other despots to slink home- 
 wards with whispered tidings of its import ; for 
 from that day to this, the history of the fall of 
 the Bastile has been told as a secret in the vine- 
 yards of Portugal, and among the groves of Spain, 
 and in the patriotic conclaves of the youth of 
 Italy, while it has been loudly and joyfully pro- 
 claimed from one end to the other of Great 
 Britain, till her lisping children are familiar with 
 the tale. 
 
 Besides such passages as this, scarcely likely 
 to please the French king, there was the special 
 ground for his objection that his immediate 
 ancestor, Egalite, was introduced into the story, 
 and depicted in no favorable light his efforts to 
 inflame the popular violence for his selfish ends,
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS. 121 
 
 his hypocrisy, his cowardice, and so on, being 
 held up to contempt. Mrs. Marcet, when she 
 read all this, came breathless to Harriet Marti- 
 neau to ask her how she could have made such 
 a blunder as to write a story that plainly would 
 (and, of course, in fact, did) put an end to the 
 official patronage of her series in France, and 
 would destroy for ever any hopes that she might 
 have entertained of being received at the Court 
 of Louis Philippe ? Greatly surprised was the 
 good lady at finding Harriet's reverence for that 
 monarch so limited in extent. She replied to 
 her kind friend that she "wrote with a view to 
 the people, and especially the most suffering of 
 them ; and the crowned heads must for once take 
 their chance for their feelings." 
 
 At the very moment that Mrs. Marcet's 
 remonstrance was made, Miss Martineau was 
 writing a story of a character likely to be even 
 more distasteful to the Emperer of Russia than 
 this one to the King of the French. She had 
 found it difficult to illustrate the theory of the 
 currency in a story treating of the existence of 
 civilized people. The only situation in which 
 she could find persons, above the rank of sav- 
 ages, transacting their exchanges by aid of a 
 kind of money which made the business only 
 one remove from bartering, was amongst the 
 Polish exiles in Siberia. She therefore wrote
 
 122 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 The Charmed Sea, a story founded upon the 
 terrible facts of the lives of the exiled Poles 
 "in the depths of Eastern Siberia," working 
 in "a silver-mine near the western extremity 
 of the Daourian Range, and within hearing of 
 the waters of the Baikal when its storms were 
 fiercest." Had the melancholy tale been writ- 
 ten in the service of the Poles, it could not 
 have been more moving. So powerful, and 
 interesting was it, indeed, that the criticism of 
 the Edinburgh Review was that the fiction too 
 entirely overpowered the political economy. 
 The arrival of The Charmed Sea in Russia 
 changed the favorable opinion which the Czar 
 had previously been so kind as to express about 
 the Illustrations. He had been purchasing 
 largely of the French translation of the series 
 for distribution amongst his people. But now 
 he issued a proclamation ordering every copy 
 in Russia of every number to be immediately 
 burnt, and forbidding the author ever to set 
 foot upon his soil. Austria, equally concerned 
 in the Polish business, followed this example, 
 and a description of Harriet Martineau-'s per- 
 son was hung in the appointed places, amidst 
 the lists of the proscribed, all over Russia, 
 Austria, and Austrian-Italy. Despots, at least, 
 had no admiration for her politics. 
 
 The only important adverse criticism in the
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS. 123 
 
 press appeared in the Quarterly Review* The 
 reviewer objected impartially to every one of 
 the twelve stories which had then appeared. 
 Every circumstance which could arouse preju- 
 dice against the series was taken advantage 
 of, from party political feeling and religious 
 bigotry, down to the weakness of fluid philan- 
 thropy, and "the prudery and timidity of the 
 middle-classes of England." The principal 
 ground of attack was the story which dealt 
 with Malthusianism, Weal and Woe in Garve- 
 loch. 
 
 When the course of my exposition brought 
 me to the population subject, I, with my youth- 
 ful and provincial mode of thought and feeling 
 brought up, too, amidst the prudery which is 
 found in its great force in our middle class 
 could not but be sensible that I risked much in 
 writing and publishing on a subject which was 
 not universally treated in the pure, benevolent, 
 and scientific spirit of Malthus himself. ... I 
 said nothing to anybody ; and, when the num- 
 ber was finished, I read it aloud to my mother 
 and aunt. If there had been any opening 
 whatever for doubt or dread, I was sure that 
 
 * In the same number, by the way, appeared the notorious 
 biting and sarcastic notice of Tennyson's second volume. It 
 is a distinction, indeed, for a critical review, that one number 
 should have devoted half its space to violently unfavorable 
 criticisms of Alfred Tennyson's poetry and Harriet Martineau's 
 poliHcal economy.
 
 124 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 these two ladies would have given me abundant 
 warning and exhortation- both from their 
 very keen sense of propriety and their anxious 
 affection for me. But they were as complacent 
 and easy as they had been interested and atten- 
 tive.' I saw that all ought to be safe. 
 
 'The Quarterly Review seized the opportunity 
 of the appearance of this number to make a 
 vile attack upon the series and its writer. 
 Harriet suffered under it to a degree which 
 seems almost excessive. The review is so 
 obviously full of fallacies, as regards its Polit- 
 ical Economy, that any person whose opinion 
 was worth having could hardly hesitate in 
 deciding that she, and not her critic, was talk- 
 ing common-sense and arguing logically. As 
 to the personal part of the article, it is, though 
 scurrilous, and even indecent, so very funny 
 that the attacked might almost have forgotten 
 the insult in the amusement. Nevertheless, 
 the writers, Croker and Lockhart, did their 
 worst. Croker openly said that he expected to 
 lose his pension very shortly, and, being wish- 
 ful to make himself a literary position before 
 that event happened, he had begun by "toma- 
 hawking Miss Martineau." All that could be 
 painful to her as a woman, and injurious to her 
 as a writer, was said, or attempted to be con- 
 veyed, in this article.
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS. 12$ 
 
 Let us see what it was all about. Garveloch, 
 one of -the Hebridean islands, is seen in the 
 " Illustration " rapidly multiplying its popula- 
 tion, both by early marriages and by immigra- 
 tion, under the stimulus of a passing prosperity 
 in the fishing industry. The influx of capital 
 and the increase of the demand for food, have 
 led to such an improvement in the cultivation 
 of the land, that the food produce of the island 
 has been doubled in ten years. Ella, the hero- 
 ine (a fine, strong, self-contained, helpful 
 woman one of the noblest female characters 
 in these works), foresees that if the reckless 
 increase of population continues, the supply of 
 food will by-and-by run short. Her interlocutor 
 asks how this will be the case, since the popu- 
 lation will surely not double again, as it has 
 done already, in ten years ? Then the Quarterly 
 quotes Ella's reply, and comments on it : 
 
 " Certainly not ; but say twenty, thirty, fifty or 
 any number of years you choose ; still, as the 
 number of the people doubles itself for ever, 
 while the produce of the land does not, the 
 people must increase faster than the produce." 
 
 This is rare logic and arithmetic, and not a 
 little curious as natural history. A plain person 
 now would have supposed that if the produce 
 doubled itself in ten, and the people only in 
 a hundred years, the people would not increase 
 quite so fast as the produce, seeing that at the
 
 126 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 end of the first century the population would be 
 multiplied but by two, the produce by one thous- 
 and and twenty-four. But these are the dis- 
 coveries of genius ! Why does Miss Martineau 
 write, except to correct our mistaken notions 
 and to expound to us the mysteries of "the 
 principle of population." 
 
 The reviewer goes on to suggest, in the 
 broadest language, that she has confounded the 
 rate of the multiplication of the herring-fisher- 
 women with that of the herrings themselves ; 
 reproves her for writing on "these ticklish 
 topics " with so little physiological information ; 
 and -tells her that she, "poor innocent, has been 
 puzzling over Mr. Malthus's arithmetical and 
 geometrical ratios for knowledge which she 
 should have obtained by a simple question or 
 two of her mamma." In one and the same 
 paragraph, he tells her that he is "loth to bring 
 a blush unnecessarily upon the cheek of any 
 woman," and asks her if she picked up her infor- 
 mation on the subject " in her conferences with 
 the Lord Chancellor ? " 
 
 This is enough to show to what a sensitive 
 young lady was exposed in illustrating " a prin- 
 ciple as undeniable as the multiplication table," 
 and in stating the facts upon which hangs the 
 explanation of the poverty, and therefore of
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS. I2/ 
 
 a large part of the vice and misery, of mankind. 
 Miss Martineau's exposition was, of course, 
 entirely right, and the fallacy in the review is 
 obvious, one would suppose on the surface. 
 The reviewer's error consists in his assumption 
 the falsity of which is at once apparent on the 
 face of the statement that land can go on 
 doubling its produce every ten years, for an 
 indefinite period. So far from this being true, 
 the fact is that the limit of improving the culti- 
 vation of land is soon reached. 
 
 Better agricultural treatment may easily make 
 half-cultivated land bring forth double its previ- 
 ous produce ; but the highest pitch of farming 
 once reached as it comparatively soon is 
 the produce cannot be further increased ; and 
 even before this limit is reached, the return for 
 each additional application of capital and labor 
 becomes less and less proportionately bountiful. 
 This is the truth known to political economists 
 as " the Law of the Diminishing Return of 
 Land." Taken in conjunction with the fact 
 that the human race can double for ever, theo- 
 retically, and in reality does multiply its numbers 
 with each generation, checked only by the fore- 
 thought of the more prudent and the operations 
 of famine, war, crime, and the diseases caused 
 by poverty, this law explains why mankind does
 
 128 HARRIET AfARTINEAU. 
 
 not more rapidly improve its condition why 
 the poor, have been always with us and why 
 teaching such as Harriet Martineau here gave 
 must be received into the popular mind before 
 the condition of society can be expected to be 
 improved in the only way possible, by the wis- 
 dom and prudence of its members. 
 
 Painful as was the attack she had undergone, 
 intensely as she had suffered from its character 
 and nature, Miss Martineau did not allow what 
 she had felt of personal distress to have any 
 influence on her future writings. Her moral 
 courage had been well trained and exercised, 
 first by the efforts that her mind had had to 
 make in following her conscience as a guide to 
 the formation of opinions, in opposition to the 
 tendency implanted by her mother's treatment 
 to bow supinely before authority; secondly, 
 by the lesson of endurance which her deafness 
 had brought to her. She had now to show, for 
 the first, but by no means the last time, that 
 hers was one of those temperaments which 
 belong to all leaders of men, whether in physical 
 or moral warfare; that danger was to her a 
 stimulus, and that her courage rose the higher 
 the greater the demand for its exercise. 
 
 Praise and blame, appreciation and defama- 
 tion, strengthened and enlarged her mind during
 
 THE GREAT SUCCESS. 129 
 
 this period. But at the end of it, Sydney Smith 
 could say : "She has gone through such a 
 season as no girl before ever knew, and she 
 has kept her own mind, her own manners, and 
 her own voice. She's safe."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 
 
 ON the conclusion of the publication of the 
 Illustrations of Political Economy, Harriet went 
 to the United States, and travelled there for more 
 than two years. Her fame had preceded her ; 
 and she received the warm and gracious greeting 
 from the generous people of America that they 
 are ever ready to give to distinguished guests 
 from their "little Mother-isle." She travelled 
 not only in the Northern States, but in the 
 South and the West too, going in the one direc- 
 tion from New York to New Orleans, and in 
 the other to Chicago and Michigan. Every- 
 where she was received with eager hospitality. 
 Public institutions were freely thrown open to 
 her, and eminent citizens vied with each other 
 in showing her attention, publicly and privately. 
 The most noteworthy incident in the course of 
 the whole two years was her public declaration 
 of her anti-slavery principles. The Anti-Slavery 
 movement was in its beginning. The aboli- 
 tionists were the subjects of abuse and social
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 131 
 
 persecution, and Miss Martineau was quickly 
 made aware that by a declaration in their favor 
 she would risk incurring odium, and might 
 change her popularity in society into disrepute 
 and avoidance. It would have been perfectly" 
 easy for a less active conscience and a less true 
 moral sense to have evaded the question, in such 
 a manner that neither party could have upbraided 
 her for her action. She might simply have said 
 that she was there as a learner, not as a teacher; 
 that her business was to survey American 
 society, and not to take any share in its party 
 disputes, or to give any opinion on the political 
 questions of a strange land. Such paltering 
 with principle was impossible to Harriet Mar- 
 tineau. She did not obtrude her utterances on 
 the subject, but when asked in private society 
 what she thought, she frankly spoke out her 
 utter abhorrence, not merely of slavery in the 
 abstract, but also of the state of the Southern 
 slave-holders and their human property. She 
 could not help seeing that this candor often gave 
 offense ; but that was not her business when her 
 opinion was sought on a moral question. 
 
 The really searching test of her personal char- 
 acter did not come, however, with regard to this 
 matter, till she went to stay for a while in Bos- 
 ton, the head-quarters of the abolitionists, fifteen 
 months after her arrival in America. It hap-
 
 132 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 pened that she reached Boston the very day a 
 ladies' anti-slavery meeting was broken up by 
 the violence of a mob, and that Garrison, falling 
 into the hands of the enraged multitude, was 
 half-murdered in the street. Harriet had given 
 a promise, long previously, to attend an aboli- 
 tionists' meeting; and though these occurrences 
 showed her that there was actual personal dan- 
 ger in keeping her word, she was not to be 
 intimidated. She went to the very next meet- 
 ing of the ladies' society, which was held a 
 month after the one so violently disturbed, and 
 there, being unexpectedly begged to "give them 
 the comfort " of a few words from her, she rose, 
 and as the official report says, " with great dig- 
 nity and simplicity of manner," declared her full 
 sympathy with the principles of the association. 
 She knew well how grave would be the social 
 consequences to her of thus throwing in her lot 
 with the despised and insulted abolitionists ; 
 but she felt that "she never could be happy 
 again " if she shrunk from the duty of expres- 
 sion thrust upon her. The results to her were 
 as serious as she had apprehended. She re- 
 ceived innumerable personal insults and slights, 
 public and private, where before all had been 
 homage ; the Southern newspapers threatened 
 her personal safety, calling her a foreign " incen- 
 diary ; " and, to crown all, she had to give
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 133 
 
 up an intended Ohio tour, on the information of 
 an eminent Cincinnati merchant that he had 
 heard with his own ears the details of a plot to 
 hang her on the wharf at Louisville, before the 
 respectable inhabitants could intervene, in order 
 to "warn all other meddlesome foreigners." 
 
 All this abuse and insult and threatening 
 from the lower kind of persons, interested for 
 their purses, had, of course, no influence upon 
 the hundred private friendships that she had 
 formed. Ardent and deep was the affection 
 with which many Americans came to regard 
 her, and with some of them her intimate friend- 
 ship lasted through all the succeeding forty 
 years of her life. Emerson was one of these 
 friends, and Garrison another. It was her fre- 
 quent correspondence with these and many 
 others that kept her interest in the affairs of 
 the United States so active, and made her so 
 well-informed about them as to give her the 
 great authority that she had, both in England 
 and America, during the life and death struggle 
 of the Union, so that at that time, when she 
 was writing leaders for the London Daily News, 
 Mr. W. E. Forster said that "it was Harriet 
 Martineau alone who was keeping English pub- 
 lic opinion about America on the right side 
 through the press." 
 
 Loath to leave such friendships behind, and
 
 134 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 yet longing for home, she sailed from New 
 York at the end of July, 1836, and reached 
 Liverpool on the 26th August. A parting act 
 of American chivalry was that her ship-passage 
 was paid for her by some unknown friend. 
 
 It was while she was in the United States 
 that the first portrait of her which I have 
 seen was painted. She herself did not like it, 
 calling the attitude melodramatic ; but her sister 
 Rachel, I am told, always declared that it was 
 the only true portrait of Harriet that was ever 
 taken. At this point, then, some idea of her 
 person may be given. 
 
 She was somewhat above the middle height, 
 and at this time had a slender figure. The 
 face in the portrait is oval ; the forehead rather 
 broad, as well as high, but not either to a re- 
 markable degree. The most noticeable pecu- 
 liarity of the face is found in a slight projection 
 of the under lip. The nose is straight, not at 
 all turned up at the end, but yet with a definite 
 tip to it. The eyes are a clear gray, with a 
 calm, steadfast, yet sweet gaze ; indeed there is 
 an almost appealing look in them. The hair is 
 of so dark a brown as to appear nearly black. 
 A tress of it (cut off twenty years later than 
 this American visit, when it had turned snow- 
 white) ' has been given to me ; and I find the 
 treasured relic to be of exceptionally fine tex-
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 135 
 
 ture a sure sign of a delicate and sensitive 
 nervous organization. Her hands and feet were 
 small. 
 
 She was certainly not beautiful ; besides the 
 slight projection of the lower lip the face has 
 the defect of the cheeks sloping in too much 
 towards the chin. But she was not strikingly 
 plain either. The countenance in this picture 
 has a look both of appealing sweetness and of 
 strength in reserve ; and one feels that with 
 such beauty of expression it could not fail to be 
 attractive to those who looked upon it with 
 sympathy. 
 
 The competition amongst the publishers for 
 Miss Martineau's book on America was an 
 amusing contrast to the scorn with which her 
 proposals for her Political Enonomy had been re- 
 ceived. Murray sent a message through a friend, 
 offering to undertake the American work ; and 
 letters from two other publishers were awaiting 
 her arrival in England. On the day that the 
 newspapers announced that she had reached 
 town no fewer than three of the chief London 
 publishers called upon her with proposals. She 
 declined those of Bentley and Colburn, and 
 accepted the offer of Messrs. Saunders and 
 Otley to pay her ^300 per volume for the first 
 edition of three thousand copies. The book 
 appeared in three volumes, so that she received
 
 136 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 ^900 for it. She completed the three goodly 
 volumes in six months. 
 
 She had wished to call the book Theory and 
 Practice of Society in America, a title which* would 
 have exactly expressed the position that she took 
 up in it, viz., that the Americans should be j udged 
 by the degree in which they approached, in 
 their daily lives, to the standard of the principles 
 laid down in their Constitution. Her publishers 
 so strongly objected to this title, that she con- 
 sented to call the work simply Society in America. 
 She held to her scheme none the less, and the 
 book proceeds upon it. She quotes the Declara- 
 tion of Independence that all men are created 
 equal, with an inalienable right to life, liberty, 
 and the pursuit of happiness, and that Govern- 
 ments derive their just powers from the con- 
 sent of the governed. "Every true citizen," she 
 claims, " must necessarily be content to have 
 his self-government tried by the test of the 
 principles to which, by his citizenship, he has 
 become a subscriber." She brings social life 
 in the United States of 1834-6 to this test 
 accordingly. 
 
 That method of approaching her subject had 
 some advantages. It enabled her to treat with 
 peculiar force the topics of slavery, of the ex- 
 clusion of women from political affairs, and 
 of the subservience to the despotism of pub-
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 
 
 lie opinion which she found to exist at that time 
 in America. 
 
 But she herself came to see, in after times, 
 that her plan (leaving the details aside) was 
 radically faulty. She was, as she says, " at the 
 most metaphysicial period" of her mental his- 
 tory. Thus, she failed at the moment to perceive 
 that she commenced her subject at the wrong 
 end'm taking a theory and judging the facts of 
 American society by their agreement or dis- 
 agreement with that a priori philosophy. It 
 was the theory that had to be judged by the 
 way in which the people lived under a govern- 
 ment framed upon it, and not the people by the 
 degree in which they live up to the theory. 
 The English public wanted a book that would 
 help them to know the American public and its 
 ways ; the Americans required to see through 
 the eyes of an observant, cultivated foreigner, 
 what they were being and doing. It is this 
 which a traveller has to do to observe facts: 
 to draw lessons from them, if he will, but not to 
 consider the facts, in their relationship to a 
 pre-conceived theory. Human experience is 
 perennially important and eternally interesting ; 
 and this is what a traveller has to note and 
 record. Political philosophies must be gathered 
 from experience instead of (what she attempt- 
 ed) the real life being viewed only as related
 
 138 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 to the philosophy. In fine, her error was in 
 treating abstractedly what was necessarily a 
 concrete theme. 
 
 With this objection to the scheme of the 
 book, all criticism may end. All criticism did 
 not end (any more than it began) in this way in 
 1837. Speaking out so boldly as she did on a 
 variety of the most important social topics, she 
 naturally aroused opposition, which the power 
 and eloquence of the style did not mitigate. 
 
 The anti-slavery tone of the book alone 
 would have ensured violent attacks upon it and 
 its author, as, after her ostracism because of 
 her anti-slavery declaration, she well knew 
 would be the case. "This subject haunts us 
 on every page," distressfully wrote Margaret 
 Fuller; and greatly exaggerated though this 
 statement was, it certainly is true that there is 
 hardly a chapter in which the reader is allowed 
 to forget that the curse of humanity made mer- 
 chandise, shadowed life, directly or indirectly, 
 throughout the whole United States. Neither 
 by the holders of slaves in the South, nor by 
 their accessories in the North, was it possible, 
 that she could be regarded otherwise than as 
 an enemy, the more powerful, and therefore 
 the more to be hated and abused, because of 
 her standing and her ability. In estimating 
 the courage and disinterestedness which she
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 139 
 
 displayed in so decisively bearing her witness 
 against the state of American society under 
 the slave system, it must be remembered not 
 only that she had many valued personal friends 
 in the South, and amongst the anti-abolition- 
 ists of the North, but also that she knew that 
 she was closing against herself a wide avenue 
 for the dissemination of her opinions upon any 
 subject whatsoever. No book written by an 
 abolitionist would be admitted into any one 
 of thousands of American homes. The aboli- 
 tionists reprinted portions of Society of -Amer- 
 ica, as a pamphlet, and distributed it broadcast. 
 The result was that, up to the time when 
 slavery was abolished Harriet Martineau was 
 continually held up to scorn and reprobation in 
 Southern newspapers, "in the good company of 
 Mrs. Chapman and Mrs. Harriet Beecher 
 Stowe." 
 
 Even greater courage was displayed by Har- 
 riet Martineau in her boldness of utterance 
 upon some other points, about which freedom 
 of thought was as obnoxious in England as in 
 America. When she maintained that divorce 
 should be permissible by mutual consent, pro- 
 vided only that the interests of children and 
 the distribution of property were equitably 
 arranged for ; when she pleaded for the eman- 
 cipation of women ; or when she devoted a
 
 140 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 chapter to showing the evils which spring from 
 the accumulation of enormous fortunes, and 
 incidentally attacked the laws and customs of 
 primogeniture, of the transfer of land, and the 
 like, which are devised specially to facilitate 
 and encourage such accumulations : in these 
 and other passages of an equally radical nature, 
 she braved a large body of opinion in English 
 society, as well as in the other country for 
 which she wrote. She mentions subsequently, 
 that for many years she was occasionally startled 
 by finding herself regarded in various quarters 
 as a free-thinker upon dangerous subjects, and 
 as something of a demagogue. I have little 
 doubt that the " advanced " political philosophy 
 of Society in America did originate such suspi- 
 cions in minds of the Conservative order, " the 
 timid party," as she described them in this 
 same book. Yet she adds : 
 
 I have never regretted its boldness of speech. 
 I felt a relief in having opened my mind which 
 I would at no time have exchanged for any gain 
 of reputation or fortune. The time had come 
 when, having experienced what might be called 
 the extremes of obscurity and difficulty first, anc 
 influence and success afterwards, I could pro 
 nounce that there was nothing for which it was; 
 worth sacrificing freedom of thought and speech. 
 
 There was but little in Society in America of 
 the ordinary book of travels. As an account of
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 141 
 
 the political condition and the social arrange- 
 ments of the American people it was of singular 
 value. But the personal incidents of travel, the 
 descriptions of scenery, the reminiscences of 
 eminent persons, of all which Harriet Martineau 
 had gathered a store, were entirely omitted 
 from this work. Messrs. Saunders and Otley 
 suggested to her that she should make a second 
 book out of this kind of material. She con- 
 sented ; and wrote her Retrospect of Western 
 Travel. She completed the manuscript of this 
 in December, 1837, and it was published soon 
 afterwards in three volumes. The publishers 
 gave her six hundred pounds for it. 
 
 The fifteen hundred pounds which she thus 
 earned exceeded in amount the whole of what 
 she had then received for her Illustrations of 
 Political Economy. The last-named great work 
 was nearly all published upon the absurdly 
 unequal terms which Charles Fox had secured 
 from her in the beginning. It was character- 
 istic of her generosity in pecuniary matters and 
 her loyalty to her friends, that although her 
 agreement with Fox was dissoluble at the end 
 of every five numbers, she nevertheless allowed 
 it to hold good, and permitted him to pocket a 
 very leonine share of her earnings throughout 
 the whole publication of the original series, 
 only claiming a revision of the terms when
 
 142 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 she commenced afresh, as it were, with the 
 "Poor-Law," and "Taxation" tales. Thus the 
 immense popularity of the Illustrations had not 
 greatly enriched her. A portion of her earnings 
 by them was invested in her American tour ; 
 and now that she received this return from her 
 books of travels she felt it her duty to make 
 a provision for the future. She purchased a 
 deferred annuity of one hundred pounds to begin 
 in April, 1850. It displayed a characteristic 
 calm confidence in herself that she should thus, 
 have entirely locked up her earnings for twelve 
 years. She clearly felt a quiet assurance that 
 her brain and her hand would serve to maintain 
 her, at least as long as she was in the flower of 
 her age. 
 
 The six volumes about America were not the 
 whole of her work during the first eighteen 
 months after her return to England. She wrote 
 an article on Miss Sedgwick's works for the 
 Westminster Review, and several other short 
 papers for various magazines. The extraordi- 
 nary industry with which she returned to labor 
 after her long rest requires no comment. 
 
 Early in 1838 she wrote a work called How to 
 Observe in Morals and Manners. It forms a 
 crown octavo volume of two hundred and thirty- 
 eight pages, and was published by Mr. Charles 
 Knight. The book is an interesting one, both
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 143 
 
 for the reflections which it contains upon the 
 subject of its title, and as indicating the method 
 which she had herself pursued in her study of 
 the morals and manners of the country in which 
 she had been travelling. There is certainly no 
 failure in the courage with which she expresses 
 her convictions. She admits elsewhere that the 
 abuse which she received from America had so 
 acted upon her mind that she had come to quail 
 at the sight of letters addressed in a strange 
 handwriting, or of newspapers sent from the 
 United States. But there is no trace in this 
 her next considerable work of any tendency to 
 follow rather than to lead the public opinion of 
 her time. One paragraph only may be quoted 
 to indicate this fact : 
 
 Persecution for opinion is always going on. 
 It can be inflicted out of the province of Law as 
 well as through it. ... Whatever a nation may 
 tell him of its love of liberty should go for little 
 if he sees a virtuous man's children taken from 
 him on the ground of his holding an unusual 
 religious belief ; or citizens mobbed for assert- 
 ing the rights of negroes ; or moralists treated 
 with public scorn for carrying out allowed prin- 
 ciples to their ultimate issues; or scholars 
 oppressed for throwing new light on the sacred 
 text; or philosophers denounced for bringing 
 fresh facts to the surface of human knowledge, 
 whether they seem to agree or not with long 
 established suppositions.* 
 
 * How to Observe, p. 204.
 
 144 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 The next piece of work that Harriet did in 
 this spring of 1838 was of a very different order. 
 The Poor-Law Commissioners were desirous of 
 issuing a series of " Guides to Service," and 
 application was made to Miss Martineau to write 
 some of these little books. She undertook The 
 Maid of All Work, The Housemaid, The Lady s 
 Maid and The Dress-maker. These were issued 
 without her name on the title-page, but the 
 authorship was an open secret. 
 
 She was a thoroughly good housekeeper her- 
 self. Her conscience went into this, as into all 
 her other business. " Housewifery is supposed 
 to transact itself," she wrote ; "but in reality it 
 requires all the faculties which can be brought 
 to bear upon it, and all the good moral habits 
 which conscience can originate." It was in this 
 spirit that she wrote instructions for servants. 
 The fine moral tone invariably discoverable in 
 her works, is as delightful here as elsewhere. 
 But the little " Guides to Sendee," contain also 
 the most precise and practical directions for the 
 doing of the household duties and the needle- 
 work which fall to the hands of the classes of 
 servants for whom she wrote. Practical hints 
 are given from which the majority of these 
 classes of women-workers might learn much, 
 for brains tell in the mean and dirty scrubbery 
 of life as well as in pleasanter things, and science
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 145 
 
 is to be applied to common domestic duties as 
 to bigger undertakings. The heart and mind of 
 Harriet Martineau were equal to teaching upon 
 matters such as these, as well as to studying the 
 deeper relations of mankind in political econ- 
 omy, or the state of society in a foreign land. 
 Her great power of sympathy enabled her to 
 enter fully into every human position. So well 
 was the maid-of-all-work's station described, and 
 her duties indicated, and her trials pointed out, 
 and how she might solace herself under those 
 troubles discovered, and the way in which her 
 work should be set about detailed, that the 
 rumor spread pretty widely that Harriet had 
 once occupied such a situation herself. She 
 regarded this mistake with complacency, as a 
 tribute to the practical character of her little 
 work. 
 
 As a fact, she was herself a capable house- 
 wife. Her housekeeping was always well done. 
 Her own hands, indeed, as well as her head, 
 were employed in it on occasion. When in her 
 home, she daily filled her lamp herself. She 
 dusted her own books, too, invariably. Some- 
 times she did more. Soon after her establish- 
 ment at the Lakes (an event which we have not 
 yet reached, but the anecdote is in place here), 
 a lady who greatly reverenced her for her writ- 
 ings called upon her in her new home, accom-
 
 146 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 panied by a gentleman friend, As the visitors 
 approached the house by the carriage-drive, 
 they saw someone perched on a set of kitchen 
 steps, cleaning the drawing-room windows. It 
 was the famous authoress herself ! She calmly 
 went for her trumpet, to listen to their business ; 
 and when they had introduced themselves, she 
 asked them in, and entered into an interesting 
 conversation on various literary topics. Before 
 they left, she explained, with evident amuse- 
 ment at having been caught at her housemaid's 
 duties, that the workmen had been long about 
 the house ; that this morning, when the dirty 
 windows might for the first time be cleaned, 
 one of her servants had gone off to marry a 
 carpenter, and the other to see the ceremony ; 
 and so the mistress, tired of the dirt, had set to 
 work to wash and polish her window for herself. 
 An article on " Domestic Service," for the 
 Westminster Review, was written easily, while 
 her mind was so full of the subject, in the be- 
 ginning of June, 1838. But a great enterprise 
 was before her a novel ; and at length she 
 settled down to this, beginning it on her thirty- 
 sixth birthday, June I2th, 1838. The writing 
 of this new book was interrupted by a tour in 
 Scotland during August and September, and by 
 writing a remarkable and eloquent article on 
 slavery, "The Martyr Age of the United
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 147 
 
 States," which occupies fifty-five pages of the 
 Westminster 'Review in the January, 1839, num- 
 ber of that publication. The novel got finished, 
 however, in February of this latter year; and 
 it was published by Easter under the title of 
 Deerbrook. 
 
 Great expectations had been entertained by 
 the literary public of Harriet Martineau's first 
 novel. The excellences of her Illustrations as 
 works of fiction had been so marked and so 
 many, that it was anticipated that she might 
 write a novel of the highest order when released 
 from the trammels under which she wrote those 
 tales. To most of those who had expected so 
 much Deerbrook was a complete disappointment. 
 I believe I may j ustly say that it is the weakest 
 of all Harriet Martineau's writings. It is, in- 
 deed, J:ar superior in all respects to nine hundred 
 out of every thousand novels published. But 
 she is not judged by averages. A far higher 
 standard of literary art is that to which we ex- 
 pect Harriet Martineau's writings to conform. 
 
 The book is deficient in story. Deerbrook is 
 a country village, where two sisters from Birm- 
 ingham, Hester and Margaret Ibbotson, take up 
 their temporary abode. Mr. Hope, the village 
 surgeon, falls in love with Margaret ; but being 
 told that Hester loves him, while Margaret is 
 attached to Philip Enderby, Hope decides to
 
 148 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 propose to Hester ; is accepted, married to the 
 sister he does not love, and sets up housekeep- 
 ing with the sister with whom he is in love as 
 an inmate of his home. The wife, moreover, is 
 of a jealous, exacting disposition, ever on the 
 watch for some token of neglect of her feelings 
 by her friends, anxious, irritable, and hyper- 
 sensitive. 
 
 Here is a situation which, the characters 
 being what they are described to be, could in 
 real life eventuate only in either violent tragedy 
 or long, slow heart-break. A woman of ultra- 
 sensitive and refined feelings could not live 
 with a husband and a sister under such circum- 
 stances without discovering the truth. A man 
 of active temperament and warm emotions, 
 who declares to himself on the night of his 
 return from his wedding tour that his marriage 
 " has been a mistake, that he has desecrated 
 his own home, and doomed to withering the 
 best affections of his nature," such a man, 
 with the woman he really loves living in his 
 home, beside the unloved wife, could not com- 
 pletely conceal his state of mind from every- 
 body, and presently find that after all he likes 
 the one he has married best. Yet in the impos- 
 sible manner just indicated do all things end in 
 Deerbrook. The interest of the book is then 
 suddenly shifted to Margaret and Enderby.
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 149 
 
 Hope and Hester become mere accessories. 
 But the plot does not improve. The Deer- 
 brook people, hitherto adorers of their doctor, 
 suddenly take to throwing stones at him, and 
 to mobbing his house, because he votes for the 
 Parliamentary candidate opposed by the great 
 man of the village, and because they take it 
 into their heads (not a particle of reason why 
 they do so being shown,) that he anatomizes 
 bodies from the graveyard. We are invited to 
 believe that though his practice had been singu- 
 larly successful, all his patients deserted him ; 
 and notwithstanding that Hester and Margaret 
 had each seventy pounds a year of private 
 income, the household was thus reduced to 
 such distress that they could not afford gloves, 
 and had to part with all their servants, and 
 dined as a rule off potatoes and bread and but- 
 ter ! Then Margaret's lover, Enderby, hears 
 that she and Hope loved each other before 
 Hope married ; and though he does not for a 
 moment suspect anything wrong in the present, 
 and though he passionately loves Margaret, 
 this supposed discovery that he is not her first 
 love causes him to peremptorily and with- 
 out explanation break off the engagement. 
 Presently, however, an epidemic comes and 
 restores confidence in Mr. Hope ; and Ender- 
 by's sister, who had given him the information
 
 ISO HARRIET MARTINEAV. 
 
 on which he acted, confesses that she had exag- 
 gerated the facts and invented part of her 
 story ; and so it all ends, and they live happily 
 ever after ! 
 
 Feeble and untrue as are plot and characters 
 in this "poor novel " (as Carlyle without injus- 
 tice called it), yet many scenes are well written, 
 the details are truly colored, and every page is 
 illuminated with thought of so high an order 
 and language so brilliant, so flowing, so felici- 
 tous, that one forgives, for the sake of merits 
 such as these, the failure of the fiction to be 
 either true or interesting. This seemed to 
 show, nevertheless, that Harriet could write 
 essays, and travels, and didactic and philosoph- 
 ical works, but could not write a novel except 
 "with a purpose," when the accomplishment of 
 the purpose might excuse any other shortcom- 
 ings. But when one considers the great excel- 
 lence of many of the Illustrations, the decided 
 drawing of the characters, the truthful analysis 
 of the springs of human action, the manner in 
 which the incidents are combined and arranged 
 to develop and display dispositions and histo- 
 ries, it becomes clear that she had great powers 
 as an imaginative depicter of human nature 
 and social life, and that there must have been 
 other causes than sheer incapacity for the faults 
 and the feebleness of Deerbrook.
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 151 
 
 The first cause was what seems to me a mis- 
 taken theory about plots in fiction, which she 
 had adopted since writing the Illustrations. 
 She now fancied that a perfect plot must be 
 taken from life, forgetting that we none of us 
 know the whole plot of the existence of any 
 other creature than ourselves, and that the psy- 
 chological insight of the gifted novelist is dis- 
 played in arguing from what is known to what 
 is unknown, and in combining the primary ele- 
 ments of human character into their necessary 
 consequences in act and feeling. This error she 
 would have been cured from by experience had 
 she gone on writing fiction. She might have 
 been aided in this by what she nafvely enough 
 avows about Deerbrook : that she supposed 
 that she took the story of Hope's marriage 
 from the history of a friend of her family, and 
 that she afterwards found out that nothing of 
 the sort had really happened to him ! She might 
 then have asked herself whether the story as she 
 had told it was more possible than it was possi- 
 ble that gunpowder should be put to flame with- 
 out an explosion. A girl in her teens might 
 have been forgiven for playing with the history 
 of the wildest passions of the human heart ; but 
 Harriet Martineau erred because she tried to 
 enslave herself to fact in a matter in which she 
 should have inferred, judged from psychological
 
 152 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 principles, and trusted to the intuitions of her 
 own mind for the final working out of her prob- 
 lem. As it was, if her "fact " had been a reality 
 we should have been compelled to account for 
 the placid progress of events by the supposition 
 that she had utterly misrepresented the charac- 
 ters of the persons involved. 
 
 This bondage to (supposed) fact was one cause 
 of her failure. A lesser, but still important rea- 
 son for it, was that she tried to imitate Jane 
 Austen's style. Her admiration of the works of 
 this mistress of the art of depicting human nature 
 was very great. Harriet's diary of the period 
 when she was preparing to write Deerbrook, 
 shows that she re-read Miss Austen's novels, 
 and found them "wonderfully beautiful." This 
 judgment she annexed to Emma; and again, 
 after recording her new reading of Pride and 
 Prejudice, she added, " I think it as clever as 
 before ; but Miss Austen seems wonderfully 
 afraid of pathos. I long to try." When she did 
 "try," she,' either intentionally or unconsciously, 
 but very decidedly, modelled her style on Miss 
 Austen's. But the two women were essentially 
 different. Harriet Martineau had an original 
 mind ; she did wrong, and prepared the retribu- 
 tion of failure for herself, in imitating at all ; 
 and Jane Austen was one of the last persons she 
 should have imitated.
 
 FIVE ACTIVE YEARS. 153 
 
 The principal reasons for the inferiority of 
 Deerbrook, however, are found in her personal 
 history. Three months after its publication, she 
 was utterly prostrated by an illness which had 
 undoubtedly been slowly growing upon her for 
 long before. Thus, she wrote her novel under 
 the depression and failure of strength caused by 
 this malady. The illness itself was partly the 
 result of what further tended to make her work 
 poor in quality the domestic anxieties, mis- 
 eries and heart-burnings of that period. 
 
 The three anxious members of her family 
 were at this time upon her hands. That brother 
 who had succeeded to the father's business, 
 and in whose charge it had failed, was at this 
 time in London. Before the weaving business 
 stopped, Henry Martineau was engaged ; but 
 the girl broke off the affair in consequence of 
 the downfall of his pecuniary prospects. Henry 
 then undertook a wine-merchant's business, and 
 wretched with the mortification of his double 
 failure in purse and in heart, he yielded to the 
 temptations of his new employment, and became 
 intemperate. During the time that Deerbrook 
 was being written, he was living with his mother 
 and sister in London. At the same time Mrs. 
 Martineau, now nearing seventy years old, was 
 becoming blind. The natural irritability of her 
 temper was thus increased. The heart-wearing
 
 154 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 trials of a home with two such inmates were 
 made greater to Harriet by the fact that an 
 aged aunt also lived with them, who, besides 
 the many cares exacted for the well-being of 
 age, added to Harriet's troubles by the neces- 
 sity of shielding her from the tempers and 
 depressions of the other two. 
 
 It was in this home that Harriet Martineau 
 did all the work that has now been recorded 
 after her return from America. No one who 
 has the least conception of how imperatively 
 necessary domestic peace and comfort are for 
 the relief of the brain taxed with literary labor, 
 will be surprised to hear that Harriet's strength 
 and spirits failed during all that summer and 
 winter in which she was writing Deerbrook, and 
 that presently her health completely broke 
 down.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 FIVE YEARS OF ILLNESS AND THE MESMERIC 
 RECOVERY. 
 
 ALMOST immediately after the publication of 
 Deerbrook Harriet started for a Continental 
 tour. She was to escort an invalid cousin to 
 Switzerland, and afterwards to travel through 
 Italy with two other friends. But her illness 
 became so severe by the time that she reached 
 Venice that the remainder of the journey had to 
 be abandoned. Under medical advice, a couch 
 was fitted up in the travelling carriage, and 
 upon it, lifted in and out at every stage, she 
 returned to England and was conveyed to her 
 sister's at Newcastle-on-Tyne. In the autumn 
 of that same year (1839) she took up her abode 
 in Front street, Tynemouth, in order to remain 
 under the medical care of her brother-in-law, 
 Mr. Greenhow of Newcastle. 
 
 Her physical sufferings during the next five 
 years were very severe, and almost incessant. 
 She could not go out of the house, and alter- 
 nated only between her bed in one room and her
 
 156 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 couch in another. From her sick-room window 
 she overlooked a narrow space of down, the ruins 
 of the priory, the harbor with its traffic, and the 
 sea. On the farther side of the harbor she 
 could discern through the telescope a railroad, 
 a spreading heath, and, on the hills which 
 bounded the view, two or three farms. To this 
 outlook she, whose life had been hitherto spent 
 so actively, and in the midst of such a throng of 
 society, found herself confined for a term of five 
 years. At the same time her pain was so great 
 that she was compelled to take opiates daily. 
 " I have observed, with inexpressible shame, 
 that with the newspaper in my hand, no details 
 of the peril of empires, or of the starving mis- 
 eries of thousands, could keep my eye from the 
 watch before me, or detain my attention one 
 second beyond the time when I might have my 
 opiate. For two years, too, I wished and in- 
 tended to dispense with my opiate for once, to 
 try how much there was to bear, and how I 
 should bear it ; but I never did it, strong as was 
 the shame of always yielding. I am convinced 
 that there is no more possibility of becoming 
 inured to acute agony of body, than to par- 
 oxysms of remorse the severest of moral 
 pains. A familiar pain becomes more and 
 more dreaded, instead of becoming more lightly 
 esteemed in proportion to its familiarity. The
 
 FIVE YEARS OF ILLNESS. 157 
 
 pain itself becomes more odious, more oppres- 
 sive, more feared in proportion to the accumula- 
 tion of experience of weary hours, in proportion 
 to the aggregate of painful associations which 
 every visitation revives." * 
 
 Some indication of what she endured in those 
 weary years is given in this quotation. If we 
 had to rely upon the inferences to be drawn from 
 the amount of work which she did in her sick- 
 room, we should naturally suppose the suffering 
 not to have been very great ; for she produced, 
 in the midst of her illness, as much and as 
 noble work as we look for from the most active 
 persons in ordinary health. 
 
 The first business of the sick-room life was to 
 write both an article for publication, and a 
 number of letters of personal appeal to friends, 
 on behalf of Oberlin College, an institution 
 which was being founded in America for the 
 education of pe'rsons of color of both sexes, 
 and of the students who had been turned out of 
 Lane College for their advocacy of anti-slavery 
 principles. 
 
 The next undertaking was another novel ; or, 
 rather, a history, imaginatively treated, of the 
 negro revolution in San Domingo. Toussaint 
 L'Ouverture, the leader of the revolution and the 
 president of the black Republic of Hayti, was 
 
 * Life in the Sick-Room.
 
 158 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 the hero of this story. The Hour and the Man, 
 as a mere novel, is vastly superior to Deerbrook. 
 Harriet wrote it, however, rather as a contribu- 
 tion to the same anti-slavery cause for Which she 
 had written her preceding article, believing 
 that it would be useful to that cause to show 
 forth the capacity and the high moral character 
 which had been displayed by a negro of the 
 blackest shade when in possession of power. 
 The work was begun in May, 1840, and pub- 
 lished in November of the same year. 
 
 Lord Jeffrey, in a familiar private letter to 
 Empson, his successor in the editorship of the 
 Edinburgh Review, wrote thus of The Hour and 
 the Man : 
 
 I have read Harriet's first volume, and give 
 in my adhesion to her Black Prince with all my 
 heart and soul. The book is really not only 
 beautiful and touching, but noble ; and I do 
 not recollect when I have been more charmed, 
 whether by very sweet and eloquent writing 
 and glowing description, or by elevated as well 
 as tender sentiments. . . . The book is calcu- 
 lated to make its readers better, and does great 
 honor to the heart as well as the talent and 
 fancy of the author. I would go a long way to 
 kiss the hem of her garment, or the hand that 
 delineated this glowing and lofty representation 
 of purity and noble virtue. And she must not 
 only be rescued from all debasing anxieties 
 about her subsistence, but placed in a station of
 
 FIVE YEARS OF ILLNESS. 159 
 
 affluence and honor ; though I believe she truly 
 cares for none of these things. It is sad to 
 think that she suffers so much, and may even 
 be verging to dissolution. 
 
 Even the morose and ungracious Carlyle, 
 writing to Emerson of this book, is obliged to 
 say " It is beautiful as a child's heart ; and in so 
 shrewd a brain ! " While Florence Nightingale 
 declares that she "can scarcely refrain from 
 thinking of it as the greatest of historical 
 romances." 
 
 The allusion in the latter part of Lord Jeffrey's 
 letter was to a proposal just then made to give 
 Harriet Martineau one of the Civil List literary 
 pensions. This idea had been mooted first dur- 
 ing the progress of her Illustrations, and again 
 after her return from America ; but upon each 
 occasion she had stated privately that she would 
 not be willing to accept it. She replied from 
 Tynemouth to the same effect to Mr. Hutton, 
 who wrote to inquire if she would now be thus 
 assisted. Her objection was, in the first place, 
 one of principle ; she disapproved of the money 
 of the people being dispensed in any pensions at 
 the sole will of the Ministry, instead of being 
 conferred directly by the representatives of the 
 people. Her second reason was, that after 
 accepting she would feel herself bound to the 
 Ministers, and would be understood by the pub-
 
 160 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 lie to be so bound, and would thus suffer a loss 
 of both freedom and usefulness during whatever 
 life might remain to her. Lord Melbourne, a 
 few months later, in July, 1841, made her an 
 explicit offer of a pension of ^150 per annum, 
 and her answer to the Minister was substan- 
 tially the same as to her friend. She said that 
 while taxation was levied so unequally, and 
 while Parliament had no voice in the distribu- 
 tion of pensions, she would rather receive public 
 aid from the parish, if necessary, than as a pen- 
 sioner. She added an earnest plea that all influ- 
 ential persons who held themselves indebted on 
 public grounds to any writer, would show that 
 gratitude by endeavoring to make better copy- 
 right arrangements and foreign treaties, so as to 
 secure to authors the full, due and independent 
 reward of their efforts. 
 
 The rare (perhaps mistaken) generosity of this 
 refusal can only be appreciated by bearing in 
 mind that she had invested a large part of her 
 earnings a few years before in a form from which 
 she was now receiving no return. During her 
 illness she was really in want of money, so far as 
 to have to accept assistance from relatives. For 
 her charities she partly provided by doing fancy- 
 work, sending subscriptions both in this form 
 and in the shape of articles for publication to the 
 anti-slavery cause in America.
 
 FIVE YEARS OF ILLNESS. l6l 
 
 In the early part of 1841 she began a series of 
 four children's stories, which were published 
 under the general title of The Playfellow. 
 These admirable tales are still amongst the best- 
 known and most popular of her writings ; simple, 
 vivid and interesting, they are really model chil- 
 dren's stories, and it would have been quite 
 impossible for any reader to imagine that they 
 were written by an invalid, in constant suffer- 
 ing. Settlers at Home was the first one written, 
 The Prince and the Peasant came next ; then 
 Feats on the Fjord ; and, finally, that one from 
 which I quoted largely in an early chapter, The 
 Crofton Boys. By the time the last-named was 
 finished she was very ill, and believed that she 
 should never write another book. 
 
 Her interest in all public affairs continued, 
 nevertheless, to be as keen as ever. In 1841 
 she wrote for publication a long letter to sup- 
 port the American Anti-Slavery Society under 
 a secession from its ranks of a number of per- 
 sons, chiefly clerical, who objected, of all 
 things, to women being allowed to be members 
 of the society ! Another piece of work which 
 she did for the public benefit was by a course 
 of correspondence, full of delicate tact, to per- 
 sonally reconcile Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Cob- 
 den, and so to pave the way for the amicable
 
 162 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 work of the two statesmen in the repeal of the 
 Corn Laws. 
 
 In 1843, some of her friends who knew her 
 circumstances, and that she had refused a pen- 
 sion, collected money to present her with a tes- 
 timonal. ; 1,400, thus obtained, was invested 
 for her benefit in the Terminable Long Annui- 
 ties, and a considerable sum besides was 
 expended in a present of plate. The Ladies 
 Lambton (the eldest of whom, as Countess of 
 Elgin, was afterwards one of her warmest 
 friends) went over to Tynemouth to use the 
 plate with her for the first time, and " it was a 
 testimonial fete." 
 
 It was about this time, too, that the personal 
 acquaintance, destined to become an intimate 
 association in work, between Harriet Martineau 
 and Florence Nightingale was commenced. 
 Miss ' Martineau's younger sister Ellen had 
 been governess in Miss Nightingale's family. 
 Sick-nursing occupied Florence Nightingale's 
 hands and heart long before the Crimean War 
 made her famous, and Harriet Martineau was 
 one of the sick to whom she ministered in 
 those earlier days. 
 
 Towards the end of 1843, Harriet's mind 
 had accumulated a store of thoughts and feel- 
 ings which imperatively pressed to be poured 
 forth. She wrote then, in about six weeks, her
 
 FIVE YEARS OF ILLNESS. 163 
 
 volume of essays, Life in the Sick-Room. The 
 book was published under the pseudonym of 
 "An Invalid," but was immediately attributed 
 to her on all hands. It is a most interesting 
 record of the high thoughts and feelings by 
 which so melancholy an experience as years of 
 suffering, of an apparently hopeless character, 
 can be elevated, and made productive of bene- 
 fit to the sufferer's own nature. Incidentally 
 there is much wise counsel in the volume for 
 those who have the care of invalids of this 
 class. 
 
 Amidst the many expressions of admiration 
 and interest which this work drew forth, the 
 following is perhaps most worthy of preserva- 
 tion because of the source whence it came. 
 Mr. Quillinan, Wordsworth's son-in-law, wrote 
 as follows to his friend, Henry Crabbe Robin- 
 son, on December 9, 1843 : 
 
 Mr. Wordsworth, Mrs. Wordsworth and Miss 
 Fenwick have been quite charmed, affected, 
 and instructed by the invalid's volume. . . . 
 Mrs. Wordsworth, after a few pages were read, 
 at once pronounced it to be Miss Martineau's 
 production, and concluded that you knew all 
 about it and caused it to be sent hither. In 
 some of the most eloquent parts it stops short 
 of their wishes and expectations : but they all 
 agree that it is a rare book, doing honor to the 
 head and heart of your able and interesting
 
 1 64 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 friend. Mr. Wordsworth praised it with more 
 unreserve I may say, with 'more earnestness 
 than is usual with him. The serene and 
 heavenly-minded Miss Fenwick was prodigal 
 of her admiration. But Mrs. Wordsworth's 
 was the crowning praise. She said and you 
 know how she would say it "I wish I had 
 read exactly such a book as that years ago ! " 
 ... It is a genuine and touching series of 
 meditations by an invalid not sick in mind or 
 heart.* 
 
 From one of the letters with which Mr. 
 Henry G. Atkinson has favored me and my 
 readers, I find that she wrote a chapter for that 
 book, which undoubtedly must have been of 
 the deepest interest, but which was not pub- 
 lished. 
 
 LETTER TO MR. ATKINSON. 
 [Extract.] November 19, 1872. 
 
 DEAR FRIEND: 
 
 . . . You will feel at once how earn- 
 estly I must be longing for death I who never 
 loved life, and who would any day of my life 
 have rather departed than stayed. Well ! it can 
 hardly go on very much longer now. But I do 
 wish it was permitted to us to judge for our- 
 selves a little how long we ought to carry on 
 the task which we never desired and could not 
 refuse, and how soon we may fairly relieve our 
 comrades from the burden of taking care of us. 
 
 * Diary and Letters of H. C. Robinson, vol. iii., p. 235.
 
 FIVE YEARS OF ILLNESS. 165 
 
 I wonder whether the chapter I wrote about 
 this for the " Sick-Room" book will ever see the 
 light. I rather wish it may, because I believe 
 it utters what many people think and feel. I 
 let it be omitted from that book because it 
 might perhaps injure the impression of the rest 
 of the volume ; but, so far as I remember it, it 
 is worth considering, and therefore publishing. 
 
 I have made such inquiries as I could (of one 
 of Miss Martineau's executors and others), but 
 can get no tidings of this missing chapter on 
 Euthanasia. It was just such a subject need- 
 ing for its discussion, courage, calmness, com- 
 mon sense, and logic, combined with sympathy, 
 and a high standard of moral beauty and good- 
 ness as she would have been sure to treat 
 rarely well. There is one passage in Life in 
 the Sick-Room, bearing upon the question ; she 
 observes that the great reason why hopeless 
 invalids so commonly endure on when they are 
 longing for the rest of insensibility, is the un- 
 certainty as to whether they may not find them- 
 selves still conscious in another state. Her own 
 history was to supply a stronger reason still 
 against the irrevocable action being taken upon 
 our rash assumptions that our work and our use- 
 fulness in life are ended. As she truly observed : 
 " No one knows when the spirits of men begin 
 to work, or when they leave off, or whether they
 
 1 66 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 work best when their bodies are weak, or when 
 they are strong. Every human creature that 
 has a spirit in him must therefore betaken care 
 of, and kept alive as long as possible, that his 
 spirit may do all it can in the world." So she 
 wrote at that very time showing how her mind 
 was pondering every view of the subject. 
 
 The sentence just quoted is from Dawn 
 Island, a little one-hundred paged story which 
 she wrote in the midst of her suffering, as her 
 contribution to the funds of the Anti-Corn Law 
 League. It was printed and sold for the benefit 
 of that league, at the great bazaar of 1845. 
 
 After the publication of the "Sick-Room" 
 book, she commenced the writing of her autobi- 
 ography not as it was published afterwards, 
 be it understood for she was too ill to make 
 much progress with it, and soon stopped writ- 
 ing. But she never became too ill to feel and 
 to show a vivid interest in every cause that had 
 the happiness and progress of mankind for its 
 object. She kept up an extensive correspond- 
 ence with those engaged in the world's work, 
 and such personal efforts for public objects as 
 those above mentioned she frequently exerted 
 sometimes over-exerted herself to make. 
 Her body was chained to two small rooms ; but 
 her mind, with all its powers and affections, yet 
 swept freely through the universe. No one
 
 MESMERIC RECOVERY. 167 
 
 would have been more impatient than she her- 
 self of any pretence that she lived incessantly 
 on a high plane of lofty emotions, where pain 
 ceased to be felt, or that her care for others was 
 so extraordinary that self-regard was swallowed 
 up in the depths of altruism. I have quoted her 
 candid revelations about her sufferings and her 
 opiates, to avoid the possibility of conveying an 
 impression that she was thus guilty of hypocrisy 
 or affectation. But the wide interests and the 
 sympathies with mankind that were the solace 
 of her sick life, and the inspiration of the work 
 which she did so heavily, and yet so continu- 
 ously, amidst her pain, assuredly shall be marked 
 with the reverence that they merit. 
 
 In 1844 the long illness came to an end. 
 Harriet Martineau was restored to perfect 
 health by means of mesmerism. Such a cure 
 of such a person could not fail to make a great 
 sensation. Not only had she a wide circle of 
 personal acquaintances, but she had deeply im- 
 pressed the public at large with a sense of her 
 perfect sanity, her calm common-sense, and her 
 practical wisdom, as well as with a conviction 
 of her truthfulness and accuracy. Accordingly, 
 as the Zoist (Dr. Elliotson's mesmeric periodi- 
 cal) declared at the time : 
 
 The subject which the critic, a few months 
 since, would not condescend to notice, has been
 
 1 68 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 elevated to a commanding position. It is the 
 topic with which the daily papers and the weekly 
 periodicals are* filled ; in fact, all classes are 
 moved by one common consent, and mesmerism, 
 from the palace to the smallest town in the 
 United Kingdom, is the scientific question ab- 
 sorbing public attention. . . . The immediate 
 cause of all this activity, is the publication of 
 the case of Miss Martineau, who, after five years' 
 incessant suffering and confinement to her 
 couch, is now well. 
 
 I have thought that what needs to be said 
 here ot'the medical aspect and course of this 
 period of suffering, and of the final cure, will 
 best be said consecutively ; and, therefore, we 
 will look back briefly over the five busy but 
 suffering years, the work of which has now been 
 recorded, and see what were the physical con- 
 ditions under which that work was executed. 
 
 Her health had been declining gradually from 
 1834 to 1839; there was a slow but a marked 
 deterioration in strength, and her spirits became 
 depressed. In April of the latter year, when 
 she undertook a continental journey the fatigue 
 of travelling suddenly aggravated her condition ; 
 and in Venice, early in June, she was compelled 
 to consult a physician, Dr. Nardo. She was 
 found to be suffering from a tumor, with enlarg- 
 ment and displacement of an important organ, 
 all this causing great internal pain, accompanied
 
 MESMERIC RECOVERY. l6 9 
 
 by frequent weakening hemorrhages. She was 
 carried back to England by easy stages, and lying 
 on a couch, and reached Newcastle-on-Tyne at 
 the end of July, 1839. She stayed for some 
 time at the house in that town of her eldest 
 sister, and then was removed only nine miles off, 
 in order that her brother-in-law, Mr. T. M. 
 Greenhow, F. R. C. S., might undertake the 
 medical care of her case. Until October, she 
 persevered in taking walking exercise ; but the 
 pain, sickness and breathlessness which accom- 
 panied this were so distressing, that soon after 
 her removal to Tynemouth she ceased to go out 
 of doors, or even to descend the stairs. 
 
 Mr. Greenhow's prescriptions were confined 
 at first to opiates, and other medicines to alle- 
 viate symptoms. The opiates were not taken in 
 excess as, indeed, the books written in the 
 period would conclusively prove. The patient's 
 suffering was so great, however, that extreme 
 recourse to such palliatives might have been 
 forgiven. She could not raise the right leg; 
 and could neither sit up for the faintness which 
 then ensued, nor lie down with ease because of 
 the pain in her back. " She could not sleep at 
 night till she devised a plan of sleeping under a 
 basket, for the purpose of keeping the weight 
 of the bed-clothes from her ; and even then she 
 was scared by horrors all night, and reduced by
 
 I/O HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 sickness during the day. This sickness in- 
 creased to such a degree that for two years she 
 was extremely low from want of food." 
 
 At the end of two years, that is to say, in 
 September, 1841, Sir Charles Clarke, M. D., 
 was called in consultation ; and he prescribed 
 iodine, remarking at the same time that, in his 
 view, such a case as hers was practically incura- 
 ble, and admitting that he " had tried iodine in 
 an infinite number of such cases, and never 
 knew it avail." For the next three years Miss 
 Martineau took three grains per diem of iodide 
 of iron. It relieved the sickness ; but up to 
 April, 1844 (two and a half years from the com- 
 mencement of its administration), Mr. Green- 
 how did not pretend that any improvement in 
 the physical condition had taken place. In 
 that month, as he afterwards said, he believed 
 he found a slight change, "but he was not 
 sure " ; and, if any, it was very trifling. The 
 patient, on her part, was quite convinced that 
 her state then was in no way altered. 
 
 More than once different friends amongst 
 them Lord Lytton, Mr. Hallam, and the Basil 
 Montagus had urged her to try mesmerism ; 
 but she had thought it due to her relative to 
 give his orthodox medicines the fullest trial, 
 before taking herself out of his hands in such a 
 way. In June, 1844, however, Mr. Greenhow
 
 MESMERIC RECOVERY. I /I 
 
 himself suggested that she should be mesmer- 
 ized. Of course, so advised, she consented to 
 make the trial. A Mr. Hall, brought by Mr. 
 Greenhow, accordingly mesmerized her for the 
 first time on June 22d, 1844, and again on the 
 following day. 
 
 The patient thought she experienced some 
 relief, but did not feel quite sure. "On occa- 
 sion of a perfectly new experience, scepticism 
 and self-distrust are strong."* The next day, 
 however, set her doubts at rest. Mr. Hall was 
 unable to come to her, and she asked her maid 
 to make the passes in his stead. 
 
 Within one minute, the twilight and phos- 
 phoric lights appeared ; and in two or three 
 more a delicious sensation of ease spread through 
 me a cool comfort, before which all pain and 
 distress gave way, oozing out, as it were, at the 
 soles of my feet. During that hour, and 
 almost the whole evening, I could no more 
 help exclaiming with pleasure than a person in 
 torture crying out with pain. I became hungry, 
 and ate with relish for the first time for five 
 years. There was no heat, oppression, or sick- 
 ness during the seance, nor any disorder after- 
 wards. During the whole evening, instead of 
 the lazy, hot ease of opiates, under which pain 
 is felt to lie in wait, I experienced something of 
 the indescribable sensations of health, which I 
 had quite lost and forgotten. 
 
 *This and the succeeding quotations are from her "Letters 
 on Mesmerism," published in the Athenaum, 1845.
 
 172 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Her dear friend during all the years that 
 remained to her Mr. Henry G. Atkinson f 
 had just come into her life. His interest in her 
 case was enlisted by their mutual friend, Basil 
 Montagus ; and Mr. Atkinson undertook to 
 direct the mesmeric treatment by correspond- 
 ence. Margaret, the maid, continued the mes- 
 merism till September, and then Mr. Atkinson 
 induced his friend Mrs. Montague Wynyard, the 
 young widow of a clergyman, to undertake the 
 case. " In pure zeal and benevolence this lady 
 came to me, and has been with me ever since. 
 When I found myself able to repose on the 
 knowledge and power (mental and moral) of 
 my mesmerist the last impediments to my 
 progress were cleared away and I improved 
 accordingly." 
 
 t As this friendship had a profound influence upon Harriet's 
 after thought and work, some description of Mr. Atkinson 
 seems in place ; and I need offer that gentleman no apology 
 for merely quoting what has appeared in print before about 
 him. Margaret Fuller wrote thus of him in a private letter, in 
 1846: 
 
 "Mr. Atkinson is a man about thirty, in the fullness of his 
 powers, tall and finely formed, with a head for Leonardo to 
 paint ; mild and composed, but powerful and sagacious; 
 he does not think, but perceives and acts. He is intimate 
 with artists, having studied architecture himself as a profession ; 
 but has some fortune on which he lives. Sometimes stationary 
 and acting in the affairs of other men ; sometimes wandering 
 about the world and learning ; he seems bound by no tie, yet 
 looks as if he had relatives in every place." Memoirs of 
 Margaret Fuller, by Emerson.
 
 MESMERIC RECOVERY. 1 73 
 
 On December the 6th Mr. Greenhow found 
 his patient quite well, and about to leave the 
 place of her imprisonment, and start on a series 
 of friendly visits. He declared, notwithstand- 
 ing, that firstly, her physical condition was not 
 essentially different from what it had been all 
 through ; secondly, that the change in her sen- 
 sations arose from the iodine suddenly and 
 miraculously becoming more effective, and not 
 from mesmerism. 
 
 Such is the medical history, so interesting to 
 all physiological students and to all sufferers of 
 the same class, of Harriet Martineau's five 
 years' illness and recovery. My business is 
 simply to state facts, and I need not here 
 undertake any dissertation upon mesmerism. 
 It is sufficient to add that only those who are 
 unaware of the profundity of our ignorance 
 (up to the present day) about the action of the 
 nervous system, and still more about what life 
 really is, can be excused for rash jeering and 
 hasty incredulity in such a case as this. 
 
 Harriet Martineau knew that she was well 
 again, and it seemed to her a clear duty to 
 ma1<e as public as possible the history of how 
 her recovery had been brought about. She 
 did so by six letters to the Athen&um; and 
 these were reprinted in pamphlet form. Mr. 
 Greenhow was thereupon guilty of one of the
 
 174 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 most serious professional faults possible. He 
 also published an account of The Case of Miss 
 H. M., in a shilling pamphlet, giving the most 
 minute and painful details of her illness, and 
 respecting no confidence that had been reposed 
 in his medical integrity. The result of this 
 conduct on his part was that his patient felt 
 herself compelled to break off all future inter- 
 course with a man capable of such objection- 
 able action. 
 
 It may be added here that the cure was a 
 permanent one.* She enjoyed ten years of 
 health so good that she declared it taught her 
 that in no previous period of her life had she 
 ever been well. It may be as well to say that 
 she never wavered in her assurance that her 
 cure was worked by mesmerism, and that the 
 cure was complete. All dispute about her firm 
 
 * I find there is a widespread impression that she even- 
 tually died of the same tumor that she supposed to have been 
 cured at this time. It should be distinctly stated, however, 
 that if this were the case, Mr. Greenhow and Sir C. Clarke 
 were both utterly wrong in their diagnosis in 1840. I have 
 read Mr. Greenhow's Report of the Case of Miss H. M., and 
 the notes of the post-mortem lie before me kindly lent me 
 by the surgeon, Mr. King, now of Bedford Park, who made 
 the autopsy. I find that the organ which Mr. Greenhow and 
 his consultant both stated to be the seat of the disease, enlarge- 
 ment and tumor, in 1840, is described as being found "particu- 
 larly small and unaffected " after death.
 
 MESMERIC RECOVERY. 175 
 
 conviction on this point may be set at rest by 
 the following extracts from 
 
 LETTERS TO MR. ATKINSON. 
 [Extract.] July 6, 1874. 
 
 Notices of my mesmeric experience in ill- 
 ness have revived an anxiety of mine about 
 what may happen when I am gone, if certain 
 parties should bring up the old falsehoods again, 
 when I am not here to assert and prove the 
 truth. I don't in the least suppose you can 
 help me, any more than Mrs. Chapman, whom 
 I have got to look over a box of papers of mine 
 deposited with her. But I had rather tell you 
 what is on my mind about it. 
 
 I wrote, at Tynemouth, a diary of my case 
 and experience under the mesmeric experiment 
 (experiment desired and proposed by Mr. Green- 
 how himself). He read it when finished, and so 
 did several of my friends. There are two copies 
 somewhere, for, not wishing to show certain 
 passages, rather saucy, about the Greenhow 
 prejudices and behavior, I accepted Mrs. 
 Wynyard's kind offer to copy the MS., omit- 
 ting those remarks. Now where are those 
 MSS ? I cannot find them, nor say what I did 
 with them, beyond having a dim notion that 
 they (or at least Mrs. Wynyard's copy) were put 
 away into some safe place, to await future 
 chances. I perfectly remember the look of the 
 packet, and the label on it, etc. When I 
 remember what was said after reading it, by 
 one of the wisest people I have known, I am 
 shocked at our inability to find it. " One must
 
 176 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 dispute anything being the cause of anything, 
 if one disputes after reading this statement, 
 that your recovery is due to mesjnerism." And 
 now, while I see false statements of the " facts," 
 and false references circulating, as at present, 
 I cannot find my own narrative, written from 
 day to day, and do not know where to turn next ! 
 If I had strength I would turn out all the 
 papers in my possession, and make sure for my- 
 self. Now, dear friend, do you think you ever 
 saw that statement ? 
 
 [Extract.] , September 18, 1874. 
 
 My malady was absolutely unlike cancer,, and 
 it never had any sort of relation to "malignant" 
 disease. The doctors called it " indolent tumor 
 most probably polypus." Don't you remem- 
 ber how, at that very time, the great dispute on 
 Elliotson's hands was whether any instance 
 could be adduced of cure of organic disease by 
 mesmerism ? Elliotson was nearly certain, but 
 not quite, of the cure of a cancer case in his 
 own practice. The doctors were full of the con- 
 troversy, and some of them wrote both to me 
 and to Mr. Greenhow to inquire the nature of 
 my case, whether malignant or not. Of course 
 we both replied " No." It would be a dreadful 
 misfortune if now anybody concerned should 
 tell a different story. Greenhow is still living 
 (aged 82) and all alive ; and he would like 
 nothing better than to get hold of it, and bring 
 out another indecent pamphlet. If I could but 
 lay hands on the diary of the case, written at the 
 time, what a security it would be ? But I can
 
 MESMERIC RECOVERY. I// 
 
 nowhere find it. The next best security is 
 turning back to the statement, "Letters" in 
 the Athenceum of the autumn of 1844. Those 
 " Letters " went through two editions when 
 reprinted, after having carried those numbers 
 of the Athenamn through three editions. One 
 would think the narrative must be accessible 
 enough. Above all things, let there be no mis- 
 take in our statements. 
 
 It ought to be enough for observers that I 
 had ten years of robust health after that recov- 
 ery, walking from sixteen to twenty miles in a 
 day, on occasion, and riding a camel in the heart 
 of Nubia, and hundreds of miles on horseback, 
 through Palestine to Damascus, and back to the 
 Levant. 
 
 I have written so much because I could not 
 help it. I shall hardly do it again. I will 
 add only that the mesmerizing began in June, 
 1844, an d the cure was effected before the fol- 
 lowing Christmas. 
 
 Dear friend, 
 
 I am yours ever, 
 
 H. M.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE HOME LIFE. 
 
 AT forty-two years old, Harriet Martineau found 
 herself free for the first time to form and take 
 possession of a home of her own. Now, for the 
 first time, she could have the luxury which many 
 girls obtain by marriage so young that they 
 spoil it to themselves and others, and which it 
 is as natural for each grown woman to desire, 
 irrespective of marriage, as it is for a fledged 
 bird to leave the old nest a house and a 
 domestic circle in which she could be the organ- 
 izing spirit, where the home arrangements 
 should be of her own ordering, and where she 
 could have the privacy and self-management 
 which can no otherwise be enjoyed, in combina- 
 tion with the exercise of that housewifely skill 
 to which all women more or less incline. 
 
 The beauty of the scenery led her to fix upon 
 the English lakes for the locality in which to 
 make her home, and, finding no suitable house 
 vacant, she resolved to build one for herself. 
 She purchased two acres of land, within half-a-
 
 THE HOME LIFE. 1/9 
 
 mile of the village of Ambleside ; borrowed 
 some money on mortgage from a well-to-do 
 cousin ; had the plans drawn out under her own, 
 instructions, and watched the house being built 
 so that it should suit her own tastes. 
 
 It is a pretty little gabled house, built of gray 
 stone, and stands upon a small rocky eminence 
 whence its name "the Knoll." There is 
 enough rock to hold the house, and to allow the 
 formation of a terrace about twenty feet wide in 
 front of the windows ; then there comes the 
 descent of the face of the rock. At the foot of 
 the rock is the garden. Narrow flights of steps 
 at either end of the terrace lead down to the 
 greensward and the flower-beds ; in the centre 
 of these is a gray granite sun-dial, with the 
 characteristic motto around it "Come Light! 
 Visit me ! " To the left is the gardener's cot- 
 tage, with the cow-house, pig-stye and root-shed. 
 The front of the house looks across the garden, 
 and over the valley to Loughrigg. Its back is 
 turned to the road, and concealed from passers- 
 by, partly by the growth of greenery, and partly 
 by the Methodist Chapel. A winding path 
 leads up from the road to the house, and a small 
 path forking off from this goes round past the 
 cottage to the field where the cows used to 
 graze, and to the piece of land that was appro- 
 priated to growing the roots for the cows and 
 the household fruit and vegetables.
 
 180 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Within, "The Knoll " is just a nice little resi- 
 dence for a maiden lady, with her small house- 
 hold, and room for an occasional guest. You 
 enter by a covered porch, and find the drawing- 
 room on the right hand of the hall. It is a 
 fairly large room, and remarkably well-lighted ; 
 there was a window-tax when she built, but she 
 showed her faith in the growth of political com- 
 mon-sense abrogating so mischievous an impost, 
 by building in anticipation of freedom of light 
 and air from taxation. The drawing-room has 
 two large windows, one of which descends quite 
 to the floor, and is provided with two or three 
 stone steps outside, so that the inmates may 
 readily step forth on to the terrace. This win- 
 dow, by the way, exposed her to another tax 
 than the Government one. Hunters of celebri- 
 ties were wont, in the tourist season, not merely 
 to walk round her garden and terrace without 
 leave, but even to mount these steps and flatten 
 the tips of their noses against her window. 
 Objectionable as the liability to this friendly 
 attention would be felt by most of us, it was 
 doubly so to Miss Martineau because of her 
 deafness, which precluded her from receiving 
 warning of her admirers' approaches from the 
 crunching of their footsteps on the gravel so 
 that the first intimation that she would receive 
 of their presence would be to turn her head by
 
 THE HOME LIFE. l8l 
 
 chance and find the flattened nose and the peer- 
 ing eyes against the window-pane. There is a 
 special record of one occasiqn, when her bell 
 rang in an agitated fashion, and the maid, on 
 going, found her mistress much disturbed. 
 " There is a big woman, with a big pattern on 
 her dress, beckoning to me to come to the win- 
 dow go, and tell her to go away." But simi- 
 lar incidents were manifold, and her servants 
 had to be trained to guard their mistress as if 
 she were the golden apples of the Hesperides. 
 Indeed, for several years (till she became too ill 
 to travel) she used to leave her lake-side home 
 altogether during the tourist season. 
 
 In her latest years she commonly wrote in the 
 drawing-room, as the sunniest and most cheer- 
 ful apartment, and where, too, she could sit by 
 the fire, and yet get plenty of daylight. Her 
 proper study, however was the room on the 
 opposite side of the hall. This is a long room 
 with a bay window at the other end of the fire- 
 place, and the door in the centre. Book-cases 
 lined the whole of these walls ; but her library 
 was an extensive one, and there were books all 
 over the house. This room served as dining- 
 room and study, both ; the writing table was 
 near the window, the dining-table further 
 towards the fire. 
 
 The only other room on the ground floor is
 
 1 82 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 the kitchen, which runs parallel with the draw- 
 ing-room. Her principles and her practice went 
 hand-in-hand in her domestic arrangements as 
 in her life generally ; and her kitchen was as 
 airy, light and comfortable for her maids as her 
 drawing-room was for herself. The kitchen, 
 too, was provided with a book-case for a servants' 
 library. A scullery, dairy, etc., are annexed to 
 the kitchen, and the entrance to the cellars 
 below is also found through the green baize 
 door which shuts off the cooking region from 
 the front of the house. 
 
 Up-stairs, that which was her own room 4s 
 large and cheerful, and provided with two win- 
 dows, a big hanging cupboard, and a good sized 
 dressing-room the latter indeed, fully large 
 enough for a maid to sleep in. The next was 
 the spare-room ; and there lingers no small in- 
 terest about the guest-chamber, where Harriet 
 Martineau received such guests as Charlotte 
 Bronte, George Eliot, Emerson, and Douglas 
 Jerrold. A small servants' room is next to this, 
 and a larger one is over the kitchen, so that it 
 comes just at the head of the stairs. Such is 
 the size and arrangement of Harriet Martineau's 
 home. 
 
 Climbing plants soon covered "The Knoll" 
 on every side. The ivy kept it green through 
 all the year; the porch was embowered in
 
 THE HOME LIFE. 183 
 
 honeysuckle, clematis, passion-flower, and Vir- 
 ginia creeper. Wordsworth, Macready, and 
 other friends of note, planted trees for Harriet 
 below the terrace. The making of all these 
 arrangements was a source of satisfaction and 
 delight to her such as can only be imagined by 
 those who have felt what it is to come abroad 
 after a long and painful confinement from illness, 
 and to find life and usefulness freely open again 
 under agreeable conditions and prospects. 
 
 While her house was being built, she lodged 
 in Ambleside ; and in that time, during the 
 autumn and winter of 1845-6, she wrote her 
 Forest and Game Law Tales, with the object of 
 showing how mischievous the game laws were 
 in their operation upon society at large, and 
 more particularly upon the fortunes of individ- 
 ual farmers, and upon the laborers who were 
 led into poaching. These tales occupy three 
 volumes of the ordinary novel size. They had 
 a sale which would have been very good for a 
 novel ; two thousand copies were disposed of, 
 and doubtless did some service for the cause for 
 which she had worked. So far as her own 
 pecuniary interests were concerned, however, 
 these tales made her first failure. It was the 
 only work which never returned her any remu- 
 neration. The publisher had reckoned on a very 
 large circulation, and so had put out too much
 
 1 84 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 capital in stock, stereotypes, and the like, to 
 leave any profit on the sale that actually took 
 place ; and the publication unfortunately coin- 
 cided with the agitation of the political world 
 about the repeal of the corn laws. But one 
 pleasing incident arose out of them for her per- 
 sonally. She had been in difficulties as to how 
 to obtain turf to lay down upon the land under 
 her terrace. One fine morning, soon after her 
 entrance on her home, her maid found a 
 great heap of sods under the window, when she 
 opened the shutters in the morning. A dirty 
 note, closed with a wafer, was stuck upon the 
 pile, and this was found to state that the sods 
 were " a token of gratitude for the Game Law 
 Tales, from a Poacher." Harriet never dis- 
 covered from whom this tribute came. 
 
 She took possession of her home on April 
 7th, 1846. During the summer she wrote 
 another story for young people one of her 
 most interesting tales, and instructive in its 
 moral bearing The Billow and the Rock. It 
 must here be noted, in passing, that this is the 
 last of her works in which the theism that she 
 had, up to this time, held for religious truth, 
 makes itself visible. A new experience was 
 about to lead her to think afresh upon the theo- 
 logical subjects, and to revise her opinions 
 about the genesis of faiths, and their influence 
 upon morals.
 
 THE HOME LIFE. 185 
 
 In the autumn of 1846, she accepted an 
 invitation from her friends, Mr. and Mrs. R. V. 
 Yates, of Liverpool, to join them in a journey 
 to the East, they bearing the expense. The 
 party left England in October, and were met 
 at Malta by Mr. J. C. Ewart, afterwards M. P. 
 for Liverpool. Together, these four travellers 
 sailed up the Nile to the second cataract, studied 
 Thebes and Philae, went up and into the Great 
 Pyramid, visited bazaars, mosques and (the 
 ladies) harems, in Cairo. Then they travelled 
 in the track of Moses in the desert, passing 
 Sinai and reaching Petra. Next, they com- 
 pletely traversed Palestine ; and finally, passed 
 through Syria to Beyrout, where they took ship 
 again for home. This journey occupied eight 
 months. 
 
 In October, 1847, Harriet reached "The 
 Knoll " again, and settled herself in her per- 
 manent course of home life. As the same 
 habits were continued, with only the interrup- 
 tions of occasional visits to other parts of the 
 country, day by day, for many years, I may as 
 well mention what was the course of that daily 
 home life. 
 
 She rose very early : not infrequently, in the 
 winter, before daylight ; and immediately set 
 out for a good, long walk. Sometimes, I am 
 told, she would appear at a farm-house, four
 
 1 86 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 miles off, before the cows were milked. The 
 old post-mistress recollects how, when she was 
 making up her early letter-bags, in the gray of 
 the morning mists, Miss Martineau would come 
 down with her large bundle of correspondence, 
 and never failed to have a pleasant nod and 
 smile, or a few kindly inquiries, for her humble 
 friend. "I always go out before it is quite 
 light," writes Miss Martineau to Mr. Atkinson, 
 in November, 1 847 ; " and in the fine mornings I 
 go up the hill behind the church the Kirk- 
 stone road where I reach a great height, and 
 see from half way along Windermere to Rydal. 
 When the little shred of moon that is left and 
 the morning star hang over Wansfell, among the 
 amber clouds of the approaching sunrise, it is 
 delicious. On the positively rainy mornings, my 
 walk is to Pelter Bridge and back. Sometimes 
 it is round the south end of the valley. These 
 early walks (I sit down to my breakfast at half- 
 past seven) are good, among other things, in 
 preparing me in mind for my work." 
 
 Returning home, she breakfasted at half-past 
 seven ; filled her lamp ready for the evening, 
 and arranged all household matters ; and by 
 half-past eight was at her desk, where she 
 worked undisturbed till two, the early dinner- 
 time. These business hours were sacred, 
 whether there were visitors in the house or
 
 THE HOME LIFE. 
 
 not. After dinner, however, she devoted her- 
 self to guests, if there were any ; if not, she 
 took another walk, or in bad weather, did wool- 
 work "many a square yard of which," she 
 says, she " all invisibly embossed with thoughts 
 and feelings worked in." Tea and the news- 
 paper came together, after which she either 
 read, wrote letters, or conversed for the rest of 
 the evening, ending her day always, whatever 
 the weather, by a few moments -of silent medi- 
 tation in the porch or on the terrace without. 
 
 She was not one of those mistresses who can- 
 not talk to their servants, any more than she 
 was one to indulge them in idle and familiar 
 gossip. If there were any special news of the 
 day, she would invite the maids into her sitting- 
 room for half an hour in the evening, to tell 
 them about it. During the Crimean War, and 
 again during the American struggle, in partic- 
 ular, the servants had the frequent privilege of 
 tracing with her on the map the position of the 
 battles, and learning with her aid to understand 
 the great questions that were at stake. 
 
 The servants thus trained and considered * 
 
 * Henry Crabbe Robinson writes to Miss Fenwick on Jan- 
 uary 15, 1849 : 
 
 " Miss Martineau makes herself an object of envy by the 
 success of her domestic arrangements. . . . Mrs. Wordsworth 
 declares she is a model in her household economy, making her 
 servants happy, and setting an example of activity to her neigh- 
 bors."
 
 1 88 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 were not, certainly, common domestics. She 
 kept two girls in the house, besides the laboring 
 man and his wife at the cottage ; and, as the place 
 was small, and her way of living simple, the work 
 did not require that she should choose rough 
 women for servants merely because of their 
 strength. On the contrary, she made special 
 efforts to secure young girls of a somewhat 
 superior order, whom she might train and attach 
 to herself. She got servants whom she had to 
 dismiss now and again, of course ; but the time 
 that most of her maids stopped with her and 
 the warm feelings that they showed towards 
 her, are a high testimony to the domestic charac- 
 ter of their " strong minded" mistress. At the 
 time of which we are now spealdng, her maids 
 were "Jane," who had been cured from chronic 
 illness by Miss Martineau's mesmerizing, and 
 who was in her service for seven years, when 
 the girl emigrated ; and " Martha," who had 
 been trained for teaching, and had to resign it 
 from ill-health, but who later on married the 
 master of Miss Carpenter's Bristol Ragged 
 Schools, and returned to teaching, after serving 
 Miss Martineau for some eight years. 
 
 Of the servants who came after this, " Caro- 
 line " was there twenty years, till she was 
 removed by death ; and " Mary Anne " served 
 Miss Martineau eleven years, till the mistress's
 
 THE HOME LIFE. 189 
 
 death closed the long term of attendance and 
 almost filial love. 
 
 Indications of how different the relationship 
 was in this home from what it only too often 
 is, are found in many of Miss Martineau's let- 
 ters. When "Martha" married, she had the 
 rare honor of having Harriet Martineau and 
 Mary Carpenter for her bridesmaids. The 
 mistress gave the wedding breakfast, and par- 
 took of it, too, in company with the bride and 
 bridegroom and their friends; and when she 
 had seen them all off, she sat down to write to 
 her family about her loss " with a bursting 
 heart." References to her feelings for her 
 " dear friend, Caroline," will be seen presently 
 in her letters to Mr. Atkinson ; and her care 
 and affection for this valued servant are ex- 
 pressed yet more frequently in letters which I 
 may not quote, to more domestic friends. As 
 to " Mary Anne," she has travelled a long way 
 while in delicate health, to see me, to tell me 
 all she could of her mistress, and to express 
 how glad she was "to know of anything being 
 done to make Miss Martineau's goodness better 
 understood." "Mary Anne" is now a married 
 woman. She was engaged for three or four 
 years before Miss Martineau's death, but would 
 not leave her mistress in her old age and her 
 ill-health. That mistress, on her part, when
 
 190 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 told of the engagement, not only admitted the 
 lover to an interview with herself, but even 
 generously urged that the wedding should not 
 be delayed for her sake, although at this time 
 she had an almost morbid shrinking from stran- 
 gers, and the loss of the personal attendant 
 who knew her ways, would have been one of 
 the greatest calamities of the commoner order 
 that could have befallen her. But "Mary 
 Anne" did not leave her; and when, at last, it 
 became quite certain that death was at hand, 
 the generous lady said to a relative that it 
 made her " so glad to think that, when it was 
 over, there could be nothing to stand in the 
 way of Mary Anne's marriage." I have thus 
 anticipated in order to show that the domestic 
 peace which existed under her household rule 
 was no special thing dependent upon the char- 
 acter of a single servant, but was maintained 
 through all the years of her home life, and 
 therefore unquestionably was the result of the 
 mistress's qualities of heart and mind. 
 
 What may be called her external home-life 
 that is to say, what she was to her poorer 
 neighbors during that ten years of activity, 
 may also be best noticed before the mental 
 progress and literary work of the period come 
 under further review. 
 
 Every winter, for several years, she gave a
 
 THE HOME LIFE. 191 
 
 course of lectures to the working-people and 
 tradesfolk of the place, in the Methodist 
 school-room at the back of her house. Many 
 of the gentry desired to attend, but she would 
 have none of them, on the double ground that 
 there was no room for them, and that the lec- 
 tures were designed for people who had little 
 access to books or other educational resources. 
 The subjects that she treated were as various 
 as those of her books, but all chosen with what 
 I have previously observed seems to me to 
 have been the object of all her works to 
 influence conduct through knowledge and rea- 
 soning. There was a course on sanitary mat- 
 ters, others on her travels (and we know from 
 her books on the same topics from what point 
 of view these were treated), some on the his- 
 tory of England, another on the history and 
 constitution of the United States ; and, finally, 
 the last course for which she had health and 
 strength was given in November and Decem- 
 ber, 1854, and was on the Crimean War and 
 the character of the government of Russia. 
 
 I have seen some of the older inhabitants of 
 Ambleside who attended these lectures, and 
 who now speak of them in the warmest terms 
 of admiration. " They were so clear ; and she 
 never stopped for a word ; and so interesting ! 
 one could have listened to them over and
 
 192 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 over again." But there is no one who could tell, 
 with the aid of a cultivated taste, what she was 
 as a public speaker. So eloquent is some of 
 her writing that one holds one's breath as one 
 reads it ; and the evident rapidity of the pen- 
 manship of her MS.* shows that such passages 
 were produced with all the improvisatory im- 
 pulse and flow of the orator. If, besides this, 
 her delivery was fervent and impressive, one 
 cannot but think how great a statesman and 
 parliamentary leader she might have been, with 
 these essential qualifications for modern public 
 life added to all that knowledge, judgment, 
 strength of principle, and political capacity 
 which made men willing (as we shall see soon) 
 to accept her as their political teacher in the 
 daily and quarterly press. That she had the 
 orator's stirring gifts, the personal magnetism 
 which compels the minds of a mass to move 
 with the words of a speaker, and the reciprocal 
 power of receiving stimulus from an audience, 
 when 
 
 The hearts of many fires the lips of one, 
 
 there is one shadowy incident left to x show, 
 besides the testimony of her local hearers who 
 
 *In speaking of her eloquent writings I refer specially to 
 the History of the Peace ; and I have seen the manuscript of 
 this, bearing evidence that the hand could not keep pace with 
 the flow of words and thoughts.
 
 THE HOME LIFE. 1 93 
 
 survive. It is this: in 1849 Charlotte Bronte, 
 then in the first flush of her fame, sought 
 Harriet Martineau's acquaintance, saying that 
 she desired "to see one whose works have so 
 often made her the subject of my thoughts." 
 In the following year Charlotte visited Harriet 
 at "The Knoll," and heard one of the English 
 History lectures. Her bright eyes were fixed 
 on the lecturer all through ; and as Harriet 
 stood on her low platform, while the audience 
 dispersed, she heard Charlotte say, in the very 
 voice of the lecturer, what Edward said in the 
 wind-mill at Cressy : " Is my son dead ?" They 
 walked silently to the house together about 
 three hundred paces and when Harriet turned 
 up her lamp in the drawing-room, the first thing 
 she saw was Charlotte looking at her with wide, 
 shining eyes, and repeating, in the same tone, 
 " Is my son dead ? " To those who know the 
 dramatic quality of Charlotte Bronte's imagina- 
 tion, there is a beam of light reflected from this 
 trifling anecdote upon the force and the manner 
 of the speaker who had so impressed her. 
 
 The opinion which this keenly observant and 
 candid woman formed of Harriet Martineau is 
 of peculiar interest, and, as it specially refers 
 to the period and the relations of which we arc 
 now treating, I quote it from Mrs. Gaskell's Life 
 of Charlotte Bronte. It is given in some private 
 7
 
 194 HARRIET MARTINS A U. 
 
 letters, written from "The Knoll" (not, as Mrs. 
 Chapman absurdly says, to Emily Bronte, who 
 was dead, but) to Charlotte's life-long and most 
 confidential friend, Miss Ellen Nussey : 
 
 " I am at Miss Martineau's for a week. Her 
 house is very pleasant both within and with- 
 out ; arranged at all points with admirable neat- 
 ness and comfort. Her visitors enjoy the most 
 perfect liberty ; what she claims for herself she 
 allows them. . . . She is a great and good woman. 
 .... The manner in which she combines the 
 highest mental culture with the nicest discharge 
 of feminine duties filled me with admiration ; 
 while her affectionate kindness earned my grati- 
 tude. I think her good and noble qualities far 
 outweigh her defects. It is my habit to consider 
 the individual apart from his (or her) reputation, 
 practice independent of theory, natural disposi- 
 tion isolated from acquired opinion. Harriet 
 Martineau's person, practice, and character in- 
 spire me with the truest affection and respect. 
 
 " I find a worth and greatness in herself, and 
 a consistency and benevolence and persever- 
 ance in her practice, such as win the sincerest 
 esteem and affection. She is not a person to be 
 judged by her writings alone, but rather by her 
 own deeds and life, than which nothing can be 
 more exemplary or nobler. She seems to me the 
 benefactress of Ambleside, yet takes no sort of 
 credit to herself for her active and indefatigable 
 philanthropy. The government of her house- 
 hold is admirably administered ; all she does is 
 well done, from the writing of a history down to
 
 THE HOME LIFE. 1 95 
 
 the quietest feminine occupation. No sort of 
 carelessness or neglect is allowed under her 
 rule, and yet she is not over-strict, or too rigidly 
 exacting ; her servants and her poor neighbors 
 love as well as respect her. 
 
 " I must not, however, fall into the error of 
 talking too much about her, merely because my 
 mind is just now deeply impressed with what I 
 have seen of her intellectual power and moral 
 worth." 
 
 Some of her lectures were given with the 
 express object of inducing the people to form 
 a building society. Rents were excessively 
 high for the working classes from the scarcity 
 of cottages ; and therefore they lived and 
 slept crowded together, while the open country 
 extended all around them. The moral screw 
 was turned upon them, too, about politics and 
 religion, by the threat of the landlord that, if 
 they offended him, he would turn them out of 
 the only cottages they could get. With that 
 true philanthropy which her studies in political 
 economy had taught, Miss Martineau went to 
 work to aid the people to improve their own 
 condition. She obtained a loan of ^500 from 
 her old friend, Mrs. Reid, of London (to whom 
 the foundation of Bedford college is mainly due), 
 with which she purchased a field just above the 
 village at Ellercross,and parcelled it out, drained 
 it, and made the road. Then, by her lectures,
 
 1 96 HARRIET MARTINEAU 
 
 she showed the people how they could "buy a 
 house with its rent" ; and she undertook all the 
 infinite trouble that devolved upon her when the 
 society was formed, as the only member of it 
 with legal and general knowledge, and, there- 
 fore, the only one able to guide its affairs. 
 Before me there lies a package of the notes 
 that she sent at different times on this business 
 to Mr. Bell, the Ambleside chemist, who was 
 the nominal chairman though she was the real 
 one of the society. " Jealousy and ridicule 
 went to work against the scheme"; but her 
 philanthropic energy and wisdom were fully 
 successful. The cottages are healthily planned 
 and well built, and remain there as a monument 
 to the efforts which she made for the good of 
 her poor neighbors. 
 
 Besides these more general undertakings for 
 their benefit, there yet live many amongst them 
 who are grateful to her for personal kindness 
 and assistance. While her strength lasted, she 
 was ever ready to try to relieve others from ill- 
 ness by the means which she believed to have 
 cured herself ; and seven mesmerized patients 
 were sometimes asleep at one time in her 
 drawing-room. She was a powerful mesmerist. 
 Most of her patients were at least relieved 
 some cured. A present resident of Ambleside, 
 who owes his success in business life to her
 
 THE HOME LIFE. 
 
 kindness, told me how she mesmerized him for 
 nearly an hour every day for a year ; and to 
 show that she did not do this without very 
 decided results to herself, he remembers that her 
 fingers used to swell during the process, so as 
 to almost hide her rings, if she forgot to take 
 them off before beginning. 
 
 Again, her library was placed freely at the 
 service of deserving young men in the village, 
 and only book-lovers will be able to appreciate 
 the generosity of this neighborly kindness. 
 Old Miss Nicholson tells me of Miss Martineau's 
 kindness to her invalid sister ; sharing with her 
 the luxuries which were not to be bought in 
 Ambleside, but which the famous writer fre- 
 quently received from some of her many friends. 
 Nor was the mere personal human sympathy 
 wanting in her ; those who needed no gifts or 
 material aid from her knew her as a kind 
 friend, ready to think for them and advise with 
 them in their troubles or perplexities. 
 
 In mentioning her activities other than liter- 
 ary, during those ten busy and healthy years of 
 home life, I must not omit her "farming" 
 her farm of two acres. She had no intention, 
 at first, of embarking in such an enterprise. 
 She let on hire that portion of her land which 
 she did not wish to have in her garden, and her 
 maids and herself, with the occasional help of
 
 198 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 a man, kept the garden in order. But this plan 
 did not answer well. The tenant allowed the 
 grass to get untidy, and his sheep broke into 
 the garden to eat the cabbages. Neither the 
 vegetable nor the flower garden could be kept 
 so nicely as might be wished. Milk, butter, 
 eggs, and hams, all had to be bought at high 
 prices ; and so small was the supply at times 
 that these articles of country produce were 
 actually unattainable by purchase. 
 
 The energetic lady of the small domain was 
 profoundly dissatisfied with this state of affairs. 
 So to work she went to study the science of 
 agriculture and practical farming ; and soon a 
 Norfolk laborer was established on her land, 
 and this small farm was under her own manage- 
 ment. She set up a cross-pole fence around her 
 estate, the first one ever seen in the Lake 
 District ; and, like a true woman, she planted 
 roses all along the fence, to wreathe and decorate, 
 it in summer. Then she initiated her fellow- 
 farmers into the mysteries of high farming, and 
 stall feeding. " A cow to three acres " was 
 the Lake rule ; but she hired another half- 
 acre of land, to add to her own, and showed 
 that upon this total of two acres she could 
 almost keep two cows. Fowls and pigs were, of 
 course, kept also; and all the household com- 
 forts which cows, hens, and pigs supply were
 
 THE HOME LIFE. 199 
 
 obtained from her land at, practically, no cost 
 at all. The subsistence of the laborer and his 
 wife was created out of the soil ; and the house 
 had a constant supply of vegetables, milk, eggs, 
 and hams, at a less expense than buying had 
 previously been, and with a much nicer and 
 always certain supply. 
 
 The experiment became famous in a small 
 way. " People camt to see how we arranged 
 our ground, so as to get such crops out of it," * 
 and one of the Poor-Law Commissioners, having 
 asked her for a private account of how she had 
 managed her little farm, printed her letter in 
 the Times, without asking her consent. This 
 brought such a flood of correspondence on her 
 that she was compelled to write on the subject 
 for publication, and so the farm superintendence 
 resulted in a piece of literary work for the mis- 
 tress. 
 
 Now we will see what her pen was doing 
 while all these activities were helping to fill her 
 days. 
 
 * Health, Husbandry and Handicraft, p. 269, " Our Farm of 
 Two Acres."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN THE MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 
 
 THE book, published early in 1848, in which 
 Harriet described her Egyptian, Desert and 
 Palestine travels, was entitled Eastern Life, 
 Past and Present. If I were required to give 
 from some one only of her works a series 
 of extracts which should illustrate the special 
 powers of her mind and the finest features of her 
 style, it would be this book that I should choose. 
 I do not mean to say that the most eloquent and 
 vivid passage that I might find in all her writ- 
 ings is here ; nor that her deepest and noblest 
 qualities as a thinker are more forcibly displayed 
 here than elsewhere. But I mean that in 
 Eastern Life, Past and Present, all her best 
 moral and intellectual faculties were exerted, 
 and their action becomes visible, at one page or 
 another, in reading the book from the first to 
 the last chapters. The keen observation, the 
 active thought, the vigorous memory, the power 
 of deep and sustained study, the mastery of 
 language, giving the ability to depict in words
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 2OI 
 
 and to arouse the reader's imagination to men- 
 tal vision all these requisites for the writing 
 of a good book of travel she showed that she 
 possessed. But there is even more than all this 
 in Eastern Life. There is the feeling for 
 humanity in all its circumstances, which can 
 sympathize no less with the slave of the harem 
 at this moment alive in degradation, than with 
 the highest intelligences that ceased from exist- 
 ence unnumbered thousands of years ago. The 
 most interesting and characteristic feature dis- 
 tinguishing this work is, however, the openness 
 and freedom of its thought combined with the 
 profound reverence that it shows for all that is 
 venerable. 
 
 It was Eastern Life which first declared to 
 the world that Harriet Martineau had ceased 
 to have a theology. She had learned in travel- 
 ling through Egypt, how much of what Moses 
 taught was derived from the ancient mythology 
 of Egypt. Passing afterwards through the 
 lands where the Hebrew, the Christian, and 
 the Mohammedan faiths in turn arose, observ- 
 ing, thinking, and studying, the conclusion at 
 which she arrived at last was, in brief, this : 
 That men have ever constructed the image of a 
 Ruler of the Universe out of their own minds ; 
 that all successive ideas about the Supreme 
 Power have been originated from within, and
 
 202 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 modified by the surrounding circumstances ; 
 and that all theologies, therefore, are baseless 
 productions of the human imagination, and 
 have no essential connection with those great 
 religious ideas and emotions by which men are 
 constrained to live nobly, to do justly, and to 
 love what they see to be the true and the right. 
 Her conviction that the highest moral con- 
 duct, and the most unselfish goodness, and the 
 noblest aspirations, are in no degree connected 
 with any kind of creed, was aided and sup- 
 ported, no doubt, by her warm personal affec- 
 tion for Mr. Atkinson, and some other of her 
 friends of his way of thinking, in whom she 
 found aspirations as lofty and feelings as admi- 
 rable as ever she had enjoyed communion with, 
 together with a complete rejection, on scien- 
 tific grounds, of air theology. Her belief now 
 was that 
 
 The best state of mind was to be found, how- 
 ever it might be accounted for, in those who 
 were called philosophical atheists. ... I knew 
 several of that class some avowed, and some 
 not ; and I had for several years felt that they 
 were among my most honored acquaintances 
 and friends ; and now I knew them more deeply 
 and thoroughly, I must say that, for conscien- 
 tousness, sincerity, integrity, seriousness, effec- 
 tive intellect, and the true religious spirit^ I 
 knew nothing like them.
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 203 
 
 Her own " true religious " earnestness was 
 unabated. Eastern Life contains abundance of 
 evidence that the spirit in which she now wrote 
 against all theological systems was exactly at 
 one with that in which she had twenty years 
 before written Addresses, Prayers and Hymns. 
 Her intellectual range had become far wider; 
 her knowledge of human nature and of the 
 history and conditions of mankind had vastly 
 increased ; but her religious earnestness that 
 is to say, her devotion to truth, and her emo- 
 tional reverence for her highest conceptions of 
 goodness and duty was as fervent as ever. 
 
 Notwithstanding the boldness and hetero- 
 doxy of Eastern Life, it did not cause much 
 outcry ; and her two next books were amongst 
 the most successful of all her works. The first 
 of these was Household Education ; the second, 
 A History of the Thirty Years' Peace. 
 
 The former was partly written for periodical 
 publication during 1847 i n the People s Journal, 
 for which magazine she wrote also a few desul- 
 tory articles. 
 
 The History of the Peace was a voluminous 
 work of the first order of importance. Its 
 execution is in most respects entirely admira- 
 ble. Her task of writing the history of the 
 time in which she had herself lived was one of 
 extreme delicacy. Honest contemporary judg
 
 204 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 ments about still-living or lately-dead persons, 
 and about actions which have been observed 
 with all the freshness of feeling of the passing 
 moment, must often seem unduly stern to those 
 who look back through the. softening veil of 
 the past, and to whom the actors have always 
 been purely historic personages. Moreover, I 
 have before mentioned her tendency, which 
 seems to me to have arisen from her deafness, 
 to give insufficient shading off in depicting 
 character. But wonderfully little allowance is, 
 after all, required on such grounds from the 
 reader at the present day of Harriet Marti- 
 neau's history of the years between 1815 and 
 1845. The view taken by her of O'Connell, 
 Brougham, and some others is perhaps too 
 stern ; the picture has too many dark shades, 
 and not a due proportion of light tints ; but it 
 can scarcely be questioned that the outline is 
 accurate, and the whole drawing substantially 
 correct. The earnest endeavor after imparti- 
 ality, and the success with which the j udicial 
 attitude of the historian is on the whole main- 
 tained, are very remarkable. 
 
 This appears so to one who looks upon the 
 book with the eyes of the present generation ; 
 but the recognition of the fact at the moment 
 when she wrote is perhaps more conclusive, and 
 the following quotation may serve to show the
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 205 
 
 opinion of those who (with her) had lived 
 through the time of which she treats. 
 
 Miss Martineau has been able to discuss 
 events which may almost be called contemporary 
 as calmly as if she were examining a remote 
 period of antiquity. She has written the his- 
 tory of a rather undignified reign with a dignity 
 that raises even the strifes of forgotten and 
 exploded parties into philosophic importance. 
 She exhibits warm sympathies for all that is 
 noble, honorable, or exhalted and a thorough 
 disdain of every paltry contrivance devised to 
 serve a temporary purpose, or gain an unworthy 
 end. The principles which she enunciates are 
 based on eternal truths, and evolved with a 
 logical precision that admits rhetorical ornament 
 without becoming obscure or confused. There 
 are few living authors who may be so implicitly 
 trusted with the task of writing contemporary 
 history as Miss Martineau. She has spared no 
 pains in investigating the truth, and allowed no 
 fears to prevent her from stating it.* 
 
 Though all her other books should die, and 
 be buried utterly under the dust of time, this 
 one will never be entirely lost. It is as accurate 
 and as careful in its facts as the driest compen- 
 dium, while yet its pages glow with eloquence, 
 and are instinct with political wisdom. She 
 really did here what she had designed to do in 
 Society in America ; but here she did it in the 
 
 *Athenceum, March, 3ist, 1849.
 
 206 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 right method, there in a wrong one. The great 
 growth of her mind in twelve years of maturity 
 could not be better gauged than by a compari- 
 son of these two works. Her political principles 
 did not change in the time ; she was a true 
 believer in popular government all her life 
 her love of justice caused her to be a hater of 
 class rule, and of every kind of privilege ; her 
 sympathies were boundless, and made her in 
 earnest for the freedom and progress of the 
 democracy ; her conscience was active so that 
 she loved truth for its own sake ; and her sense 
 of duty never failed to keep alive in her large 
 mind a feeling of personal concern in the pro- 
 gress of public affairs. All this was true of her 
 when she wrote her American book ; it was 
 equally true when she treated the history of her 
 own land and her own times. But in the latter 
 case, she writes on political philosophy like a 
 statesman in the former there is much of the 
 doctrinaire. In the latter work, principles 
 underlie the whole fabric ; but the actions of 
 politicians are made the means of judging their 
 own professed creeds, the value of those creeds 
 being easily appraised by the results seen to 
 follow on actions in conformity with them. In 
 the earlier work, as we saw, the theories were 
 postulated first, and the actions were measured 
 against those self-derived standards of right and
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 207 
 
 wrong. For political sagacity, for nobility of 
 public spirit, for effective thought, for knowl- 
 edge of facts, for clear presentation of them, 
 for accuracy in judging of their permanent 
 importance, for candor, and impartiality, for 
 insight into character, and for vivid and glowing 
 eloquence, The History of the Thirty Years 
 Peace stands forth unmatched amongst books 
 of its class. This, I take it, will be the 
 most enduring and valuable of all her works, 
 and the one by which chiefly posterity will learn 
 what were her powers and how estimable was 
 her character. 
 
 In the two works last mentioned, Eastern 
 Life and The Thirty Years' Peace, it seems to 
 me that she touched the high-water mark of 
 her permanent achievements. We have nearly 
 reached the end of the long catalogue of her 
 books, though by no means the end of her 
 writings. Very much more work she did in 
 her life, as will presently be told, but it was 
 that kind of work which is (with the single 
 exception of oratory) the most powerful at the 
 moment, but the most evanescent journalism. 
 She was soon to begin to apply her ripe wis- 
 dom and her life-long study of the theory 
 of government to the concrete problems of 
 practical politics. The influence of an active 
 and powerful journalist cannot be measured;
 
 208 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 the work itself cannot be adequately surveyed 
 and criticized ; and thus what is, perhaps, the 
 most useful, capable and important work which 
 Harriet Martineau did, eludes our detailed 
 survey. We can best judge what was her 
 power as a leader-writer and review and maga- 
 zine essayist by noting how progressively her 
 mind improved, and to what a high moral and 
 intellectual standpoint she had attained in her 
 latest volumes, just before she exchanged such 
 sustained labors for the briefer though not less 
 arduous efforts of leading and teaching through 
 the periodical press. 
 
 77/i? History of the Peace was completed in 
 1850, and was so immediately successful that 
 the publisher asked Miss Martineau to write 
 an introductory volume on the history of the 
 first fifteen years of this century. While at 
 work upon this "Introduction" she did also 
 some short articles on various subjects for 
 Charles Dickens' periodical, HouseJiold Words, 
 and was likewise proceeding with the prepara- 
 tion of another volume of a very different 
 kind. This last was published in January, 
 1851 (before the introductory volume of the//z.r- 
 tory), under the title of Letters on the Laws of 
 Man's Nature and Development, by Henry George 
 Atkinson, F. G. S., and Harriet Martineau. 
 
 The contents of the book were actual letters
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 209 
 
 which had passed between the friends. It will 
 be remembered that Harriet did not meet Mr. 
 Atkinson during the progress of her mesmeric 
 treatment and recovery from illness under his 
 written advice.' But soon after she got better, 
 they were visiting together at the house of a 
 cousin of hers, and during the six years or so 
 which had since then passed, they had often 
 met, and their correspondence had grown to 
 be very frequent. Mr. Atkinson had gradually 
 become the friend dearest to Harriet Martineau 
 in all the world. He gained her affection (I 
 use the word advisedly) by entirely honorable 
 roads by the delight which she took in 
 observing his scientific knowledge, his original- 
 ity of thought and his elevated tone of mind. 
 But I cannot doubt that long before this vol- 
 ume of Letters was published, he had become 
 dear to her by virtue of that personal attraction 
 which is not altogether dependent upon merit, 
 but which enhances such merits as may be 
 possessed by the object of the attachment, and 
 somewhat confuses the relationship on the 
 intellectual side. This condition of things is 
 in no way especially feminine ; John Stuart 
 Mill bowed down to Mrs. Taylor, and Comte 
 erected his admiration of Clotilde into a culte. 
 Mr. Atkinson was many years younger than 
 his friend, and very likely she never fully real-
 
 210 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 ized the depth of her own feelings towards him. 
 But still the attraction had its influence, though 
 unacknowledged in words, and unreciprocated 
 in kind. 
 
 Miss Martineau was really taught by Mr. 
 Atkinson much of science that she had not pre- 
 viously studied ; but yet it was an error, from 
 every point of view, for her to present to the 
 world a book in which she avowed herself his 
 pupil. Her letters are mainly composed of 
 questions, upon which she seeks enlightenment. 
 The answers cannot, in the nature of the case, 
 give forth a connected system of thought upon 
 "Man's Nature and Development." No one 
 was more ready than she herself to recognize 
 that, as she says, "in literature, no mind can 
 work well upon the lines laid down by 
 another" ; yet this was what she required Mr. 
 Atkinson to do in replying to her questions and 
 taking up her points. The errors that one 
 would expect are found in the results of this 
 mistaken form ; the facts and the inferences 
 are neither sufficiently separated, nor properly 
 connected ; and the real value which the book 
 had as a contribution to science and philoso- 
 phy is lost sight of in the disorder. In fact, no 
 form could be less suitable than the epistolary 
 for such work either for the writers to arrange 
 and analyze what they were doing, or for the
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 211 
 
 reader to see and understand what they have 
 done. Besides this, the public had long con- 
 sented to learn from Harriet Martineau ; but 
 Mr. Atkinson, though highly respected by his 
 own circle, was not known 'to the general public, 
 and it was therefore an error in policy for Miss 
 Martineau to show herself sitting as a pupil at 
 his feet, and to call on those who believed in 
 her to believe in him as her teacher and guide. 
 Her fine tact and long experience must have 
 led her to perceive all this in an ordinary case ; 
 and only the personal reason of a desire to win 
 for her friend the recognition from the public 
 which she herself had already given him so fully 
 in her own head and heart, could have led an 
 experienced and able woman of letters to so 
 blunder in her selection of the literary form of 
 the book. 
 
 As to the substance of the Letters, but little 
 need be said, because the bulk of the volume is 
 not her writing, but Mr. Atkinson's. The 
 ideas which she had then accepted, however, 
 were those by which she lived the rest of her 
 life, and must have their due share of notice for 
 that reason. 
 
 The fundamental point in the book is its 
 insistance on the Baconian, or experiential, or, 
 scientific, method of inquiry being adopted in 
 studying man and his mental constitution, just
 
 212 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 as much as in studying inanimate nature. A 
 great First Cause of all things is not denied, but 
 declared unknown and unknowable, as neces- 
 sarily beyond the comprehension of the senses 
 of man. Supernatural revelation is, of course, 
 entirely rejected ; indeed, the very word super- 
 natural is held to involve a fallacy, for only nat- 
 ural things can be known. Mr. Atkinson 
 pointed out that the whole of the facts which 
 are around us can be observed, analyzed, and 
 found to occur in an invariable sequence of 
 causes and effects, which form natural laws ; 
 and that the mind of man is no exception to 
 this general truth, that all events spring from 
 causes, and are themselves in turn causes of 
 other effects. It follows from these conclusions 
 that the "First Cause" (which, as Miss Mar- 
 tineau said, the constitution of the human mind 
 requires it to suppose) never intervenes in the 
 world as an errant influence, disturbing natural 
 law ; and all speculations about its nature, char- 
 acter, and purposes are put aside as out of the 
 field of inquiry. 
 
 Passing on from method to results, Mr. Atkin- 
 son gave the first hints of many doctrines now 
 fully accepted : as that of unconscious cerebra- 
 tion, or that of more senses than five, for in- 
 stance ; and many others (based mainly on 
 phrenology and mesmerism) not held, up to the
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 213 
 
 present time, even by the scientists of his own 
 school. For the rest the book has much that is 
 interesting ; it has much that is true ; but it 
 has, also, much that might well have been put 
 forward as speculation, but should not have been 
 stated so dogmatically as it was on the evidence 
 available.* 
 
 It was received in 1851 with a howl from the 
 orthodox press which would seem strange indeed 
 in these days. But of competent criticism it had 
 very little. Miss Martineau's name, of course, 
 secured attention for it ; and small though her 
 share in the book was, it was quite enough to 
 make the fact perfectly clear that she was hence- 
 forth to be looked upon as a "materialist" and 
 a "philosophical atheist," and the rest of the 
 names by which it was customary to stigmatize 
 any person who rejected supernaturalism and 
 revelation. 
 
 The motives with which this book was written 
 and published could hardly be misunderstood. 
 There could be no idea of making money out of 
 
 * It is right that I should say that I alone am responsible for 
 the above (necessarily imperfect) digest of the contents of the 
 book. I at first thought of asking Mr. Atkinson to do me the 
 favor of reading my account of his work in proof; but I ulti- 
 mately concluded that it would be better that in this instance, 
 as in the case of all Harriet Martineau's other books, I myself 
 should be wholly responsible to the public for my own sub- 
 stantial accuracy and fairness.
 
 214 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 a work on philosophy even if either of the 
 authors had been in the habit of writing merely 
 to make money ; while as to fame and applause, 
 everyone is more or less acquainted with the 
 history of the reception given in all ages to 
 those who have questioned the popular beliefs 
 of their time ! The sole motive with which 
 Harriet Martineau wrote and issued this book 
 was the same that impelled her to do all her 
 work -the desire to teach that which she 
 believed to be true, and to be valuable in its 
 influence upon conduct. With regard to the 
 latter point, it seemed to her that one great 
 cause for the slow advance of civilization is the 
 degree to which good men and women have 
 occupied themselves with supernatural concerns, 
 neglecting for these the actual world, its condi- 
 tions, and its wants, and giving themselves over 
 to the guidance of a spiritual hierarchy instead 
 of exercising all their own powers in freedom. 
 She struck at' this error in publishing the 
 Letters. At the same time she felt doubtful if 
 her future writings would ever be read after her 
 bold utterances, and even, as the following letter 
 shows, whether she might not find herself the 
 occupant of a felon's dock for the crime of which 
 Socrates, and Jesus, and Galileo were each in 
 turn accused blasphemy :
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 215 
 
 LETTER TO MR. ATKINSON. 
 [Extract.] August 10, 1874. 
 
 One thing more is worth saying. Do you 
 remember how, when we were bringing out our 
 " Letters," I directed your attention to our 
 Blasphemy Law, and the trial of Moxon, under 
 that law, for publishing Shelley's " Queen Mab " 
 among his Poems? You ridiculed my state- 
 ment, and said Mr. Procter * denied there being 
 such a law, or Moxon having been tried, in the 
 face of the fact that I had corresponded with 
 Moxon on the occasion, on the part of certain 
 personal friends. The fact appeared afterwards 
 in the Annual Register, but it seemed to pro- 
 duce no effect. Well, now you can know the 
 truth by looking at the Life of Denman, by Sir 
 Joseph Arnould. If you can lay your hands on 
 the book, please look at vol. ii. p. 129, where 
 there is an account of the trial, Judge Denman 
 being the judge who tried the case. The narra- 
 tive ends thus: "The verdict was for the 
 Crown " (conviction for blasphemy), " but Mr. 
 Moxon was never called up for sentence." It is 
 too late for Mr. Procter to learn the truth, but 
 it is surely always well for us, while still engaged 
 in the work of life, to be accurately informed on 
 such matters as the laws we live under, and our 
 consequent responsibilities. Is it not so ? 
 
 It was, then, with the full anticipation, not 
 only of social obloquy, but also of legal penalty, 
 that the brave thinker fulfilled (to quote her own 
 
 * "Barry Cornwall."
 
 2l6 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 words in the preface to the Letters] "that great 
 social duty, to impart what we believe, and what 
 we think we have learned. Among the few 
 things of which we can pronounce ourselves 
 certain is the obligation of inquirers after truth 
 to communicate what they obtain." The heroic 
 soul fulfilled now, as before and afterwards, 
 what she held to be her duty, as simply and 
 unwaveringly as ever a soldier on the battle- 
 field charged the cannon's mouth. 
 
 Five times in her life did Harriet Martineau 
 write and publish that which she believed would 
 ruin her prospects, silence her voice for ever, 
 and close her career. Far from her was that 
 common paltering with the conscience by which 
 so many men confuse their minds the poor 
 pretence that truth must not be spoken for fear 
 that the speaker's influence for future worthy 
 work may be injured by his boldness. This is 
 how the devil tempts, saying, " Fall down, and 
 worship me, and I will give thee all the king- 
 doms of the earth and the glory of them." 
 Harriet Martineau never worshipped evil even 
 by silence, when silence was sin, playing fast 
 and loose with her conscience by a promise to 
 use the power so obtained for higher objects 
 hereafter. The truth that appeared to her mind 
 she spoke frankly ; the work that was placed 
 for her to do she did simply ; and so the quag-
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 2 1/ 
 
 mire of the expedient never engulfed her repu- 
 tation, her self-respect and her usefulness, as it 
 has done that of so many who have been lured 
 into it from the straight path of right action 
 and truthful speech in public life, by will-o'-the- 
 wisp hopes of greater power and glory for 
 themselves in the future which they hope 
 they may use for good when they shall be 
 smothered in cowardice and lies. She had 
 much to suffer, and did suffer. Martyrs are 
 not honored because they are insensate, but 
 because they defy their natural human weak- 
 nesses in maintaining that which they believe 
 to be true. Probably the keenest grief which 
 she experienced on the occasion now before us 
 came from the complete separation which took 
 place between her and the dearest friend of her 
 youth, her brother James. Dr. Martineau was, 
 at that time, one of the editors of the Prospect- 
 ive Review. Philosophy was his department, 
 and in the natural order the Letters came to 
 him for review. He reviewed the book accord- 
 ingly and in such terms that all intercourse 
 between him and his sister was thenceforward 
 at an end. They had long before drifted apart 
 in thought ; but this final separation was none 
 the less felt as a wrench. Dr. Martineau's 
 attack was almost exclusively aimed against Mr. 
 Atkinson. But with Harriet's loyalty of nature
 
 2l8 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 she was more impelled to resent what was said 
 about her friend and colleague than if it had 
 been directed against herself. The brother and 
 sister never met or communicated with each 
 other again. 
 
 The introductory volume of the History of 
 the Peace was published soon after the Atkin- 
 son Letters. The next work which she under- 
 took was a great labor the rendering into 
 English of Comte's Positive Philosophy. 
 
 What she accomplished with this book was 
 not a mere translation, nor could it be precisely 
 described as a condensation ; it was both these 
 and more. Comte had propounded his ground- 
 work of philosophy and his outline of all the 
 sciences in six bulky volumes, full of repeti- 
 tions, and written in an imperfect French style. 
 Harriet Martineau rendered the whole sub- 
 stance of these six volumes into two of clear 
 English, orderly, consecutive, and scientific in 
 method as in substance. So well was her work 
 accomplished that Comte himself adopted it 
 for his students' use, removing from his list of 
 books for Positivists his own edition of his 
 course, and recommending instead the English 
 version by Miss Martineau. It thus by-and- 
 bye came to pass that Comte's own work fell 
 entirely out of use, and his complete teachings 
 became inaccessible to the French people in
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 2ig 
 
 their own tongue ; so that twenty years after- 
 wards, when one of his disciples wished to call 
 public attention to the master's work as teach- 
 ing the method of social science by which the 
 French nation must find its way back to pros- 
 perity after the great war, he was constrained 
 to ask Harriet Martineau's permission to re- 
 translate her version. 
 
 Comte wrote her the warmest expressions of 
 his gratitude ; but this he owed her on another 
 ground besides the one of the value of her 
 labors in popularizing his work so ably. While 
 she was laboring at her task, Mr. Lombe, then 
 High Sheriff of Norfolk, sent her a cheque for 
 $oo, which he begged her to accept, since she 
 was doing a work which he had long desired to 
 see accomplished, but which he knew could not 
 possibly be remunerative to her. She accepted 
 the money, but with her customary generosity 
 in pecuniary affairs, she employed more than 
 half of it in paying the whole expenses of pub- 
 lication, and arranged that the proceeds of the 
 sale, whatever they might be, should be shared 
 with M. Comte. 
 
 There was a considerable demand for the 
 work on its first appearance ; and up to this 
 present date a fair number of copies is annu- 
 ally disposed of. It came out in November, 
 1853, having partly occupied her time during
 
 220 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 the preceding two years. Only partly, how- 
 ever ; for, besides all the efforts for her neigh- 
 borhood previously referred to (the building 
 society was in progress during those years, and 
 gave her much thought, as her business notes 
 are in evidence), and besides her farming, she 
 was now writing largely for periodicals and 
 newspapers. These are the pulpits from which 
 our modern preachers are most widely and 
 effectively heard, and the right tone of which 
 is, therefore, of the first consequence to society. 
 For every hundred persons who listen to the 
 priest, the journalist (including in this term 
 writers for all periodicals) speaks to a thou- 
 sand ; and while the words of the one are often 
 heard merely as a formality, those of the other, 
 dealing with the matters at the moment most 
 near and interesting to his audience, may effec- 
 tively influence the thoughts and consciences 
 and actions of thousands in the near future. 
 Shallow, indeed, would be the mind which 
 undervalued the power of the journalist, or 
 underrated the seriousness of his vocation. 
 
 Harriet Martineau saw the scope which 
 journalism afforded for the kind of work which 
 she had all her life been doing the influencing 
 of conduct by considering practical affairs in 
 the light of principle. Her periodical writing 
 being, according to our mistaken English cus-
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 221 
 
 torn, anonymous, neither brought her any 
 increase of fame nor carried with it the influence 
 which her personality as a teacher would have 
 contributed to the weight of what she wrote. 
 Nevertheless, she repeatedly in her letters, 
 speaks of her journalism as the most delightful 
 work of her life, and that which she believed 
 had been perhaps the most useful of all her 
 efforts. 
 
 Some stories with sanitary morals, which she 
 now contributed to Household Words, were 
 admirably written. " The People of Bleaburn " 
 is the true story of what was done by a grand 
 American woman, Mary Ware, when she hap- 
 pened to go into an isolated village at the very 
 time that half its inhabitants were lying stricken 
 down by an epidemic. " Woodruffe, the Gar- 
 dener," was a presentation of the evils of living 
 in low-lying damp countries. " The Marsh Fog 
 and the Sea Breeze " is perhaps the most 
 interesting of all her stories since the Political 
 Economy tales, which it much resembles in 
 lightness of touch and in practical utility. 
 
 A series of slight stories under the general 
 title of "Sketches from Life," was also contrib- 
 uted at this time to the Leader ; they were all 
 of them true tales and, like most real life stories, 
 extremely pathetic. The most touching is one 
 called "The Old Governess," describing the
 
 222 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 feelings with which an educated elderly woman, 
 past her work, and with an injured hand, sought 
 refuge in the workhouse; and how she con- 
 ducted herself there. These stories were re- 
 published in a volume in 1856. 
 
 A series of descriptive accounts of manu- 
 factures, some of which contain most graphic 
 writing, were also done in this time. These 
 papers, with others written between 1845-55, 
 were re-published in a volume in 1861.* There 
 are some passages which I am greatly tempted 
 to quote, merely as specimens of the perfection 
 to which her literary style had at this time 
 arrived. It is now a style of that clear sim- 
 plicity which seems so easy to the reader, but 
 which is in reality the highest triumph of the 
 literary artist. The inexperienced reader is apt 
 to suppose that anybody could write thus, until 
 perhaps he gains some glimpse of the truth by 
 finding the powerful effect which it is producing 
 upon his thoughts and imagination. The 
 practiced writer knows meanwhile that, simple 
 though the vocabulary appears, he could not 
 change a word for the better ; and easily though 
 the sentences swing, the rounding of their 
 rhythm is an achievement to admire. I may 
 not pause to quote, but I may especially refer to 
 the paper on "The Life of a Salmon," in illus- 
 tration of this eloquence of style. 
 
 * 'Health, Husbandry and Handicraft.
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 223 
 
 Early in 1852, Harriet Martineau received an 
 invitation from the Daily News to send a 
 " leader " occasionally. Busily engaged as she 
 was with Comte, and with work for other 
 periodicals, she yet gladly^ accepted this propo- 
 sition ; and thus began her connection with 
 that paper (then newly started) which was so 
 valuable both to her and the proprietors of the 
 Daily News. During the early summer of 1852, 
 she wrote two " leaders " each week, and, before 
 she had finished Comte, the regular contributions 
 to the newspaper had grown to three a week. 
 
 In the autumn of 1852 she made a two 
 months' tour through Ireland; and at the 
 request of the editor she wrote thence a 
 descriptive letter for publication in the Daily 
 News, almost every other day. The letters 
 described the state of Ireland at the moment, 
 with observations such as few were so well 
 qualified as she to make upon the facts. She 
 did now what Daniel O'Connell had entreated 
 her to do years before. In 1839 the Liberator 
 begged her to travel through his country, and 
 without bias or favor represent calmly what 
 really was the political and social condition 
 of Ireland.* The "Letters from Ireland" 
 
 * It may be mentioned that a similar plea was made to her 
 by the Crown Prince Oscar of Sweden, who desired her aid 
 in preparing his people for constitutional reform ; and again,
 
 224 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 attracted immediate attention as they appeared 
 in the Daily News ; and before the end of the 
 year they were re-published in a volume. At 
 the same time some of her "leaders" secured 
 much attention, and the editor pressed her to 
 write even more frequently. During 1853 she 
 wrote on an average four articles a week, and 
 shortly afterwards the number rose to six one 
 in each day's paper. 
 
 The tale of the journalistic work of these 
 busy two years is not yet complete. There is 
 a long article of hers in the Westminster Review 
 for January, 1853; the subject is, "The Con- 
 dition and Prospects of Ireland." 
 
 All this journalism was done at the same time 
 that the heavy sustained task of the condensa- 
 tion of Comte's abstruse and bulky work was 
 proceeding. When to all this we add in our 
 recollection her home duties, and when the fact 
 is borne in mind that it was her common prac- 
 tice to take immense walks, not infrequently 
 covering from twelve to fifteen miles in the day, 
 it will be seen that the mere industry and 
 energy that she showed were most extraordi- 
 nary. But, besides this, her work was of a 
 high order of literary excellence, and full of 
 intellectual power. 
 
 at a later date, by Count Porro, of Milan, who begged that 
 she would let the world know what was the condition of Italy 
 under Austrian rule.
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 22$ 
 
 Such incessant labor is not to be held up as 
 altogether an example to be imitated. There 
 are some few whose duty it is to consciously 
 moderate the amount of labor to which their 
 mental activity impels them ; and no one ought 
 to allow the imperative brain to overtax the 
 rest of the system. During the Irish journey, 
 Harriet began to be aware of experiencing 
 unusual fatigue. She gave herself no sufficient 
 pause, however, either then or afterwards, until 
 she could not help doing so. 
 
 After the publication of Comte she wrote a 
 remarkable article for the Westminster Review 
 (anonymous of course) on " England's Foreign 
 policy." This appeared in the number for 
 January, 1854. It dealt largely with the im- 
 pending struggle between England and Russia. 
 True Liberal as Harriet Martineau was, she 
 hated with all her soul, not the Russian people, 
 but the hideous despotism, the Asiatic and 
 barbarian and brutal government of that empire. 
 She foresaw a probable great struggle in the 
 future between tyranny and freedom, in which 
 Russia, by virtue of all her circumstances, will 
 be the power against which the free peoples of 
 the earth will have to fight. Not only, then, 
 did she fully recognize the necessity for the 
 immediate resistance, which the Crimean war 
 was, to the encroachments on Europe of the
 
 226 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Czar, but her article also included a powerful 
 plea for the abolition of that system of secrecy 
 of English diplomacy, by which it is rendered 
 quite possible for our ministry to covertly injure 
 our liberties, and to take action behind our 
 backs in our names in opposition to our warm- 
 est wishes. The article, as a whole, is one of 
 her most powerful pieces of writing, and had 
 it been delivered as a speech in parliament, 
 it would undoubtedly have produced a great 
 effect, and have placed her high amongst the 
 statesmen of that critical time. 
 
 In the April (1854) number of the same 
 Review, there appeared an article from her pen 
 upon "The Census of 1851." This paper was 
 not a mere comment upon the census return, 
 but an historical review of the progress of 
 the English people from barbarism to the civili- 
 zation of our century. 
 
 In the spring of this year she made a careful 
 survey of the beautiful district around her 
 home, in order to write a Complete Guide to the 
 Lakes for a local publisher. She was already 
 thoroughly acquainted with the neighborhood 
 by means of her long and frequent pedestrian 
 excursions, and reminiscences of these abound 
 in this "Guide." The vivid description of a 
 storm on Blake Fell, for instance, is a faithful 
 account of an occurrence during a visit which
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 22? 
 
 a niece and nephew from Birmingham paid to 
 her soon after her settlement at the lakes. 
 The word-paintings of the scenery, too, were 
 drawn, not from what she saw on one set visit 
 only, but were the results of her many and 
 frequent pilgrimages to those beauties of nature 
 which she so highly appreciated. But still she 
 would not write her "Guide" without revisiting 
 the whole of the district. 
 
 The most interesting point about this book 
 is that it reveals one feature of her character 
 that all who knew her mention, but that very 
 rarely appears in her writings. This is, her 
 keen sense of humor. She dearly loved a good 
 story, and could tell one herself with pith and 
 point. Her laugh is said to have been very 
 hearty and ready. Even when she was old and 
 ill, she was always amusable, and her laughter 
 at any little bit of fun would even then ring 
 through her house as gaily as though the out- 
 burst had been that of a child's frank merri- 
 ment. It is surprising that this sense of and 
 enjoyment in the ludicrous so rarely appears 
 in her writings. But I think it was because 
 her authorship was to her too serious a vocation 
 for fun to come into it often. She felt it 
 almost as the exercise of a priestly function. 
 It was earnest and almost solemn work for her 
 to write what might be multiplied through the
 
 228 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 printing-press many thousand times over, and 
 so uttered to all who had ears to hear. She 
 showed that this was so by the greater deliber- 
 ateness with which she expressed judgments of 
 persons and pronounced opinions of any kind 
 in her writings than in conversation. Similarly 
 she showed it by the abeyance of her humor 
 in writing; it was no more possible for her to 
 crack jokes when seated at her desk than it 
 would have been for a priestess when standing 
 by her tripod. But this particular book, this 
 "Guide, written for neighborly reasons," did 
 not admit of the seriousness of her intellect 
 being called into action, and the result is that 
 it is full of good stories and lighted up with 
 fun. Her enjoyment in such stories reveals 
 that sense of humor which, however strongly 
 visible in daily intercourse, rarely appears in 
 her books in any other form than in her perfect 
 appreciation of the line between the sublime 
 and the ludicrous. 
 
 This summer brought her much annoyance of 
 a pecuniary kind. Her generosity about money 
 matters were repeatedly shown, from the time 
 when she left her "Illustrations" in the hands 
 of Mr. C. Fox, onwards ; and she had now given 
 what was for her means an extravagant contribu- 
 tion to the maintenance of the West-minster 
 Review, taking a mortgage on the proprietorship
 
 MATURITY OF HER POWERS. 229 
 
 for her only security. In the summer of 1854, 
 Dr. Chapman, its publisher and editor, failed ; 
 and an attempt was made to upset the mortgage. 
 Harriet Martineau gave Chapman the most 
 kindly assistance and sympathy in his affairs at 
 this juncture ; not only overlooking the probable 
 loss to herself, but exerting herself to write two 
 long articles for the next number of the Review 
 (October, 1854). 
 
 One of these essays is on "Rajah Brooke;" 
 a name that has half faded out of the knowledge 
 of the present generation, but which well de- 
 serves memory from the heroic devotedness, 
 and courage, and governing faculty of the man. 
 His qualities were those most congenial to 
 Harriet Martineau; and, finding his enemies 
 active and potent, she made a complete study 
 of his case and represented it in full in an 
 article which (like her previous one on " Foreign 
 Policy") was so statesman-like and so wise, 
 so calm and yet so eloquent, that it would have 
 made her famous amongst the politicians of 
 the day had it been delivered as a speech in the 
 House, instead of being printed anonymously 
 in a review with too small a circulation to pay 
 its way. 
 
 Nor did generous aid to Dr. Chapman end 
 here. He was disappointed of some expected 
 contributions, and Miss Martineau wrote him a
 
 230 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 second long article for the same number the 
 one on "The Crystal Palace," which concludes 
 the Westminster for October, 1854. Her two 
 contributions amounted to fifty-four pages of 
 print truly a generous gift to an impecunious 
 magazine editor. 
 
 It was now precisely ten years since her 
 recovery from her long illness. The work done 
 in that time shows how complete the recovery 
 had been. Those ten happy years of vigor and 
 of labor were, she was wont to say, Mr. Atkin- 
 son's gift to her. Well had she used these last 
 years of her strength.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 IN RETREAT ; JOURNALISM. 
 
 Miss MARTINEAU'S health failed towards the end 
 of 1854 ; and early in 1855, symptoms of a dis- 
 organized circulation became so serious that she 
 went up to London to consult physicians. Dr. 
 Latham and Sir Thomas Watson both came to 
 the conclusion that she was suffering from 
 enlargement and enfeeblement of the heart ; 
 and, in accordance with her wish to hear a can- 
 did statement of her case, they told her that 
 her life would probably not be much prolonged. 
 In short they gave her to understand that she 
 was dying ; and her own sensations confirmed 
 the impression. She had frequent sinking 
 fits; and every night when she lay down, a 
 struggle for breath began, which lasted some- 
 times for hours. She received her death sen- 
 tence then, and began a course of life as trying 
 to the nerves and as searching a test of char- 
 acter as could well be imagined. That trial she 
 bore nobly for twenty-one long suffering years. 
 She was carefully carried home, and at once
 
 232 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 occupied herself with making every preparation 
 for the departure from earth which she supposed 
 to be impending. The first business was to 
 make a new will ; and this was a characteristic 
 document. After ordering that her funeral 
 should be conducted in the plainest manner, and 
 at the least possible cost, she continued thus : 
 " It is my desire, from an interest in the pro- 
 gress of scientific investigation, that my skull 
 should be given to Henry George Atkinson, of 
 Upper Gloucester Place, and also my brain, if 
 my death take place within such distance of 
 the said Henry George Atkinson's then present 
 abode as to enable him to have it for purposes 
 of scientific investigation." Her property was 
 then ordered to bear various small charges, 
 including one of 200 to Mrs. Chapman for 
 writing a conclusion to the testator's auto- 
 biography, over and above a fourth share of 
 the profits on the sale of the whole work after 
 the first edition." "The Knoll " was bequeathed 
 to her favorite "little sister," Ellen. The 
 remainder of her possessions were divided 
 amongst all her brothers and sisters, or their 
 heirs, with as much impartiality as though she 
 held, with Maggie Tulliver's aunt Glegg, that 
 " in the matter of wills, personal qualities were 
 subordinate to the great fundamental fact of 
 blood." Although mesmerism had estranged
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 233 
 
 her from a sister, and theology from a brother, 
 she made no display of bitter feelings towards 
 them and theirs in her last will. 
 
 All her personal affairs being made as orderly 
 as possible, she proceeded to write her Autobi- 
 ography. Readers of that interesting but mis- 
 leading work must bear in mind that it was a 
 very hasty production. The two large volumes 
 were written in a few months; the MS. was 
 sent to the printer as it was produced, the sheets 
 for the first edition were printed off, then the 
 matter was stereotyped, and the sheets and 
 plates were packed up in the office of the 
 printer, duly insured, and held ready for imme- 
 diate publication after her death. She wrote 
 in this hot haste with "the shadow cloaked 
 from head to foot " at her right hand. So 
 much reason had she to believe that her very 
 days were numbered, that she wrote the latter 
 part of her Autobiography before the first por- 
 tion. She had already given forth, in House- 
 hold Education and The Crofton Boys, the results 
 of her childish experiences of life ; and she was 
 now specially anxious not to die without leaving 
 behind her a definite account of the later course 
 of her intellectual history. 
 
 No one who knew her considers that she did 
 herself justice in the Autobiography. It is hard 
 and censorious ; it displays vanity, both in its
 
 234 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 depreciation of her own work, and in its recital 
 of the petty slights and insults which had been 
 offered to her from time to time ; it is aggres- 
 sive, as though replying to enemies rather than 
 appealing to friends ; and no one of either the 
 finer or the softer qualities of her nature is at 
 all adequately indicated. It is, in short, the 
 least worthy of her true self of all the writings 
 of her life. 
 
 The reasons of this unfortunate fact was not 
 far to seek. Her rationalism, and the abuse 
 and moral ill-usage which she had incurred by 
 her avowal of her anti-theological opinions, were 
 still new to her. Her very thoughts, replacing 
 as they did the ideas which she held without 
 examination for some twenty years (the time 
 which intervened between her devotional writ- 
 ings and her Eastern Life) were still so far new 
 that they had not the unconsciousness and the 
 quiet placidity which habit alone gives ; for new 
 ideas, like new clothes, sit uneasily, and ar.e 
 noticeable to their wearer, however carefully 
 they may have been fitted before adoption. 
 Again, the announcement in the press that 
 her illness was fatal revived the discussion of_ 
 her infidelity, and brought down upon her a 
 whole avalanche of signed and anonymous let- 
 ters, of little tracts, awe-inspiring hymns, and 
 manuals of divinity. The letters were contro-
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 235 
 
 versial, admonishing, minatory, or entreating; 
 but whatever their character they were all 
 agreed upon one point, viz., that her unbelief in 
 Christianity was a frightful sin, of which she 
 had been willfully guilty. They all agreed in 
 supposing that it was within her own volition to 
 resume her previous faith, and that she would 
 not only go to eternal perdition if she did not 
 put on again her old beliefs, but that she would 
 richly deserve to do so for her willful wickedness. 
 Thus, as Miss Arnold remarked to me, the 
 moment at which she wrote the Autobiography 
 was the most aggressive and unpleasant of her 
 whole life. Conscious as she was of the purity 
 of her motives in uttering her philosophical 
 opinions, she found herself suddenly spoken to 
 by a multitude, whom she could not but know 
 were mentally and morally incapable of judging 
 her, as a sinner, worthy of their pity and repro- 
 bation. Knowing that she had long been rec- 
 ognized as a teacher, in advance of the mass of 
 society in knowledge and power of thought, here 
 was a crowd of people talking to her in the 
 tones which they might have adopted towards 
 some ignorant inmate of a prison. What won- 
 der that her wounded self-esteem seemed for a 
 little while to pass into vanity, when she had to 
 remind the world, from which such insults were 
 pouring in, of all that she had done for its
 
 236 HAKRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 instruction in the past ? What wonder that the 
 strength which was summed up to bear with 
 fortitude this species of modern martyrdom, 
 seemed to give a tone of coldness and hardness 
 to writing of so personal a kind ? Then the 
 extreme haste with which the writing and print- 
 ing were done gave no time for the subsidence 
 of such painful impressions ; and great physi- 
 cal suffering and weakness, together with the 
 powerful depressing medicines which were being 
 employed, added to the difficulty of writing with 
 calmness, and with a full possession of the suf- 
 ferer's whole nature. In short, an autobiogra- 
 phy could not have been written under less 
 favorable conditions. All things taken into 
 account, it is no wonder that those who knew 
 and loved her whole personality were shocked 
 and amazed at the inadequate presentation given 
 of it in those volumes. The sensitive, unselfish, 
 loving, domestic woman, and the just, careful, 
 disinterested, conscientious and logical author, 
 were alike obscured rather than revealed ; and 
 the biographer whom she chose to complete the 
 work had neither the intimate personal knowl- 
 edge, the mental faculty which might have sup- 
 plied its place, nor the literary skill requisite to 
 present a truer picture. 
 
 Her Autobiography completed, the plates 
 engraved, and all publishing arrangements
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 237 
 
 made, she might, had she been an ordinary 
 invalid, have settled down into quiet after so 
 hard-working a life. Harriet Martineau could 
 not do this. Her labors continued uninterrupt- 
 edly, and were pursued to' the utmost limit 
 which her illness would allow. She did not 
 cease (except during the few months that the 
 Autobiography was in hand) writing her " lead- 
 ers " for the Daily News. Every week it con- 
 tained articles by her, instructing thousands of 
 readers. Yet she was very ill. She never left 
 her home again, after that journey to London 
 early in 1855. Sometimes she was well enough 
 to go out upon her terrace ; and she frequently 
 sat in her porch, which was a bower, in the 
 summer time, of clematis, honeysuckle, and 
 passion-flowers, intermingled with ivy ; but she 
 could do no more. She was given, as soon as 
 she became ill, the daughterly care of her 
 niece, Maria, the daughter of her elder brother, 
 Robert Martineau, of Birmingham ; and no 
 mother ever received tenderer care or more 
 valuable assistance from her own child than 
 Harriet Martineau did from the sensible and 
 affectionate girl whose life was thenceforth 
 devoted to her service. Maria once tried if 
 her aunt could be taken out of her own grounds 
 in a bath-chair ; but before they reached the 
 gates a fainting fit came on, with such appalling
 
 238 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 symptoms of stoppage of the heart that the 
 experiment was never repeated. Sometimes 
 Miss Martineau would be well enough to see 
 visitors ; more frequently, however, those whom 
 she would most have liked to talk with had to 
 be sent away by the doctor's orders. But, 
 through it all, her work continued. 
 
 Soon after the Autobiography was finished, 
 she wrote a long paper upon a most important 
 subject, and one which she felt to be a source 
 of the gravest anxiety for the future of English 
 politics the true sphere of State interference 
 with daily life. The common ignorance and 
 carelessness upon this point she believed to be 
 the most painful and perilous feature of our 
 present situation. 
 
 It has been brought to light by beneficent 
 action which is, in another view, altogether 
 encouraging. Our benevolence towards the 
 helpless, and our interest in personal morality, 
 have grown into a sort of public pursuit ; and 
 they have taken such a hold on us that we may 
 fairly hope that the wretched and the wronged 
 will never more be thrust out of sight. But, 
 in the pursuit of our new objects, we have 
 fallen back far further than 1688 in the 
 principle of our legislative proposals under- 
 taking to provide by law against personal vices, 
 and certain special social contracts.
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 239 
 
 Her devotion to freedom, and her belief in 
 personal liberty, led her to write an article on 
 " Meddlesome Legislation " for the Westminster 
 Review. 
 
 Her pecuniary sacrifices for the Review had 
 been made because she looked upon it as an 
 organ for free speech. Her feelings may be 
 imagined when the editor refused to insert this 
 article, not on any ground of principle, but 
 merely because it spoke too freely of some of 
 the advocates of meddlesome factory laws. 
 The essay was published however, as a pam- 
 phlet, and had such influence upon a bill then 
 before Parliment that the Association of Factory 
 Occupiers requested to be allowed to signalize 
 their appreciation of it by giving one hundred 
 guineas in her name to a charity. A somewhat 
 similar piece of work followed in the next year, 
 a rather lengthy pamphlet On Corporate Tradi- 
 tions and National Rights. She offered nothing 
 more to the Westminster Review, however, for 
 some time; not, indeed, until that subject in 
 which she took so profound an interest, the wel- 
 fare of the United States, and the progress of 
 the anti-slavery cause, seemed to require of 
 her that she should avail herself of every pos- 
 sible means of addressing the public upon it. 
 Then, in 1857, she wrote an article on The 
 Manifest Destiny of the American Union, which
 
 240 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 appeared in the Westminster for July of that 
 year. 
 
 Having thus signalized her forgiveness of 
 that Review, she went on writing again for it 
 for a little while. In the October number of 
 the same year there was a paper by her on 
 Female ^Dress in 1857. Crinoline had then 
 lately been introduced by the Empress of the 
 French. If one good, rousing argument could 
 have stood in the path of fashion, this amusing 
 and vigorous paper from Harriet Martineau's 
 sick-room might have answered the purpose. 
 But, alas ! crinoline flourished; and five whole 
 years later on was still so enormous that she 
 took up her parable against it once more, in 
 Once a Week, as the cause of "willful murder." 
 
 About this time she determined to assume 
 the prefix of "Mrs." "There were so many 
 Misses Martineau," she said ; and, besides, she 
 felt the absurdity of a woman of mature years 
 bearing only the same complimentary title as is 
 accorded to a little girl in short frocks at school. 
 Her cards and the envelopes of her friends bore 
 thenceforward the inscription, " Mrs. Harriet 
 Martineau." 
 
 Although she continued to write, contributing 
 almost every day to the Daily News, as well as 
 to these larger periodicals, she was., it must be 
 remembered, an invalid. Her health fluctuated
 
 IN RETREA T; JOURNALISM. 241 
 
 from day to day ; but it may as well be expli- 
 citly stated that she was more or less ill during 
 the whole of the rest of her life. She suffered a 
 considerable amount daily of actual pain, which 
 was partly the consequence of the medicines pre- 
 scribed for her, and partly the result of the dis- 
 placement of the internal organs arising, as her 
 doctors led her to suppose, from the enlargement 
 of the heart ; but in reality, as was afterwards 
 discovered, from the growth of a tumor. Her 
 most constant afflictions were the difficulty of 
 breathing, dizziness, and dimness of sight, 
 resulting from disturbed circulation. At irreg- 
 ular, but not infrequent, intervals she was seized 
 with fainting-fits, in which her heart appeared 
 to entirely cease beating for a minute or two ; 
 and it was not certain from day to day but that 
 she might die in one of these attacks. 
 
 Not only did she continue her work under 
 these conditions, but her interest in her poor 
 neighbors remained unabated. There is more 
 than one man now living in Ambleside who 
 traces a part of his prosperity to the interest 
 which she from her sick-room displayed in his 
 progress. A photograph of her, still sold in 
 Ambleside, was taken in her own drawing-room 
 by a young beginner whom she allowed thus to 
 benefit himself. He and several others were 
 given free access to her library. A sickly
 
 242 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 young woman in the village was made a regular 
 sharer in the good things the wine, the turtle 
 soup, the game and the flowers which devo- 
 ted friends sent frequently to cheer Harriet 
 Martineau's retirement. Every Christmas, 
 there was a party of the oldest inhabitants of 
 Ambleside invited to spend a long day in the 
 kitchen of the " Knoll." The residents in her 
 own cottages looked upon her less as a land- 
 lady than as a friend to whom to send in every 
 difficulty. 
 
 Nor did she cease to do whatever was possi- 
 ble to her in the local public life. The ques- 
 tion of Church Rates was approaching a crisis 
 when she was taken ill ; and when the Amble- 
 side Quakers resolved to organize resistance to 
 payment of these rates, they found Harriet 
 Martineau ready to help. The householders 
 who refused to pay were summoned before the 
 local bench; and it was Harriet Martineau 
 whom the justices selected to be distrained 
 upon ; but events marched rapidly, and the dis- 
 traint was not made. 
 
 The next article that she contributed to the 
 Westminster Review appeared in the July (1858) 
 number, and, under the title of The Last Days 
 of Church Rates, gave an account of the efforts 
 by which Non-conformists in all parts of the 
 country were rendering this impost impossible.
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 243 
 
 In October, 1858, there was another long 
 article in the Westminster, entitled Travel dur- 
 ing the Last Half-Century. She was now, how- 
 ever, growing tired of wasting her work in that 
 quarter, and, as we shall presently see, she 
 sought a more influential and appreciative 
 medium for her longer communications with 
 the public. 
 
 Subjects which could be treated briefly were 
 always taken up as "leaders" for the Daily 
 News. Lengthier topics, too, were occasion- 
 ally dealt with in those columns in the form of 
 serial articles. One set of papers on The 
 Endowed Schools of Ireland, were contributed 
 in this manner, in 1857, to the Daily News, 
 and afterwards reprinted in a small volume. 
 In that same year occurred the terrible Indian 
 crisis which compelled the people of this coun- 
 try to give, for a time, the attention which they 
 so begrudge to their great dependency. Miss 
 Martineau then wrote a series of articles, under 
 the title of The History of British Rule in 
 India, for the Daily News, and this most useful 
 work was immediately re-published in a volume. 
 Alas ! even she could not make so involved and 
 distant a story interesting ; but her book was 
 clear and vivid, and whenever it dealt with the 
 practical problem of the moment, it was full of 
 wisdom and conscientiousness. This volume
 
 244 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 was immediately followed by Suggestions 
 towards the Future Government of India. The 
 preface of the first is dated October, 1857 ; 
 and that of the second, January, 1858. The 
 key-note of these books is a plea for the gov- 
 ernment of India according to Indian ideas ; 
 and, as a natural consequence, its government 
 with the assistance of its natives. Courage as 
 well as insight were required at that particular 
 moment of popular passion to put forward 
 these calm, statesman-like ideas. The wisdom 
 and the practical value of the books cannot be 
 shown by extracts ; but one paragraph may be 
 given as a faint indication of the tone : " If 
 instead of attempting to hold India as a pre- 
 serve of English destinies, a nursery of British 
 fortunes, we throw it open with the aim of 
 developing India for the Indians, by means of 
 British knowledge and equity, we shall find our 
 own highest advantage, political and material, 
 and may possibly recognize brethren and com- 
 rades at length, where we have hitherto per- 
 ceived only savages, innocents, or foes."* Such 
 was the spirit to which the Daily News, under 
 Harriet Martineau's hand, led the people at a 
 moment of great political excitement. The 
 amplest testimony to the practical wisdom of 
 the suggestions that she made was borne by 
 
 *Future Government of India, p. 94.
 
 IN RETREAT j JOURNALISM. 24$ 
 
 those Anglo-Indians who were qualified to 
 judge. 
 
 In June, 1858, she wrote the first letter, which 
 lies before me, to her relative, Mr. Henry Reeve, 
 the editor of the Edinburgh Review. In this, 
 after telling him that she never before has 
 offered or wished to write for that Review, 
 because in politics she had generally disagreed 
 with it (to her, it may be remarked in passing, 
 Toryism was less odious than official Whigism), 
 she says that she has now a subject in view 
 which she thinks would be suitable for the pages 
 of the good old Whig organ. Before entering 
 into details, she begs him to tell her frankly if 
 any article will be refused merely because it 
 comes from her. She adds that her health is so 
 sunk and her life so precarious, that all her 
 engagements have to be made with an explan- 
 ation of the chances against their fulfillment ; 
 still she does write a good deal, and with higher 
 success than in her younger days. 
 
 Mr. Reeve replied cordially inviting her con- 
 tributions, and the result was the establishment 
 both of an intimate correspondence with him, 
 and of a relationship with the Review under 
 his charge, which lasted until she could write 
 no more. 
 
 The particular subject which she offered Mr. 
 Reeve at first did not seem to him a suitable
 
 246 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 one. The title of it was to have been French 
 Invasion Panics ; but as Mr. Reeve did not like 
 the idea, the paper was not written. But for 
 the Edinburgh of April, 1859, sne wrote a long 
 article on Female Industry, which attracted 
 much attention. Its purpose was to show how 
 greatly the conditions of women's lives are 
 altered in this century from what they were of 
 old. "A very large proportion of the women 
 of England earn their own bread ; and there is 
 no saying how much good may be done by a 
 timely recognition of this simple truth. A 
 social organization framed for a community of 
 which half stayed at home while the other half 
 went out to work, cannot answer the purposes 
 of a society of which a quarter remains at home 
 while three-quarters go out to work." After 
 considering in detail, with equal benevolence 
 and wisdom, the condition of the various classes 
 of women workers those employed in agricul- 
 ture, mines, fishing, domestic service, needle- 
 work, and shop-keeping, and suggesting, in 
 passing, the schools of cookery which have since 
 become established facts, the article concludes : 
 " The tale is plain enough. So far from our 
 countrywomen being all maintained as a matter 
 of fact by us, the 'bread-winners,' three millions 
 out of six of adult English women work for 
 subsistence, and two out of the three in
 
 IN RET RE A T; JOURNALISM. 247 
 
 independence. With this new condition of 
 affairs new duties and new views must be 
 adopted. Old obstructions must be removed ; 
 and the aim must be set before us, as a nation 
 as well as in private life, to provide for the free 
 development and full use of the powers of every 
 member of the community." It scarcely needs 
 to be pointed out that here she went quietly but 
 surely to the foundation of that whole class of 
 new claims and demands on behalf of the 
 women of our modern world, of which she was 
 so valuable an advocate, and for the granting of 
 which her life was so excellent a plea. In these 
 few sentences she at one time displayed the 
 character of the changes required, and the 
 reasons why it is now necessary, as it did not 
 use to be, that women should be completely 
 enfranchised, industrially and otherwise. 
 
 The year 1859 was a very busy one. Besides 
 the long article just mentioned, she published 
 in April of that year quite a large volume on 
 England and her Soldiers. The book was written 
 to aid the work which her beloved friend. Flor- 
 ence Nightingale, had in hand for the benefit of 
 the army. It was, in effect, a popularization of 
 all that had come out before the Royal Com- 
 mission on the sanitary condition of the army ; 
 with the additional advantage of the views and 
 opinions of Florence Nightingale, studied at
 
 248 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 first hand. One of the most beautiful features 
 of the book is the hearty and generous delight 
 with which the one illustrious lady recounts the 
 efforts, the sacrifices, and the triumphs of the 
 other. 
 
 In 1859, also, Mrs. Martineau began to write 
 frequent letters for publication to the American 
 Anti-Slavery Standard, The affairs of the Re- 
 public were plainly approaching a crisis ; and 
 those in America who knew how well-informed 
 she was on the politics of both countries, and 
 on political principles, were anxious to have the 
 guidance that only she could give in the difficult 
 time that was approaching. During the three 
 years, 1859 to 1861, she sent over ninety long 
 articles for publication in America. 
 
 An article on Trades Unions, denouncing the 
 tyranny of men in fustian coats sitting round a 
 beer-shop table, as to the full as mischievous as 
 that of crowned and titled despots, appeared in 
 the Edinburgh Review for October, 1859. I* 1 
 the July (1860) issue of the same Review she 
 wrote on Russia, and in October of that year 
 on The American Union. 
 
 Besides these large undertakings, she was 
 writing during these years almost weekly arti- 
 cles, on one topic or another, for the illustrated 
 periodical Once a Week ; whilst the Daily News 
 " leaders " continued without intermission dur- 
 
 \
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 249 
 
 ing the whole time. As regards these latter, I 
 shall presently mention when she entirely ceased 
 to write ; but in the meanwhile I do not attempt 
 to follow them in detail. Nothing that I could 
 say would give any adequate impression of their 
 quality. That maybe sufficiently judged by the 
 fact that the newspaper in which they were 
 issued was one of the best of the great London 
 dailies; and that, during her time, it touched 
 the highest point of influence and circulation, 
 as the organ of no clique, but the consistent 
 advocate of high principles, and just, consistent, 
 sound (not mere "Liberal Party") political 
 action. As to the subjects of the Daily News 
 articles, they range over the whole field of 
 public interests, excepting only those "hot and 
 hot " topics which had to be treated immediately 
 that fresh news about them reached London. 
 Those who were with Mrs. Martineau tell me 
 that the only difficulty with her was to choose 
 what subject she would treat each day, out of 
 the many that offered. She kept up an exten- 
 sive correspondence, and read continually; and 
 her fertile mind, highly cultivated as it was 
 by her life-long studies, had some original and 
 valuable contribution to make upon the vast 
 variety of the topics of which each day brought 
 suggestions. 
 
 The marvel that a sick lady, shut up in her
 
 250 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 house in a remote village, could thus keep touch 
 with and take an active part in all the interests 
 and movements of the great world, increases 
 the more it is considered. The very corres- 
 pondence by which she was aided in knowing 
 and feeling what the public mind was stirred 
 about, was in itself a heavy labor, and a great 
 tax upon such feeble strength as she possessed. 
 The letters with which -Mr. Reeve has favored 
 me give glimpses of how ideas and calls came 
 to her sometimes. Here is a graphic account, 
 for instance, of a man riding up with a telegram 
 from Miss Nightingale "Agitate ! agitate ! for 
 Lord de Grey in place of Sir G. Cornewall 
 Lewis" which gives the first intimation in 
 Ambleside that the post of War Minister is 
 vacant. The newspaper arrives later, and 
 Lewis' death is learned; so a "leader" is 
 written early next morning, to catch the coach, 
 and appears in the following morning's Daily 
 News. Presently Lord de Grey is appointed, 
 and then the two women friends rejoice to- 
 gether in the chance of getting army reforms 
 made by a minister who, they hope, will not be 
 a slave to royal influences. Another time she 
 tells Mr. Reeve how she is treating the Rever- 
 sion of My sore in the Daily News, on the sugges- 
 tion of a man learned in Indian affairs ; and 
 again, that she is reviewing a book of Eastern
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 2$ I 
 
 travel at the request of a friend. In fine, there 
 -were constant letters seeking to engage her 
 interest and aid in every description of reforms, 
 and for all kinds of movements in public affairs. 
 
 But with all the wide circle of suggesting cor- 
 respondents, the wonder of the prolific mind 
 working so actively from the Ambleside hermit- 
 age remains untouched. Perhaps I cannot 
 better show how much she did, and how wide a 
 range she covered, in Daily News " leaders," 
 than by giving a list of the articles of a single 
 year. I take 1861, really at random. It was 
 simply the page at which the office ledger hap- 
 pened to be open before me. 
 
 Here are the subjects of her Daily News 
 "leaders" in 1861 : 
 
 The American Union ; The King of Prussia ; 
 Arterial Drainage ; Sidney Herbert ; The Se- 
 cession of South Carolina; Cotton Supply; 
 Laborers' Dwellings ; The American Difficulty 
 (two days) ; Destitution and its Remedy ; The 
 American Revolution ; Cotton Culture ; The 
 American Union ; Indian Affairs ; America ; 
 North and South ; American Politics ; Agricul- 
 tural Labor ; The London Bakers ; President 
 Buchanan ; The Southern Confederacy ; United 
 States Population ; The Duchess of Kent ; 
 Indian Famines ; Agricultural Statistics ; Presi- 
 dent Lincoln's Address ; Indian Currency ; 
 American Census ; The Southern Confederacy ;
 
 252 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 The Action of the South ; The Census ; America 
 and Cotton ; The American Envoy ; Lord Can- 
 ning's Address ; The American Crisis ; Spain 
 and San Domingo ; East Indian Irrigation ; 
 Water-mills ; Hayti and San Domingo ; The 
 Conflict in America ; American Movements ; 
 The Secession Party ; The American Contest ; 
 The Literary Fund ; Working-men's Visit to 
 Paris ; Mr. Clay's Letter ; The American Con- 
 test ; Money's "Java" (four articles) ; Mr. Doug- 
 las; Our American Relations ; Lord Campbell; 
 Results of American Strife ; Our Cotton Sup- 
 ply ; American Union ; Soldiers' Homes ; Indian 
 Irrigation; San Domingo; American Move- 
 ments ; Slavery in America ; The Morrill Tariff ; 
 Drainage in Agriculture ; Neutrality with Amer- 
 ica; The Builders' Strike ; Lord Herbert ; Lord 
 Elgin's Government ; The Builders' Dispute ; 
 The Strike; The American Contest; Indian 
 Famines ; Syrian Improvement ; Affairs of 
 Hayti ; Cotton Supply ; The American War 
 and Slavery ; Mr Cameron and General Butler ; 
 Post-office Robberies ; The American Press ; 
 Mrs. Stowe ; The Morrill Tariff ; American 
 Affairs ; Domestic Servants ; The Education 
 Minutes ; The Georgian Circular ; French Free 
 Trade ; The Fremont Resolution ; Laborers' 
 Improvidence ; American Humiliation ; The 
 Education Code ;. A Real Social Evil ; Captain 
 Jervis in America ; The American Contest ; 
 Indian Cotton ; Slaves in America ; The Prince 
 of Wales; American Movements; Lancashire 
 Cotton Trade; India and Cotton ; Cotton Grow- 
 ing ; The Herbert Testimonial ; Captain Wilkes'
 
 AV RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 253 
 
 Antecedents ; Arterial Drainage ; The Ameri- 
 can Controversy ; Land in India ; Slaves in 
 America ; Death of Prince Albert ; Slavery ; 
 Loyalty in Canada ; Review of the Year, five 
 columns long. 
 
 This gives a total of one hundred and nine 
 leading articles, in that one year, on political 
 and social affairs. In the same year she wrote 
 to the Boston Anti-Slavery Standaid as much 
 matter as would have made about forty-five 
 "leaders;" and during the same period she 
 regularly contributed to Once a Week* a fort- 
 nightly article on some current topic, and 
 also a series of biographical sketches entitled 
 " Representative Men." These Once a Week 
 articles were all much longer than "leaders ;" 
 the year's aggregate of space filled, in 1861, is 
 two hundred and eighty-one of the closely 
 printed columns of Once a Week; and this 
 would be equivalent to at least one hundred 
 and forty leading articles in the usual "leaded" 
 type. I need not give a complete list of titles 
 of the year's Once a Week articles ; but a few 
 may be cited to show what class of subjects she 
 selected : " Our Peasantry in Progress," " Ire- 
 land and her Queen," "The Harvest," "The 
 Domestic Service Question," " What Women 
 are Educated for," "American Soldiering," 
 
 *Most of these papers are signed ' From the Mountain."
 
 254 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 "Deaths by Fire," "The Sheffield Outrages," 
 "Education and the Racing Season." 
 
 Such was Harriet Martineau's work for the 
 year 1861 ; and thus could she, confined to her 
 house, comprehend and care for the condition 
 of mankind. 
 
 It will be noticed that she had written on 
 Domestic Servants both in the Daily News and 
 Once a Week ; but still she had not said all that 
 she wished to say about the subject, and early 
 in the next year she wrote a long article on it, 
 which appeared in the Edinburgh for April, 
 1862. It is a capital article, distinguished alike 
 by common-sense, and by wide-reaching sym- 
 pathy ; womanly in the best sense in its 
 domestic knowledge, and its feeling for women 
 in their perplexities and troubles, whether as 
 servants or mistresses, and yet philosophical 
 in its calmness, its power of tracing from 
 causes to effects, and its practical wisdom in 
 forestalling future difficulties. 
 
 In this year she began to write historical 
 stories, " Historiettes," as she called them, for 
 Once a Week. As fictions, they are not equal 
 to her best productions of that class ; but their 
 special value was less in this direction, or even 
 in the detailed historical knowledge that they 
 displayed, than in the insight into the philosophy 
 of political history which the reader gained.
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM, 255 
 
 They were illustrated by Millais, and proved so 
 attractive that they were continued during the 
 next two years. One, dealing with the con- 
 stitutional struggle in the reign of Charles I., 
 and called "The Hampdens," has been re-pub- 
 lished so recently as 1880. 
 
 A large portion of her time and thought was 
 absorbed, in these years, by the American 
 struggle and its consequences. Loving the 
 United States and their people as she did, the 
 interest and anxiety with which she watched 
 their progress were extreme. She was no 
 coward as it is, no doubt, hardly necessary to 
 remark on this page and though she grieved 
 deeply for the sufferings both of personal friends 
 and of the whole country, yet her soul rose up 
 in noble exultation over the courage, the resolu- 
 tion, and the high-mindedness of the bulk of the 
 American nation. Over here, she threw her- 
 self with warm eagerness into the effort to 
 support those Lancashire workers upon whom 
 fell so heavy a tax of deprivation in the cotton 
 famine. The patience, the quietness, the hero- 
 ism with which our North-Country workers bore 
 all that they had to suffer, supported as they 
 were by the sympathy of the mass of their 
 fellow-countrymen, and by their own intelligent 
 convictions that they were aiding a good cause 
 by remaining peaceful and quiet this was
 
 256 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 just the sort of thing to arouse all Harriet Mar- 
 tineau's loving sympathies. "Her face would 
 all light up and the tears would rush to her 
 eyes whenever she was told of a noble deed," 
 says Miss Arnold ; " no matter how humble the 
 doer, or how small the matter might seem, you 
 could see the delight it gave her to know that 
 a fire, brave, or unselfish act had been done." 
 Animated by such respectful joy in the attitude 
 of the Lancashire workers, she threw herself 
 into their service ; and her correspondence on 
 this topic during 1861, when she used all her 
 public and private influence on their behalf, and 
 employed her best energies in aiding and ad- 
 vising the relief committees, would fill a large 
 volume. 
 
 In the midst of her labors for America, she 
 could not but be gratified by the testimonies 
 which constantly reached her from that country 
 to the appreciation of the work which she had 
 done and was doing. 
 
 The History of the Peace was reprinted in 
 Boston in the very midst of the civil war, " at 
 the instance of men of business throughout the 
 country, who believe it will do great good 
 from its political and yet more economical les- 
 sons, which are so much wanted." The pub- 
 lishers of the Atlantic Monthly appealed to her 
 to write them a series of articles on "Military
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 2$? 
 
 Hygiene ; " and, over-pressed as she was, she 
 could not refuse a request which enabled her 
 to do much good service for the soldiers of the 
 North, for whom she felt so deeply. Nor were 
 more private tributes to the value of her efforts 
 lacking. A set of the Rebellion Record, pub- 
 lished by Putnam, was sent to her with the 
 cover stamped under the title with these 
 words : " Presented by citizens of New York to 
 Harriet Martineau ; " and innumerable books 
 came with testimonies inscribed by the writers, 
 such as that in Henry Wilson's Slave Power in 
 America, which was as follows : " Mrs. Harriet 
 Martineau ; with the gratitude of the author for 
 her friendship for his country, and her devotion 
 to freedom." * 
 
 * The highest honor yet done to her memory is the work of 
 our sisters and brothers across the Atlantic. A public sub- 
 scription has raised funds for a statue of Harriet Martineau, 
 which has been executed by Anne Whitney, in white marble. 
 The statue represents Mrs. Martineau seated, with her hands 
 folded over a manuscript on her knees. The head is raised, 
 and has a light veil thrown over the back of it and falling 
 down upon the shoulders, while a shawl is draped partially over 
 the figure. The eyes are looking forth, as though in that 
 thoughtful questioning of the future to which she often gave 
 herself The statue was unveiled in the Old South Hall, Bos- 
 ton, December 26th, 1883, in the presence of many notable per- 
 sonages. Mrs. Mary Livermore presided, and speeches were 
 made by William Lloyd Garrison, Jun., and Wendell Phillips, 
 in the case of the last-named it was his final speech, for he, 
 too, six weeks after, was numbered amongst those who are at
 
 258 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 In the latter part of the year 1862, Harriet 
 Martineau wrote a paper on " Our Convict 
 System," which appeared in the following 
 January number of the Edinburgh. It will be 
 noted that she never wrote on the politics of 
 the day the action of the Government and 
 Opposition of the moment in this Review; 
 her political principles were too democratic for 
 the great Whig organ. 
 
 In Once a Week, however, her articles became 
 more decisively political year by year. Some of 
 her best political papers are in that magazine 
 for 1863. The most noteworthy feature in 
 them are their basis of principles and not of 
 party, and their practical wisdom. When I 
 speak of her devotion to principles, in politics, 
 I half fear that I may be misunderstood for 
 so shockingly does Cant spawn its loathsomeness 
 over every holy phrase, that such expressions 
 come to us "defamed 'by every charlatan," and 
 doubtful in their use. But she was neither 
 doctrinaire, nor blind, nor pig-headed, nor phari- 
 saic, nor jealous, nor scheming ; but wise, brave, 
 truthful, upright, and independent. Love of 
 justice and truthfulness of speech were as much 
 to her in public affairs as they are to any high- 
 rest. " The audience sat in silence for a moment as the white 
 vision was unveiled ; then went up such applause as stirred the 
 echoes of the historic interior in which the ceremony took place."
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 259 
 
 minded person in private. Her desire in her 
 thoughts and utterances on politics was simply 
 to secure "the greatest happiness for the great- 
 est number" of the people; and the spirit in 
 which she worked was correctly appraised by 
 the then editor of the Daily News, William 
 Weir, when he wrote to her in these terms, in 
 1856: 
 
 I have never before met I do not hope again 
 to meet one so earnest (as you) to promote 
 progress, so practical in the means by which to 
 arrive at it. My aim in life is to be able to say, 
 when it is closing, " I, too, have done somewhat, 
 though little, to benefit my kind;" and there 
 are so few who do not regard this as Quixotism 
 or hypocrisy, that I shrink even from confess- 
 ing it. 
 
 He so well recognized that as truly her aim 
 also that he did not fear to utter to her his high 
 aspiration. It is in this spirit that her political 
 articles are written, and the result of the con- 
 stant reference to principles is that her essays 
 are almost as instructive reading now as they 
 were when first published ; then, their interest 
 and their importance were both incalculable. 
 
 Of such articles Harriet Martineau wrote in 
 the Daily News, from first to last, sixteen hun- 
 dred and forty-two : besides the great number 
 that I have referred to, which appeared in other
 
 260 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 journals. I wonder how many of the men 
 who have presumed to say that the women are 
 "incapable of understanding politics," or of 
 "sympathizing in great causes," received a large 
 part of their political education, and of rousing 
 stimulus to public-spirited action, from those 
 journalistic writings by Harriet Martineau? 
 
 An instructive article on "The Progress of 
 the Negro Race " was prepared for the Edin- 
 burgh of January, 1864. Only a few weeks 
 after the appearance of this, there fell upon her 
 the greatest blow of her old age. Her beloved 
 niece Maria, who had for so long filled the 
 place of a daughter to her, was taken ill with 
 typhoid fever, and died after a three weeks' ill- 
 ness. Maria Martineau's active disposition, and 
 her intellectual power (which was far above the 
 average) had made her an ideal companion for 
 her aunt, and the blow to her was a terrible one. 
 Ill and suffering as she was before, this shock 
 completed the wreck of Harriet Martineau's 
 health. She had a dreary time of illness im- 
 mediately after her niece's death ; and although 
 she went on writing for some time longer, ;t 
 was always with the feeling that the end of her 
 long life's industry was near at hand. 
 
 She was not left alone ; for Maria's youngest 
 sister, Jane, presently offered voluntarily to fill, 
 as far as she could, the vacant place at "The
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 261 
 
 Knoll." The family from which these sisters 
 came was one in which kindliness and gener- 
 osity were (and are to this day, with its 
 younger members who remain) distinguishing 
 features. It was no light matter for Mr. and 
 Mrs. Robert Martineau to part with a second 
 daughter to their sister ; but, as it was Jane's 
 own wish to try to be to that beloved and hon- 
 ored relative what Maria had been, the parents 
 would not refuse their permission. Harriet 
 wrote of this to Mr. Reeve with her heart full ; 
 telling him how "humbly grateful" she felt for 
 what was so generously offered to her, and with 
 what thankfulness she accepted the blessing. 
 Even in such circumstances, she could note 
 what a delight it was to find that Maria's own 
 spirit of devotedness prevailed amongst them 
 all for nothing could be nobler and sweeter 
 than the conduct of everyone. 
 
 By June of that same year, 1864, Mrs. Mar- 
 tineau was ready to undertake another article 
 on a topic which pressed upon her mind, " Co- 
 operative Societies," which was published in 
 the Edinburgh for October following. 
 
 She went on writing for the Daily News, 
 through that year and the next, though the 
 effort came to be constantly more and more 
 laborious. Her interest in public affairs did 
 not flag ; nor is there the least sign of failure
 
 262 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 of power in her letters ; but she became increas- 
 ingly conscious that it was a strain upon her to 
 write under the responsibility of addressing the 
 public. 
 
 Early in 1865 she wrote some articles on 
 "The Scarcity of Nurses," "poked up to do 
 it," as she said, by Florence Nightingale. In 
 the April of the same year was prepared an 
 article on " Female Convicts," which was pub- 
 lished in the Edinburgh for October. In send- 
 ing this she intimated to the editor that it 
 would be her last contribution, as she felt the 
 strain of such writing too great for her strength. 
 After all she did prepare one more article for 
 the Edinburgh, though it was as long after- 
 wards as 1868. This was the paper on "Salem 
 Witchcraft," which will be found in the num- 
 ber of that Review for July. It formed Har- 
 riet Martineau's last contribution of any length 
 to literature ; and she wrote it with some re- 
 luctance, after having suggested the subject to 
 Mr. Reeve, and he having replied that he could 
 find no one suitable to undertake it but herself. 
 
 She was very loath to cease her writing for 
 the Daily News, and continued it until the 
 spring of 1866. It was a great trial when at 
 last the moment came that she felt she abso- 
 lutely must be freed from the obligation and 
 the temptation to frequent work. But the
 
 IN RETREAT; JOURNALISM. 263 
 
 spring was always her worst time as to health ; 
 and during this customary vernal exacerbation 
 of illness, in April, 1866, she found herself 
 obliged at last, after fourteen years' service, to 
 send in her resignation to the Daily News. 
 
 When she thus terminated her connection 
 with the paper through whose columns she had 
 spoken so long, she practically concluded her 
 literary life. Neither her intellectual powers, 
 nor her interest in public affairs, were percepti- 
 bly diminished ; as will presently be seen, these 
 continued to the end of her life all but una- 
 bated. Her regular literary exertions were 
 now, however, at an end ; and she was ill 
 enough by this time, her niece tells me, to feel 
 only relief at being freed from the constant 
 pressure of the duty of thought and speech.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 HARRIET MARTINEAU had never gone the right 
 way to work to become rich by literature. She 
 had not chosen her subjects with a view to the 
 mere monetary success she might attain, and, 
 not infrequently, she had displayed a rare 
 generosity in her pecuniary affairs. In April, 
 1867, she was plunged into perplexity about the 
 means of living, by the temporary failure of 
 the Brighton Railway to pay its dividends. 
 After all her work, she had but little to lose. 
 She had from investments in the preference 
 stock of that railway ^230 per annum, and she 
 had only ^150 yearly from all other sources. 
 Such was the fortune saved, after labors such 
 as hers, through a long life of industry and 
 thrift. There was a beautiful contest between 
 the inmates of that home, when the trouble 
 came, as to which of them should begin to 
 make the necessary sacrifices involved in econo- 
 mizing. Miss Jane Martineau and the maid 
 Caroline were each ready with their offers, and
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 265 
 
 the invalid mistress of the house was with 
 difficulty induced to continue her wine and 
 dinner ale, while she declared, with a brave 
 assumption of carelessness, that she should be 
 rather glad than otherwise to be rid of seeing 
 the Times daily and getting the periodic box of 
 books from "Mudie's." It is touching to note 
 how she tried to lightly pass off this sacrifice of 
 current literature, when one knows that reading 
 was the chief solace of her lonely and suffering 
 days. Her family intervened, however, to 
 prevent any such deprivations, and by-and-by 
 the company resumed payment of its dividends. 
 In 1868, she received a generous offer, which 
 touched her very deeply. Mr. J. R. Robinson, 
 of the Daily News, proposed to her that there 
 should be a reprint of the several biographical 
 sketches which she had contributed to the 
 paper during her connection with it ; and 
 he offered to take all the trouble and respon- 
 sibility of putting the volume through the 
 press, while leaving to her the whole of the 
 profits. She had not even supposed that the 
 copyright in the biographies which she had 
 written for the paper from time to time, upon 
 the occasions of the deaths of eminent persons, 
 remained her property. Mr. Robinson had the 
 satisfaction of assuring her that the proprietors 
 held her at liberty to reproduce these writings,
 
 266 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 and, with that comrade's generosity which is 
 not altogether rare among journalists, her kind 
 friend devoted himself to securing her a good 
 publisher, and editing the volume, Biographical 
 Sketches, for her benefit. These vignettes well 
 deserved re-production. She had had more or 
 less personal acquaintance with nearly every 
 one of the forty-six eminent persons of whom 
 she treated; and the portraits which she 
 sketched were equally vivid and impartial. The 
 work was received by the public with an enthu- 
 siasm which repaid Mr. Robinson for his gener- 
 ous efforts. It was reprinted in America ; and 
 it is now in its fourth English edition. 
 
 The last occasion upon which she was to give 
 her powers and her influence to a difficult but 
 great public work must now be mentioned. It 
 was the final effort of her career. Marked as 
 that life had been all through by devotedness to 
 public duty, she never before was engaged in a 
 task so painful and difficult, or one which, upon 
 mere personal grounds, she might more strongly 
 have desired to evade. But at near seventy 
 years old, and so enfeebled that she had thought 
 her work quite finished, she no more hesitated 
 to come to the front under fire when it became 
 necessary, l^han she had done in those active 
 younger days when combat may have had its 
 own delights.
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 267 
 
 The subject was an Act of Parliament passed 
 in 1869, having reference to certain police 
 powers over women in various large towns. 
 " In our time, or in any other," wrote Mrs. 
 Martineau, " there never was a graver question." 
 It was clear to her that if women " did not insist 
 upon the restoration of the most sacred liberties 
 of half the people of England, men alone would 
 never do it ; " and she wrote four letters on the 
 subject to the Daily News, as powerful, as sen- 
 sible, as free from cant of any kind, as clear in 
 the appreciation of facts, and as definite and able 
 in the presentation of them, as anything she had 
 ever written. She wrote, also, and signed an 
 "Appeal to the Women of England " upon the 
 subject, where her name headed the list of 
 signers, whilst that of Florence Nightingale 
 came next. Two such women, venerated not 
 less for the intellectual capacity and practical 
 wisdom than for the devoted benevolence that 
 they had shown in their long lives, were well 
 able to arouse and lead the moral sense of the 
 womanhood of England in this crisis. Other 
 respected names were soon added to theirs, but 
 it would not be easy to over-estimate the value 
 of the self-sacrificing, brave action, at the most 
 critical moment, of these two great and honor- 
 able women. 
 
 Besides writing articles, and appeals, and
 
 268 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 signing documents which were placarded as 
 election posters in some great towns, Mrs. Mar- 
 tineau helped that cause in the way told in the 
 following letter to Mr. Atkinson : 
 
 May 2ist, 1871. 
 
 One pleasant thing has happened lately. I 
 longed for money for a public obj ect [repeal of 
 the acts in question], and, unable to do better, 
 worked a chair, and had it beautifully made up. 
 It was produced at a great evening party in 
 London, and seized upon and vehemently com- 
 peted for, and it has actually brought fifty 
 guineas ! In the middle of the night it occurs 
 to me what a thing it is to give fifty guineas 
 so much as I had longed for money to give that 
 fund. I was asked for a letter of explanation 
 and statement to go with the chair, and, of 
 course, did it by that post. 
 
 Work for this cause formed the most keen 
 and active interest of her latest years. In this 
 she thought and labored constantly. She gave 
 her name and support to other objects, but only 
 quietly. Amongst other things she was a mem- 
 ber of the Women's Suffrage Society ; and she 
 was a subscriber to the movement for the medi- 
 cal education of women. 
 
 In all public affairs, indeed, her interest 
 remained keen and unabated to the very last, 
 as the letters for which I am indebted to Mr. 
 Atkinson, and which I am to quote, will abun-
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 dantly show. These letters will inc. 
 
 r >t", too, 
 
 something of the quiet course of i x ow 
 
 uneventful daily life. Sick and weary v sne 
 was, it will be seen that literature and pdli\e 
 the public welfare, and the concerns of he 
 household's inmates, still occupied her thoughts- 
 and her pen. 
 
 LETTERS TO MR. ATKINSON. 
 
 August 24, 1870. 
 
 ... I am as careful as possible to prevent 
 anyone losing sleep on my account, and being 
 disturbed at meals, or failing in air, exercise and 
 pleasure. If these regular healthy habits of my 
 household become difficult, we are to have a 
 trained nurse at once. This is settled. I am 
 disposed to think, myself that the last stage 
 will be short, probably the end sudden. 
 
 The tone of this last sentence is no affecta- 
 tion. " She used to talk about her death as if 
 it meant no more than going into the next 
 room," said one who knew her in these years. 
 
 September 10, 1870. 
 
 ... I am not sure whether you have read Dr. 
 Bence Jones's Life and Letters of Faraday. I 
 have been thankful, this last week, for the 
 strong interest of that book, which puts Conti- 
 nental affairs out of my head for hours together. 
 The first half volume is rather tiresome giv-
 
 1ARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 j .our times as much as necessary of the 
 u ** ,?vated youth's early prosing on crude mor- 
 a ]: f s, etc. It is quite right to give us some of 
 t j.-,, to show from how low a point of thought 
 .id style he rose up to his perfection of expres- 
 sion as a lecturer and writer ; but a quarter of 
 the early stuff would have been enough for that. 
 The succeeding part, for hundreds of pages, is 
 the richest treat I have had for many a day. I 
 can only distantly and dimly follow the scientific 
 lectures and writings ; but I understand enough 
 of sympathy ; and the disclosures of the moral 
 nature of the man is perfectly exquisite. I have 
 never known, and have scarcely dreamed of, a 
 spirit and temper so thoroughly uniting the best 
 attributes of the sage and the child. 
 
 October 18, 1870. 
 
 I had my envelope directed yesterday, but 
 was prevented writing, and in the evening came 
 your welcome letter. I am glad to know when 
 you mean to leave your quarters ; and every line 
 from France is interesting. 
 
 I wonder whether you remember a night in 
 London when dear Mrs. Reid and you and I 
 were returning in her carriage from Exeter 
 Hall and the Messiah. I was saying that that 
 sacred drama reminded me of Holy Philas, and 
 the apotheosis of Osiris, and how the one was as 
 true 'as the other, with its "Peace on earth, and 
 good-will to men," so false a prophesy, etc., etc. 
 Whereupon Mrs. Reid said, plaintively (of the 
 Messiah}, " I believe it all at the time," but she 
 did not set up any pretense of the promises
 
 \ 
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 having been fulfilled. It does not se 
 Christendom had got on very much si 
 world said, "See how these Christians lov 
 another !" I. seem to have got to a new 
 of mind about war, or I may perhaps forget t 
 emotions of youth ; but I seem never before to 1 
 have felt the horror, disgust, shajne in short, 
 misery that the spectacle of this war creates 
 now. I am reading less and less in the news- 
 papers ; for the truth is, I cannot endure it. 
 There is no good in any Jiopeless spectacle ; and 
 for France, I am, like most people, utterly hope- 
 less. ... By selling themselves for twenty 
 years to the worst and meanest man in Europe, 
 the people of France have incurred destruction ; 
 and though most of us knew this all the time, 
 we do not suffer the less from the spectacle now. 
 ... I suppose the French will have no alterna- 
 tive but peace in a little while ; but, when all 
 that is settled, internal strife and domestic ruin 
 will remain ahead. The truth is, the morale of 
 the French is corrupted to the core. All habit 
 of integrity and sincerity is apparently lost ; and 
 when a people prefers deception to truth, vain- 
 glory to honor, passion to reason all is over. 
 I will leave it, for it is a terrible subject. I must 
 just say that I believe and know that there are 
 French citizens a very few who understand 
 the case, but they are as wretched as they neces- 
 sarily must be. But "the gay, licentious, 
 proud," the pleasure-loving, self-seeking aristoc- 
 racy, and the brutally ignorant rural population, 
 must entirely paralyze the intelligent, an honest 
 few scattered in their midst. But I must leave 
 all this.
 
 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 'pv only news we have is of the royal mar- 
 r j j (Princess Louise) which pleases everybody. 
 j,.s a really great event as a sign politically, 
 ad as a fact socially and morally. After the 
 Queen's marriage, I wrote repeatedly on behalf 
 of repealing the Royal Marriage Act then, while 
 there could be no invidious appearance in it. 
 The present chaotic condition of Protestant 
 princedoms in Germany may answer the pur- 
 pose almost as well as a period of abeyance. 
 Any way, the relaxation seems a wise and happy 
 one. 
 
 My items of news are _small in comparison, 
 but not small to me ; 'especially that a happy 
 idea struck me lately, of trying a spring mat- 
 tress as a means of obtaining sleep of some 
 continuance. I have ventured upon getting 
 one ; and, after four nights, there is no doubt 
 of my being able to sleep longer, and with more 
 loss of consciousness than for a very long time. 
 Last night I once slept three hours with only 
 one break. Otherwise, I go on much the 
 same. There is one objection to these beds 
 which healthy people are unaware of that so 
 much more strength is required to move in 
 bed, from want of piirchase. This is a trouble, 
 but the advantages far outweigh it. 
 
 Dear Jenny comes home to-morrow evening, 
 all the better, I am assured, for three weeks at 
 the sea, in breeze and sup, and all manner of 
 beauty of land and sea (at Barmouth, and with 
 a merry party of young people). And here is 
 a game basket, arrived from parts unknown, 
 with a fine hare, two brace of partridges, and a
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 273 
 
 pheasant. A savory welcome for Jenny! 
 Cousin Mary has been more good and kind 
 than I can say. She stays for Jenny, and 
 leaves us on Friday, I must not begin upon 
 Huxley, Tyndall, and Evans, whom I have 
 been reading. Much pleasure to you, dear 
 friend, in your closing weeks. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 H. MARTINEAU. 
 
 The sleepless nights repeatedly mentioned 
 in these letters were a source of great suffering 
 to her in these latest years ; under medical 
 advice she tried smoking as a means of pro- 
 curing better res~t, with some success. She 
 smoked usually through the chiboque which 
 she had brought home with her from the East, 
 and which she had there learned to use, as she 
 relates with her customary simplicity and direct- 
 ness in the appendix to Eastern Life : "I found 
 it good for my health," she says there, "and I 
 saw no more reason why I should not take it 
 than why English ladies should not take their 
 glass of sherry at home an indulgence which 
 I do not need. I continued the use of my 
 chiboque for some weeks after my return, and 
 then only left it off because of the inconven- 
 ience." When health and comfort were to be 
 promoted by it, she resumed it. Her nights 
 were, nevertheless, very broken, and frequent 
 allusions occur in her letters to the suffering of
 
 274 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 sleeplessness, with its concomitant of drowsi- 
 ness in the day-time. 
 
 The next letter is on trivial topics, truly; 
 but is none the less valuable for the uncon- 
 scious record which it affords of her domestic 
 character. The anxiety for her household com- 
 panion's enjoyment, the delight in the kindness 
 that the young folk had shown to each other 
 and to the poor Christmas guests, the pleasure 
 in the happiness of other people, are all char- 
 acteristic features which are of no trivial con- 
 sequence. 
 
 AMBLESIDE, Jan. 2, '71. 
 
 I am so sorry for the way you are passing 
 from the old year to the new that I cannot help 
 saying so. I ought to be anything but sorry, 
 considering what good you are doing essen- 
 tial, indispensable good; but you must be so 
 longing for your own quiet, warm home, and 
 the friends around it, that I heartily wish you 
 were there. . . . As for me, my business is to 
 promote, as far as possible, the cheerfulness of 
 my household. There really has been much 
 fun, and yet more sober enjoyment, through- 
 out this particular Christmas. In my secret 
 mind I am nervously anxious about Jenny to 
 whom cold is a sort of poison ; but, when she 
 had once observed that there was much less 
 cold here than at home, or anywhere else that 
 she could be, I determined to say no more, and 
 to make the best of it. She said it for my
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 2/5 
 
 sake, I know (the only reason for her ever 
 speaking of herself), and I frankly received it 
 as a comfortable saying. She is getting on 
 better than any of us expected, and she has 
 been thoroughly happy in exercising our hospi- 
 talities. . . . Jenny's brother Frank came for 
 three days at Christmas ; and Harriet made 
 herself housekeeper and secretary, and made 
 Jenny the guest, to set her wholly at liberty 
 for her brother. It was quite a pretty sight 
 they were all so happy ! There was a kitchen 
 party on Christmas Day; by far the best we 
 ever had ; for Frank did the thing thoroughly 
 read a comic tale, taught the folk games, 
 played off the snapdragons, and finally pro- 
 duced boxes of new and strange crackers, 
 which spat forth the most extraordinary pres- 
 ents ! All the guests and the servants were in 
 raptures with him. The oldest widow but one 
 vowed that " she did not know when she had 
 seen such a gentleman" which I think very 
 probable. They came to dinner at noon, and 
 stayed till past 10 P. M. Think of spending 
 those ten hours entirely in the two kitchens, 
 and having four meals in the time ! My nieces, 
 and nephews were tired ! So was I, though I 
 had only the consciousness of the occasion. . . 
 All this is so good for Jenny ! and she will like 
 the quiet and leisure that will follow. . . . 
 
 I am more alive and far less suffering than in 
 the great heats of autumn. Your slips and cut- 
 tings are very interesting, and I am very thank- 
 ful for them. More of them when (or if) my
 
 276 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 head is worth more. Of course we shall hear 
 when you get home. May it be soon ! 
 Yours ever, dear friend, 
 
 H. MARTINEAU. 
 
 AMBLESIDE, March 6, '71. 
 We are in a queer state just now. Gladstone 
 turns out exactly as I expected. I once told 
 some, who are his colleagues now, that he would 
 do some very fine deeds give us some sepa- 
 rate measures of very great value, and would do 
 it in an admirable manner ; but that he would 
 show himself incapable of governing the coun- 
 try. For two years he did the first thing; and 
 now, this third year, he is showing the expected 
 incapacity. Were there ever such means thrown 
 away as we see this session ? Probably you are 
 out of the way of hearing the whole truth of the 
 situation, and I cannot go into it here. Suffice 
 it, that Gladstone totters (and three or four 
 more), and that several departments are in such 
 a mess and muddle that one hardly sees how 
 they are to be brought straight again; and all 
 this without the least occasion ! One matter, 
 in which I feel deep interest, and on which I 
 have acted, is prospering, and we have the Gov- 
 ernment at our disposal ; so that we hope they 
 will remain in office till we have secured what 
 we want ; but the more we have to do with Min- 
 isters, the weaker we find them. And Gladstone 
 is not only weak as a reasoner (with all his hair- 
 splitting), but ignorant in matters of political 
 principle.
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 277 
 
 The next letter is very characteristic and per- 
 fectly true to her state of mind with regard to 
 flatterers : 
 
 May 21, '71. 
 
 And now you will want to know how Miss 
 
 and we fared this day week. We (she and I) 
 were together only three-quarters of an hour ; 
 and for part of that time I was too much 
 exhausted to benefit much. My impression is 
 that she is not exactly the person for the invalid 
 room. But I may be utterly wrong in this. I 
 might be misled by the fatiguing sort of annoy- 
 ance of overpraise of worship in fact. I don't 
 want to be ungracious about what my books 
 were to her in her childhood and youth ; I am 
 quite ready to believe her sincere in what she 
 said. But not the less is it bad taste. It must 
 be bad taste to expatiate on that one topic which 
 it is most certain that the hearer cannot sympa- 
 thize in. Also, I have much doubt of her being 
 accurate in her talk. There is a random air 
 about her statements, and she said two or three 
 things that certainly were mistakes, more or 
 less. These things, and a general smoothness 
 in her talk, while she was harsh about some of 
 
 the were what I did not quite like. As for 
 
 the rest, she was as kind as possible ; and not 
 only kind to me, but evidently with a turn that 
 way, and a habit of it in regard to children and 
 friends. . . . 
 
 June n, '71. 
 
 .... Of all odd things, Dean Stanley and 
 Lady Augusta have been, by way of a trip, to
 
 278 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Paris, from last Monday to Saturday. How can 
 they ! One would think nothing could take 
 one there but some strong call of duty. The 
 least that one must read and hear is enough to 
 make one's heart ache, and to spoil one's sleep, 
 and to disfigure life till one does not wish to 
 look at it any more. I do long to have done 
 with it. I believe it is the first occasion in my 
 life of my having felt hopeless of any destiny, 
 individual or national. . . . How badly our 
 public affairs are going ! Gladstone & Co, are 
 turning out exactly as many of us foresaw. The 
 thing nearest my heart (repeal of the acts 
 above alluded to), and more important than all 
 other public questions, will do well. It is, I 
 believe, secure, in virtue of an amount of effort 
 and devotedness never surpassed. You know 
 what I mean. I rest upon that achievement 
 a vital aim with me and others for many years 
 with satisfaction and entire hopefulness, but 
 in all other directions the prospect is simply 
 dreary. In that one case, we, who shall have 
 achieved the object, have saved Ministers from 
 themselves, and from evil councillors. Wher- 
 ever they have, this year, trusted their own 
 wisdom and resources, they have failed, or see 
 that they must fail. They would have been out 
 since early in April, but for want of a leader on 
 the Conservative side ; and they still make their 
 party dwindle till there will be no heart or 
 energy left in the Liberal ranks lately so 
 strong and ardent ! They may be individually 
 clever ; but they cannot govern the country. 
 This is eminently the case with Gladstone ; and
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 279 
 
 it may serve as the description of the group. I 
 shall not dare to ask the Arnolds about such 
 matters so thoroughly did they assume, when 
 they went away, that all must be right with 
 "William" and Co. in the Cabinet. 
 
 Nov. 5, '71. 
 
 . . . Mrs. Grote seems to like to open her feel- 
 ings to me, as a very old friend of hers and her 
 husband's. Did I tell you that she sent me 
 to put me in possession of her state her 
 private diary, from the first day of her alarm 
 about her husband's health to the day she sent 
 it? It was more interesting than I can say; 
 but it brought after it something more striking 
 still. Some half-century ago, Jeremy Bentham 
 threw upon paper some thoughts on the opera- 
 tion of natural religion on human welfare, or 
 ill-fare. His MSS. were left to Mrs. Grote 
 (or portions of them), and those papers were 
 issued by the Grotes under the title, Analysis of 
 the Influence of Natural Religion, etc. etc., by 
 Philip Beauchamp." It is a tract of 142 pp. It 
 is the boldest conceivable effort at fair play ; 
 and in this particular effect, it is most strid- 
 ing. At the outset, all attempts to divide the 
 "abuses " of religion from other modes of opera- 
 tion are repudiated at once ; and the claim is so 
 evidently sound that the effect of the exposure is 
 singular. Well ! of course the tendency of the 
 exposition is to show that the absolute darkness 
 of the Unseen Life supposed must produce a 
 demoralizing effect, and destroy ease of mind. 
 There is something almost appalling in the un-
 
 280 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 flinching representation of the mischief of the 
 spirit of fear, of its torment, and of its damaging 
 effects in creating a habit of adulation, in per- 
 verting the direction of our desires, in corrupt- 
 ing our estimate of good and evil, in leaving us, 
 in short, no chance of living a healthy and 
 natural life, but rather, making cowards, liars, 
 and selfish rascals of us all. I can't go on, being 
 tired ; and you will be thinking, as you read, 
 that this is only the old story of the mischiefs 
 and miseries of superstition. But there is some- 
 thing impressive in the cheerful simplicity with 
 which Bentham tells us his opinion of the sort 
 of person recommended to us for a master 
 under the name of God, and with which he 
 warns us all of the impossibility of our being 
 good or happy under such a Supreme Being. 
 In looking at the table of contents, and seeing 
 the catalogue he gives of evil effects of belief in 
 the barest scheme of Natural Religion, one 
 becomes aware, as if for the first time, of the 
 atmosphere of falsehood against which we ought 
 to have recoiled all our lives since becoming 
 capable of thought. 
 
 Dec. 30, '71. 
 
 ... I go off rapidly as a correspondent ; 
 there is no use blinking the fact. I am so slow 
 and write so badly! and leave off too tired. 
 Oddly enough, this very week one of the Daily 
 News authorities has been uttering a groaning 
 longing for my pen in the service of that paper, 
 as of old. The occasion is a short letter of mine 
 in last Thursday's paper, which you may have
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 28 1 
 
 seen.* If so, you will see that I had no choice. 
 W. E. Forster was at Fox How; and I got 
 Jenny to carry the volume of Brougham (vol. 
 iii. p. 302) to consult Forster and Arnolds 
 about what I should do, W. E. Forster being 
 in the same line of business with my father, and 
 a public man man of the world. He was 
 clear: it was impossible to leave my father 
 under a false imputation of having failed. And 
 when my letter appeared, he was delighted with 
 it; so are those of my family that I have heard 
 from ; and, above all, Daily News editors. 
 They hope and believe it will excite due distrust 
 of Brougham's representations, and encourage 
 others to expose his falsehoods. His suppress- 
 ions are as wonderful as his disclosures; e.g. 
 the very important crisis in his career, known 
 by the name of the "Grey Banquet" at Edin- 
 burgh, he cuts completely out of the history 
 of the time perverting Lord Durham's story 
 as well as his own. I can see how the false 
 story of me and mine got made ; but enough of 
 that especially if you have not seen the letter 
 in the Daily News. Forster is kindly and quiet, 
 but he is altered. He is now the Courtier! 
 and odd sort of one, with much Quaker 
 innocence and prudence in it ; but of a sort 
 which leaves me no hope of his handling of his 
 Education measure. There will be such a fight! 
 and the Nonconformists are right, and know 
 that they are. You will probably see that 
 achieved a real National Education estab- 
 lished, secular and compulsory. 
 
 * Refuting a statement made in Lord Brougham's Autobi- 
 ography that her father had failed in business.
 
 282 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 The Ambleside surgeon, who had undertaken, 
 in acccordance with Harriet Martineau's will, 
 to prepare and transmit her skull and brain to 
 Mr. Atkinson, died in the year 1872. The fol- 
 lowing letter shows that the progress of time 
 had in no way diminished her willingness to 
 leave her head for scientific investigation : 
 
 AMBLESIDE, April 23, '72. 
 (Shakespere's birthday and Wordsworth's 
 
 death -day.) 
 DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 I am not writing about poets to-day, nor 
 about any " play " topic, nor anything gay, or 
 pretty, or amusing. I write on business only. 
 
 When you heard of Mr. Shepherd's death, you 
 must, I should think, have considered what was 
 to be done in regard to fulfilling the provision 
 of my will about skull and brain. It is to inform 
 you of this that I write. 
 
 Mr. Shepherd's assistant and successor is Mr. 
 William Moore King, a young man who is con- 
 sidered very clever, and is certainly very kind, 
 gentlemanly, simple in mind and manners, and 
 married to a charming girl (grand-daughter of 
 Martin, the artist). Jenny has known them for 
 two years, having called on their arrival. I had 
 seen him twice before this last week. I wrote 
 to him the other day, to ask him to give me half 
 an hour for confidential conversation ; and he 
 came when I was quite alone for the morning. 
 
 I told him the whole matter of the provision 
 in my will, and of Mr. Shepherd's engagement,
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 283 
 
 in case of his surviving me in sufficient vigor to 
 keep his word. Mr. King listened anxiously, 
 made himself master of the arrangement, and 
 distinctly engaged to do what we ask, saying 
 that it- was so completely clear between us that 
 we need never speak of it again. 
 
 I may add that Mr. King has shown me the 
 letters in which Mrs. Martineau made the 
 necessary arrangements with him for his task. 
 Mr. Atkinson was, however, now residing out 
 of England, and not in a position to usefully 
 accept the bequest, so he intimated his desire 
 to be freed from his promise to undertake the 
 examination of his friend's brain. A codicil 
 was added to Harriet Martineau's will, therefore, 
 revoking the provision about this matter. 
 
 The next quotation shows how little the long 
 prospect of death had changed her expectations 
 and desires about things supernatural : 
 
 November 19, '72. 
 
 I mean to try to do justice to what I think 
 and believe, by avowing the satisfaction I truly 
 feel with my release from selfish superstition and 
 trumpery self-regards, and with the calm con- 
 clusions of my reason about what to desire and 
 expect in the position in which each one of us 
 mysterious human beings finds him or herself. 
 It is all we have to do now (such as you and I), 
 to be satisfied with the conditions of the life we 
 have left behind us, and fearless of the death
 
 284 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 which lies before us. Nobody will ever find me 
 craving the " glory and bliss " which the 
 preachers set before us, and pray that we may 
 obtain. Some of them are very good and kind, 
 I know ; but they will never create any longing 
 of the sort in me. But why should I scribble 
 on in this way to you ? Perhaps because our 
 new Evangelical curate has written me almost 
 the worst and silliest letter of this sort that I 
 ever saw. Enough of him then ! But I have 
 left myself no room or strength for other mat- 
 ters this time. I wanted to tell you about the 
 effect according to my experience of a 
 second reading of Adam Bede, Miss Evans' first 
 great novel. A singular mind is hers, I should 
 think, and truly wonderful in power and scope. 
 Her intellectual power and grace attract and win 
 people of very high intellectual quality. 
 
 Miss Jane Martineau was at this time in very 
 delicate health, and, after long fluctuations of 
 hope and fear, was compelled to leave her aunt 
 for the winter and go to a warmer climate. 
 Mrs. Martineau's letters show how cruel was 
 her anxiety for " my precious Jenny," and are 
 filled with expressions of her feelings about the 
 state of her beloved young companion. All 
 this is, of course, too personal for quotation, but 
 a perusal of it amply confirms the accounts of 
 her domestic affection, and the warmth and 
 sensitiveness of her heart. 
 
 The loss of her niece from her side ultimately
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 285 
 
 compelled the engagement of a companion, Miss 
 Goodwin, a young lady who became as much 
 attached to Harriet Martineau as did all others 
 who came in close relationship with her in those 
 years. 
 
 May loth, '73. 
 
 . . . The great event to me and my house- 
 hold is, that Caroline my dear maid and nurse 
 has seen Jenny ... It was such a pouring 
 out on both sides. It would have almost broken 
 Jenny's heart not to have seen this very dear 
 friend of ours, when only half an hour off. All 
 her longing is to be by my side again. I never 
 discourage this ; but I don't believe it can come 
 to pass. . . . Everybody is kind and helpful ; 
 and our admiration of Miss Goodwin ever in- 
 creases. 
 
 AMBLESIDE, Sept. 7th, '73. 
 DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 I am not ungrateful nor insensible about 
 your treating me with letters, whether I reply 
 or not. You may be sure I would write if I 
 could. But you know I cannot, and why. At 
 times I really indulge in the hope and belief 
 that the end is drawing near, and then again, 
 if I compare the present day with a year ago, 
 it seems as if there was no very great change. 
 I still do not make mistakes or only in trifling 
 slips of memory common enough at seventy. 
 Still I have no haunting ideas, no delusions, no 
 fears, except that vague sort of misgiving 
 that occurs when it becomes a fatigue to talk, 
 and to move about, and to plan the duties of
 
 286 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 the day. Yet aware as I am of the character 
 of the change in me, and confident as I still 
 am of not making a fool of myself till I alter 
 further, I now seldom or never (almost never) 
 feel quite myself. I have told you this often 
 lately ; but I feel as if it would not be quite 
 honest to omit saying it while feeling it to be 
 the most prominent experience of my life at 
 this time. It is not always easy to draw the 
 line as to what one should tell in such a case. 
 On the one hand, I desire to avoid all appear- 
 ance of weak and tiresome complaining of what 
 cannot be helped ; and on the other, I do wish 
 not to appear unaware of my failures. I am 
 sure you understand this, and can sympathize 
 in the anxiety about keeping the balance hon- 
 est. There have been heart-attacks now and 
 then lately, which have caused digitalis and 
 belladonna to be prescribed for me ; and this 
 creates a hope that the general bodily condition 
 is declining in good proportion to the brain 
 weakening. . . . Miss and her naval part- 
 ner remind me of the pair in the novel that I 
 have read eleven times Miss Austen's Per- 
 suasion unequalled in interest, charm and 
 truth (to my mind). There is a hint there of 
 the drawback of separation; but yet, who 
 would have desired anything for Anne Elliot 
 and her Captain Wentworth but that they 
 should marry ? I am now in the middle of Miss 
 Thackeray's Old Kensington reading it with 
 much keen pleasure, and some satisfaction and 
 surprise. There are exquisite touches in it ; 
 and there is a further disclosure of power, of
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 287 
 
 genuine, substantial, vital power; but her man- 
 nerism grows on her deplorably, it seems to 
 me. The amount and the mode of analysis of 
 minds and characters are too far dispropor- 
 tioned to the other elements to be accepted 
 without regret, and, perhaps, some fear for the 
 future. But I have not read half the book yet ; 
 and I hope I may have to recall all fault-finding, 
 and to dwell only on the singular value and 
 beauty of the picture-gallery she has given us. 
 
 An incident of this year's (1873) story, which 
 must not be overlooked, was an offer of a pen- 
 sion made to Harriet Martineau by Mr. Glad- 
 stone. She had written sadly of her own 
 sufferings in a letter to Mrs. Grote, which 
 referred also to Mr. Crete's life, and that lady 
 had published the letter. Mr. Gladstone, in 
 delicate and friendly terms, intimated to Mrs. 
 Martineau that if pecuniary anxiety in any way 
 added to her troubles, he would recommend the 
 Queen to give her one of the literary pensions 
 of the Civil List. She declined it with real 
 gratitude, partly upon the same grounds which 
 had before led her to refuse a similar offer, but 
 with the additional reason now that she would 
 not expose the Queen and the Premier to insult 
 for showing friendliness to "an infidel." 
 
 The next letter is mainly domestic, but I am 
 sure that those spoken of by name in it will 
 not object to publication of references in order
 
 288 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 to show Harriet Martineau in her amiable, con- 
 siderate household character : 
 
 DEAR FRIEND, December 6, 1873. 
 
 I will not trouble and pain you by a long 
 story about the cares and anxieties which 
 make the last stage of my long life hard to 
 manage and to bear. If I could be quite sure 
 of the end being as near as one would suppose, 
 I could bear my own share quietly enough ; but 
 it is a different thing watching a younger life 
 going out prematurely. My beloved Jenny 
 will die, after all, we think, bravely as she has 
 borne up for two years. The terrible East 
 winds again got hold of her before she went (so 
 early as October !) to her winter quarters ; and 
 there are sudden and grave symptoms of 
 dropsy. The old dread of the post has returned 
 upon me ; and I am amazed to find how I can 
 still suffer from fear. I am quite unfit to live 
 alone even for a week ; yet I mean to ven- 
 ture it, if necessary. Miss Goodwin shall go 
 (to Leeds) for Christmas Day, on which the 
 family have always hitherto assembled. I will 
 not prevent their doing so now. My niece 
 Harriet (Higginson) was to come, as usual, for 
 a month's holiday at Christmas ; but her mother 
 has lamed herself by a fall, and it must be 
 doubtful whether she can be left. Parents pro- 
 test the dear girl shall come , but she and I 
 wait to see. There is nobody else ; for there 
 is illness in all families, or anxiety about illness 
 elsewhere. " Well ! we shall be on the other 
 side of it somehow," as people say, and it won't
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 289 
 
 matter much then. My young cook is wanted 
 on Christmas Day to be a bridesmaid, at Not- 
 tingham. So I have a real reason for giving 
 up the great Christmas party I have given (in 
 the kitchen) every year till now. It will be 
 costly giving the people handsome dinners in 
 their own homes ; but the house will be quiet, 
 and to me the day will be like any other day. 
 It is not now a time for much mirth ; the 
 Arnolds meeting at their mother's grave, my 
 Jenny absent, from perilous illness, my brain 
 failing, so that I can do nothing for anybody 
 but by money (and not very much in that way). 
 We are all disposed to keep quiet wishing 
 the outside world a "Merry Christmas." 
 
 April 1 5th, 1874. 
 
 I am reading again that marvellous Middle- 
 march, finding I did not half value it before. It 
 is not a book to issue as a serial. Yet, read en 
 suite, I find it almost more (greater) than I can 
 bear. The Casaubons set me dreaming all 
 night. Do you ever hear any-thmg of Lewes 
 and Miss Evans ? 
 
 During the whole of the time over which these 
 letters extend Mrs. Martineau was subject to 
 fainting fits, in any one of which her life might 
 have ended. It was thus necessary for her to 
 have her maid sleeping in her bed-room. Caro- 
 line, the "dear friend and servant " for twenty- 
 one years, died early in 1875. Her place was 
 filled by the younger maid, Mary Anne, whom 
 
 10
 
 290 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 Caroline had trained. The maid has told me of 
 her mistress's kindness and readiness to be 
 amused ; of the gentleness of her manner, and 
 the gratitude which she seemed to feel for all 
 loving tendance. The next letter gives a glimpse 
 of the daily life from the mistress' pen : 
 
 Dec. 8, '75. 
 
 East winds have been abundantly bitter ; but 
 this house is sheltered from the east and north. 
 We do pity the babes and their mothers in the 
 cottages below ; and there is no denying that I 
 am painfully stupefied by such cold as we have; 
 but my aides and my maids are all as well and 
 as happy as if we had the making of the season. 
 It is a daily surprise to me to see how Jenny 
 holds out and on, without any sort of relapse ; 
 yet I cannot rise above the anxiety which haunts 
 me in the midst of every night and early morn- 
 ing dread of hearing that she and Miss Good- 
 win are ill with the cold which makes me so ill. 
 By six o'clock I can stay in bed no longer. My 
 maid and I (in the same room) turn out of our 
 beds as the clock strikes ; she puts a match to 
 the fire, and goes for my special cup of tea 
 (needed after my bad nights), while I brush my 
 hair. I take the tea to the window, and look 
 out for the lights (Fox How usually the first) as 
 they kindle and twinkle throughout the valley 
 Orion going down behind Loughrigg as day 
 is breaking. Then I get on the bed for half an 
 hour's reading, till the hot water comes up. By 
 that time I am in a panic about my aides ; but
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 29 1 
 
 as soon as I am seated at my little table ready 
 for breakfast, in come the dear creatures, as gay 
 as larks, with news how the glass stands, out- 
 door and in. Out-door (not on the ground) it is 
 somewhere between 32 and 40 at present ; 
 and in my room (before the fire has got up), 
 from 50 to 57. So now you know what our 
 present life and climate are like. 
 
 After dinner I must end almost before I 
 have begun ! But, have you seen, in any news- 
 paper, the address presented to Carlyle on his 
 8oth birthday ? I had no doubt about subscrib- 
 ing, and my name is there. I feel great defer- 
 ence for Masson, who asked me ; and though I 
 do not agree with all the ascriptions of the 
 address, there is enough in which I do heartily 
 agree to enable me to sign ; so I send my 
 sovereign with satisfaction. I shall not see the 
 medal, not even a bronze one (you know Car- 
 lyle's is gold). My expenses are considerable 
 at present (not always), and I must not spend on 
 such an object. The way in which the thing 
 was done is delicate. Instead of overwhelm- 
 ing the old man with a deputation, the promot- 
 ers had the packet quietly left at his door. It 
 would set him weeping for his loneliness, that 
 his long-suffering, faithful wife did not witness 
 this crowning glory. He does love fame (or did), 
 and no man would despise such a tribute as this ; 
 but I think he will find it oppressive. What a 
 change since the day when the Edinburgh 
 Review was obliged, as Jeffrey said, to decline 
 articles from Carlyle much as he wished to 
 aid him because the readers could not tolerate
 
 2Q2 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 C.'s writings ! And that was after his now 
 famous "Burns" article had appeared, and 
 founded his fame in America ! 
 
 Did you see that the Times death-list showed, 
 in two days last week, thirty-three deaths of 
 persons over 70, eleven of whom were over 80 ? 
 The effect of the cold ! 
 
 . . . The sick and aged will die off fast this 
 winter. May I be one ! 
 
 January 25, '76. 
 DEAR OLD FRIEND, 
 
 It is time that you were hearing from us of 
 the marked increase in my illness within the 
 few days since I last reported of matters of 
 mutual interest. I will not trouble you with 
 disagreeable descriptions of ailments which 
 admit of no advantageous treatment. Last 
 week there was, as twice before (and now again 
 twice), a copious hemorrhage from some interior 
 part, by which I am much weakened. The 
 cause is not understood ; and what does it 
 matter ? I neither know nor much care how it 
 happens that I find myself sinking more rapidly 
 than hitherto. All I know is that 1 am fully 
 satisfied with my share of the interest and 
 amusement of life, and of the value of the 
 knowledge which has come to me by means of 
 the brain, which is worth all the rest of us. 
 
 I have not much pain, none very severe, but 
 much discomfort. At times I see very badly, 
 and hear almost nothing; and then I recover 
 more or less of both powers. There is so 
 much cramp in the hands, and elsewhere, that
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 293 
 
 it seems very doubtful whether you and other 
 friends will hear much from me during the 
 (supposed) short time that I shall be living. 
 But I do hope you will let me hear, to the last, 
 of your interests and pursuits, your friendships 
 and companionships, and prospects of increas- 
 ing wisdom. I cannot write more to-day. 
 Perhaps I may become able another day. My 
 beloved niece Jenny is well ; better here than 
 she would be anywhere else, and more happy 
 in her restoration to her home with me than I 
 can describe. I could easily show you how and 
 why my death within a short time may be for 
 the happiness of some whom I love, and who 
 love me ; and if it should be the severest trial 
 to this most dear helper of my latter days, I 
 am sure she will bear it wisely and well. It 
 cannot but be the happiest thought in her mind 
 and heart what a blessing she has been to 
 my old age ! What have not you been, dear 
 friend ! I must not enter on that now. Jenny 
 observed this morning that old or delicate 
 people live wonderfully long. True! but I hope 
 my term will be short, if I am to continue as 
 ill as at present. 
 
 The end was, indeed, approaching ; and now, 
 when at the worst of her illness, it so came 
 about that she was asked and consented to do 
 one last piece of writing for publication. Her 
 young companion, Miss Goodwin, had translated 
 Pauli's Simon de Montfort, and Mr. Triibner, 
 unaware of course, how ill Mrs. Martifieau was,
 
 294 HAKRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 offered to publish the translation on the con- 
 dition that she would write an introduction. 
 She would not refuse this favor to Miss 
 Goodwin, and did the work with great difficulty. 
 It was characteristic that she should think it 
 necessary to take the trouble to read the whole 
 MS. before writing her few pages of introduc- 
 tion^ 
 
 She was now nearing her seventy-fourth 
 birthday; and the strong constitution which 
 had worn through so much pain and labor had 
 almost exhausted its vitality. 
 
 Even in these last weeks she could not be 
 idle. Her hands were cramped, her eyes weak, 
 her sensations of fatigue very hard to bear; 
 still, she not only continued her correspondence 
 with one or two of her dearest friends, but also 
 went on with her fancy work. The latter was 
 now of that easiest kind, requiring least effort 
 of eye and thought knitting. She occupied 
 herself with making cot blankets, in double 
 knitting, for the babies of her young friends ; 
 some of them among her poorer neighbors, 
 whom she had known when they were little 
 children themselves and she came first to 
 Ambleside, others among more distant and 
 wealthier couples. She finished one blanket 
 early in the year 1876, for a baby born in 
 Ambleside in the January, and she left a second 
 one unfinished when she died.
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 
 
 Babies were an unfailing delight to her, to 
 the end. Her maids knew that even if she 
 were too ill to see grown-up visitors, a little 
 child was always a welcome guest, for at least a 
 few moments. Her letters to children were 
 altogether charming, and so were her ways with 
 them, and children always loved her with all 
 their wise little hearts. She was a pleasant old 
 lady, even for them to look at. The expression 
 of the countenance became very gentle and 
 motherly, when the strife of working life was 
 laid aside ; the eyes were ever kind ; and the 
 mouth loved to laugh, sternly and firmly though 
 it could at times be 'compressed. She wore a 
 large cap of delicate lace, and was dainty about 
 her person, as regarded the fairest cleanliness. 
 Plain in her youth and middle life, she had now 
 grown into a beautiful old age beauty of the 
 kind which such years can gain from the impress 
 on the features of the high thoughts and 
 elevated emotions of the past, with patience, 
 lovingness, and serenity in the present. 
 
 Patient, loving, and serene the last years of 
 Harriet Martineau were. Those who lived 
 with her knew less than her correspondents of 
 what she suffered ; for she felt it a duty to tell 
 the absent what they could not see for them- 
 selves of her state ; but to her household she 
 spoke but seldom, comparatively, of her painful
 
 296 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 sensations, leaving the matter to their own 
 observation. She could be absorbed to the last 
 in all that concerned the world and mankind ; 
 and she was equally accessible to the smaller 
 and more homely interests of the quiet daily 
 life of her inmates. The incidents which go to 
 show what she was in her domestic circle are 
 but trifling ; but what is it that makes the dif- 
 ference between an intolerable and a venerable 
 old age (or youth, for the matter of that, in 
 domestic life) except its conduct about trifles ? 
 One who was with her tells of her delight when 
 a basket of newly-fledged ducklings was brought 
 to her bedside, before ehe was up, on St. 
 Valentine's Day in the year of her death, 
 offering her a doggerel tribute as follows : 
 
 St. Valentine hopes you will not scorn 
 
 This little gift on St. Valentine's morn. 
 
 We'd have come with the chime of last evening's bells, 
 
 But, alas ! we could not break our shells ! 
 
 Then another remembers her amusement 
 when one of her nephews had just started to go 
 to the coach for London, and the doctor, coming 
 in unannounced, left his hat on the hall table, 
 which the active servant seeing, and jumping 
 to the conclusion that Mr. Martineau (travelling 
 in a felt) had left his high hat behind him, 
 rushed off with it to the coach-office, half a mile
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 297 
 
 away ; so that when the doctor wanted to go, his 
 hat was off to the coach ; and " the old lady did 
 laugh so." Only a week or two before her 
 death, she was merry enough to ask her doctor 
 that dreadful punning conundrum about the 
 resemblance between an ice-cream vender, and 
 an hydrophobic patient the answer turning 
 on the legend " Water ices and ice creams " 
 (water I sees, and I screams) telling him that 
 it was ^professional conundrum. At the same 
 time she was kind enough to repeat to him the 
 compliments which a visitor of hers had been 
 paying his baby. This was the lighter side of 
 the aged woman's life, the more serious aspect 
 of which is shown in some of her letters to Mr. 
 Atkinson. The last of these letters must now 
 be given : 
 
 AMBLESIDE, May 19, 1876. 
 DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 Jenny, and also my sister, have been observ- 
 ing that you ought to be hearing from us, 
 and have offered to write to you. You will see 
 at once what this means ; and it is quite true 
 that I have become so much worse lately that 
 we ought to guard against your being surprised, 
 some day soon, by news of my life being closed. 
 I feel uncertain about how long I way live in 
 my present state. I can only follow the judg- 
 ment of unprejudiced observers ; and I see that 
 my household believe the end to be not far off. 
 I will not trouble you with disagreeable details.
 
 298 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 It is enough to say that I am in no respect better, 
 while all the ailments are on the increase. The 
 imperfect heart-action immediately affects the 
 brain, causing the suffering which is worse than 
 all other evils together, the horrid sensation 
 of not being quite myself. This strange, dreamy 
 non-recognition of myself comes on every evening, 
 and all else is a trifle in comparison. But there 
 is a good deal more. Cramps in the hands 
 prevent writing, and most other employment, 
 except at intervals. Indications of dropsy have 
 lately appeared : and after this, I need not again 
 tell you that I see how fully my household 
 believe that the end is not far off. Meantime I 
 have no cares or troubles beyond the bodily 
 uneasiness (which, however, I don't deny to be 
 an evil). I cannot think of any future as at all 
 probable, except the " annihilation " from which 
 some people recoil with so much horror. I find 
 myself here in the universe, I know not how, 
 whence, or why. I see everything in the uni- 
 verse go out and disappear, and I see no reason 
 for supposing that it is not an actual and entire 
 death. And for wypart, I have no objection to 
 such an extinction. I well remember the pas- 
 sion with which W. E. Forster said to me, "I 
 had rather be damned than annihilated." If he 
 once felt five minutes' damnation, he would be 
 thankful for extinction in preference. The truth 
 is, I care little about it any way. Now that the 
 event draws near, and that I see how fully my 
 household expects my death, pretty soon, the 
 universe opens so widely before my view, and I 
 see the old notions of death and scenes to follow
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 299 
 
 to be so merely human so impossible to be 
 true, when one glances through the range of 
 science that I see nothing to be done but to 
 wait without fear or hope, or ignorant prejudice, 
 for the expiration of life. I have no wish for 
 further experience, nor have I any fear of it. 
 Under the weariness of illness I long to be 
 asleep; but I have not set my mind in any state. 
 I wonder if all this represents your notions at all. 
 I should think it does, while yet we are fully 
 aware how mere a glimpse we have of the 
 universe and the life it contains. 
 
 Above all, I wish to escape from the narrow- 
 ness of taking a mere human view of things, 
 from the absurdity of making God after man's 
 own image, etc. 
 
 But I will leave this, begging your pardon for 
 what may be so unworthy to be dwelt on. 
 However, you may like to know how the case 
 looks to a friend under the clear knowledge of 
 death being so near at hand. My hands are 
 cramped and I must stop. My sister is here 
 for the whole of May, and she and Jenny are 
 most happy together. Many affectionate rela- 
 tions and friends are willing to come if needed 
 (the Browns among others), if I live beyond 
 July. You were not among the Boulogne theo- 
 logical petitioners, I suppose. I don't know 
 
 whether you can use there? I was very 
 
 thankful for your last, though I have said noth- 
 ing about its contents. If I began that, I should 
 not know how to stop. 
 
 So good-bye for to-day, dear friend ! 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 H. M.
 
 300 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 The internal tumor which was the prime 
 cause of her malady (an entirely different kind 
 of thing, however, from that which she suffered 
 from at Tynemouth), had long been the source of 
 great inconvenience, compelling her to descend 
 the stairs backwards, and to spend much time in 
 a recumbent position. The post mortem exami- 
 nation made by her medical attendant, at the 
 request of her executors, two days after she died, 
 revealed the fact that this tumor was the true 
 cause of her sufferings. She never knew it 
 herself. Relying on the statement of the 
 eminent men whom she consulted in 1855, that 
 it was the heart that was affected, she accepted 
 that as her fate. It was, however, the slow 
 growth of a "dermoid cyst" which made her 
 linger till such an age, through the constant 
 suffering of twenty-one preceding years. 
 
 In the early part of June, 1876, she nad an 
 attack of bronchitis, and though medical treat- 
 ment subdued this speedily, it exhausted her 
 strength greatly. From about the I4th of that 
 month two days after her seventy-fourth birth- 
 day she was confined to her room, but still 
 rose from bed. On the 24th she was too ill to 
 get up. Then drowsiness gradually increased 
 and in a little while she sank quietly into a 
 dreamy state, in which she seemed to retain 
 consciousness when aroused, but was too weak
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 30 1 
 
 to either take food or to speak. At last, on the 
 2/th of June, 1876, just as the summer sunset 
 was gilding the hills that she knew and loved so 
 well, she quietly and peacefully drew her last 
 breath, and entered into eternal rest. 
 
 Truly her death not only the last moments, 
 but the long ordeal might stand for an illus- 
 tration of the saying of the wise men of old 
 " Keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing 
 that is right, for that shall bring a man peace at 
 the last." 
 
 She was buried amidst her kindred, in the old 
 cemetery of Birmingham ; and upon the tomb- 
 stone, where it stands amidst the smoke, there 
 is no inscription beyond her name and age, and 
 the places of birth and death. 
 
 More was, perhaps, needless. Her works, and 
 a yet more precious possession, her character 
 remain. Faults she had, of course the neces- 
 sary defects of her virtues. Let it be said that 
 she held her own opinions too confidently 
 the uncertain cannot be teachers. Let it be 
 said that her personal dislikes were many and 
 strong it is the necessary antithesis of power- 
 ful attachments. Let it be said that her powers 
 of antagonism at times were not sufficiently 
 restrained how, without such oppugnancy, 
 could she have stood forth for unpopular truths ? 
 Let all that detractors can say be said, and how 
 much remains untouched !
 
 302 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 In the paths where Harriet Martineau trod at 
 first almost alone, many women are now fol- 
 lowing. Serious studies, political activity, a 
 share in social reforms, an independent, self- 
 supporting career, and freedom of thought and 
 expression, are by the conditions of our age, 
 becoming open to the thousands of women who 
 would never have dared to claim them in the 
 circumstances in which she first did so. In a 
 yet earlier age such a life, even to such powers 
 as hers, would have been impossible. As it 
 was, she was only a pioneer of the new order of 
 things inevitable under the advance of civiliza- 
 tion and knowledge. . The printing-press, which 
 multiplies the words of the thinker ; the steam- 
 engine, which both feeds the press and rushes 
 off with its product, and the electric telegraph, 
 which carries thought around the globe, make 
 this an age in which mental force assumes an im- 
 portance which it never had before in the his- 
 tory of mankind. Mind will be more and more 
 valued and cultivated, and will grow more and 
 more influential ; and the condition and status 
 of women must alter accordingly. Some people 
 do not like this fact ; and no one can safely 
 attempt to foresee all its consequences ; but we 
 can no more prevent it than we can return to 
 hornbooks, or to trial by ordeal, or to the feudal 
 tenure of land, or to any other bygone state of
 
 THE LAST YEARS. 303 
 
 social affairs. More and more it will grow cus- 
 tomary for women to study such subjects as Har- 
 riet Martineau studied ; more commonplace will 
 it constantly become for women to use all their 
 mental faculties, and to exert every one of their 
 powers to the fullest extent in the highest free- 
 dom. What, then, have we to wish about that 
 which is inevitable, except that the old high 
 womanly standard of moral excellence may be 
 no whit lowered, but may simply be carried 
 into the wider sphere of thought and action ? 
 
 It may do much, indeed, for us that we have 
 had such a pioneer as Harriet Martineau. It is 
 not only that she lived so that all worthy people, 
 however differing from her in opinion, respected 
 and honored her though that is much. It is 
 not only that she has settled, once for all, that 
 a woman can be a political thinker and a teacher 
 from whom men may gladly receive guidance 
 though that is much. But the great value of 
 her life to us is as a splendid example of the 
 moral qualities which we should carry into our 
 widest sphere, and which we should display in 
 our public exertions. 
 
 She cared for nothing before the truth ; her 
 efforts to discover it were earnest and sincere, 
 for she spared no pains in study and no labor in 
 thought in the attempt to form her opinions 
 correctly. Having found what she must believe 
 to be a right cause to uphold, or a true word to
 
 304 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 speak, no selfish consideration intruded between 
 her and her duty. She could risk fame, and 
 position, and means of livelihood, when neces- 
 sary, to unselfishly support and promulgate 
 what she believed it to be important for mankind 
 to do and believe. She longed for the well- 
 being of her kind ; and so unaffectedly and 
 honestly that men who came under her influ- 
 ence were stimulated and encouraged by her to 
 share and avow similar high aims. Withal, 
 those who lived with her loved her ; she was a 
 kind mistress, a good friend, and tender to little 
 children ; she was truly helpful to the poor at 
 her gates, and her life was spotlessly pure. 
 
 Is not this what we should all strive to be? 
 Shall we not love knowledge, and use it to find 
 out truth ; and place outspoken fidelity to con- 
 science foremost amongst our duties ; and care 
 for the progress of our race rather than for our 
 own fame ; shall we not be truthful, and honest, 
 and upright and, to this end, brave in pub- 
 lic as in private life ; and shall we not seek so 
 to bear ourselves that men shall shrink from 
 owning their ignobler thoughts and baser shifts 
 to us, but shall never fear to avow high aims and 
 pure deeds, while yet we retain our womanly 
 kindness and all our domestic virtues un- 
 changed ? All this we may know that we can 
 be and do, if we will ; for we have seen it exem- 
 plified in the life of Harriet Martineau.
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
 
 JFamous SEomen Series. 
 
 MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT. 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL. 
 
 One volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price $1.00. 
 
 "So far as it has been published, and it has now reached its ninth volume, the 
 Famous Women Series is rather better on the whole than the English Men of 
 Letters Series. One had but to recall the names and characteristics of some 
 of the women with whom it deals, literary women, like Maria I-.dgeworth, 
 Margaret Fuller, Mary Lamb, Emily Bronte, George Eliot, and George Sand; 
 women of the world (not to mention the other parties in that well-known Scrip- 
 tural firm), like the naughty but fascinating Countess of Albany; and women of 
 philanthropy, of which the only example given here FO far is Mrs. Elizabeth 
 Fry, one has but to compare the intellectual qualities of the majority of English 
 men of letters to perceive that the former are the moist difficult to handle, and 
 that a series of which they are the heroines is, if successful, a remarkable col- 
 lection of biographies. We thought so as we read Miss I'lincl's study of George 
 Sand, and Vernon Lee's study of the Countess of Albany, and we think so now 
 that we have read Mrs. Elizabeth Robins Pennell's study of Mary Wollstone- 
 craft, who, with all her faults, was an honor to her sex. She was not so consid- 
 ered while she lived, except by those who knew her well, nor for years after her 
 death ; but she is so considered now, even by the granddaughters of the good 
 ladies who so bitterly condemned her when the century was new. She was 
 notable for the sacrifices that she made for hei worthless father and her weak, 
 inefficient sisters, for her dogged persistence and untiring industry, and for her 
 independence and her courage. The soul of goodness was in her, though she 
 would be herself and go on her own way ; and if she loved not wisely, according 
 to the world's creed, she loved too well for her own happiness, and paid the 
 penalty of suffering. What she might have been if she had not met Capt. 
 Gilbert Imlay, who was a scoundrel, and William Godwin, who was a philosopher, 
 can only be conjectured. She was a force in literature and in the enfranchise- 
 ment of her sisterhood, and as such was worthy of the remembrance which she 
 will long retain through Mr*. Pennell's able memoir." R H. Stoddard, in tk* 
 Mail and Express. 
 
 Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of 
 price by the publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, 
 
 BOSTON
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers Publications. 
 
 jFamousi SEomen Series. 
 
 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 BY MRS. F. FENWICK MILLER. 
 
 i6mo. Cloth. Price jfii.oo. 
 
 " The almost uniform excellence of the ' Famous Women ' series is well sus- 
 tained in Mrs. Fenwick Miller's life of Harriet Martineau, the latest addition to 
 this little library of biography. Indeed, we are disposed to rank it as the best of 
 the lot. The subject is an entertaining one, and Mrs. Miller has done her work 
 admirably. Miss Martineau was a remarkable woman, in a century that has not 
 been deficient in notable characters. Her native genius, and her perseverance in 
 developing it ; her trials and afflictions, and the determination with which she rose 
 superior to them ; her conscientious adherence to principle, and the important 
 place which her writings hold in the political and educational literature of her day, 
 all combine to make the story of her life one of exceptional interest. . . . With 
 the exception, possibly, of George Eliot, Harriet Martineau was the greatest of 
 English women. She was a poet and a novelist, but not as such did she make 
 good her title to distinction. Much more noteworthy were her achievements in 
 other lines of thought, not usually essayed by women. She was eminent as a 
 political economist, a theologian, a journalist, and a historian. . . . But to attempt 
 a mere outline of her life and works is out of the question in our limited space. 
 Her biography should be read by all in search of entertainment." Professor 
 Woods in Saturday Mirror. 
 
 "The present volume has already shared the fate of several of the recent biog- 
 raphies of the distinguished dead, and has been well advertised by the public con- 
 tradiction of more or less important points in the relation by the living friends of the 
 dead genius. One of Mrs. Miller's chief concerns in writing this life seems to 
 have been to redeem the character of Harriet Martineau from the appearance of 
 hardness and unamiability with which her own autobiography impresses the 
 reader. . . . Mrs. Miller, however, succeeds in this volume in showing us an alto- 
 gether different side to her character, a home-loving, neighborly, bright-natured, 
 tender-hearted, witty, lovable, and altogether womanly woman, as well as the clear 
 thinker, the philosophical reasoner, and comprehensive writer whom we already 
 knew." The Index. 
 
 " Already ten volumes in this library are published ; namely, George Eliot, 
 Emily Bronte, George Sand, Mary Lamb, Margaret Fuller, Maria Edgeworth, 
 Elizabeth Fry, The Countess of Albany, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the present 
 volume. Surely a galaxy of wit and wealth of no mean order ! Miss M. will 
 rank with any of them in womanliness or gifts or grace. At home or abroad, 
 itxpublic or private. She was noble and true, and her life stands confessed a suc- 
 cess. True, she was literary, but she was a home lover and home builder. She 
 never lost the higher aims and ends of life, no matter how flattering her success. 
 This whole series ought to be read by the young ladies of to-day. More of such 
 biography would prove highly beneficial." Troy Telegram. 
 
 Our publications are for sale by all booksellers, or will be 
 mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price. 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. 
 
 Jfamous SEomcn Series. 
 
 RACHEL. 
 
 By Mrs. NINA H. KENNABD. 
 One Volume. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 
 
 " Rachel, by Nina H. Kennard, is an interesting sketch of the famous 
 woman whose passion and genius won for her an almost unrivalled fame as 
 an actress. The story of Rachel's career is of the most brilliant success in 
 art and of the most pathetic failure in character. Her faults, many and 
 grievous, are overlooked in this volume, and the better aspects of her nature 
 and history are recorded." Hartford Courant. 
 
 " The book is well planned, has been carefully constructed, and is 
 pleasantly written." The Critic. 
 
 " The life of Mile, FJisa Rachel Felix has never been adequately told, 
 and the appearance of her biography in the ' Famous Women Series ' of 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers will be welcomed. . . . Vet we must be glad the 
 book is written, and welcome it to a place among the minor biographies ; 
 and because there is nothing else so good, the volume is indispensable to 
 library and study." Boston Evening Traveller. 
 
 "Another life of the great actress Rachel has been written. It forms 
 part of the ' Famous Women Series,' which that firm is now bringing out, 
 and which already includes eleven volumes. Mrs. Kennard deals with her 
 subject much more amiably than one or two of the other biographers Iwe 
 done. She has none of those vindictive feelings which are so obvious in 
 Madame B.'s narrative of the great tragedienne. On the contrary, she 
 wants to be fair, and she probably is as fair as the materials which came into 
 her possession enabled her to be. The endeavor has been made to show us 
 Rachel as she really was, by relying to a great extent upon her letters. . . . 
 A good many stories that we are familiar with are repeated, and some are 
 contradicted. From first to last, however, the sympathy of the author is 
 ardent, whether she recounts the misery of Rachel's childhood, or the splen- 
 did altitude to which she climbed when her name echoed through the world 
 and the great ones of the earth vied in doing her homage. On this account 
 Mrs. Kennard's book is a welcome addition to the pre-existing biographies 
 of one of the greatest actresses the world ever saw." N. Y. Evening 
 Telegram. 
 
 
 
 Sold everywhere. Mailed postpaid, by the Publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
 
 Messrs. Roberts Brothers Publications. 
 
 JFamous 
 
 MADAME ROLAND. 
 
 BY MATHILDE BLIND, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "GEORGE ELIOT'S LIFE." 
 One volume. i6mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. 
 
 "Of all the interesting biographies published in the Famous Women Series, 
 Mathilde Blind's life of Mme. Roland is by far the most fascinating. . . . But 
 no one can read Mme Roland's thrilling story, and no one can study the character 
 of this noble, heroic woman without feeling certain that it is good for the world to 
 have every incident of her life brought again before the public eye. Among the 
 famous women who have been enjoying a new birth through this set of short 
 biographies, no single one has been worthy of the adjective great until we come 
 to Mme. Roland. . . . 
 
 "We see a brilliant intellectual women in Mme. Roland; we see a dutiful 
 daughter and devoted wife ; we see a woman going forth bravely to place her neck 
 under the guillotine, a woman who had been known as the ' Soul of the Giron- 
 dins ; ' and we see a woman struggling with and not being overcome by an intense 
 and passionate love. Has history a more heroic picture to present us with? Is 
 there any woman more deserving of the adjective 'great' ? 
 
 " Mathilde Blind has had rich materials from which to draw for Mme. Roland's 
 biography. She writes graphically, and describes some of the terrible scenes 
 in the French Revolution with great picturesqueness. The writer's sympathy 
 with Mme. Roland and her enthusiasm is very contagious; and we follow her 
 record almost breathlessly, and with intense feeling turn over the last few pages 
 of this little volume. No one can doubt that this life was worth the writing, 
 and even earnest students of the French Revolution will be glad to refresh their 
 memories of Lamartine's ' History of the Girondins,' and again have brought 
 vividly before them the terrible tragedy of Mme. Roland's life and death." 
 Boston Evening Transcript. 
 
 " The thrilling story of Madame Roland's genius, nobility, self-sacrifice, and 
 death loses nothing in its retelling here. The material has been collected and 
 arranged in an unbroken and skilfully narrated sketch, each picturesque or exciting 
 incident being brought out into a strong light. The book is one of the best in an 
 excellent series." Christian Union. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt 
 of price by the publishers, 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.
 
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