The whole work[46] is very interesting. How could it be otherwise, in
giving the history of so remarkable a life? The amount of literary work
which Miss Martineau performed is amazing. She began to write for the
press when she was nineteen, and continued until she could no longer
hold her pen. The pen was her sword, which she wielded with a warrior's
joy, in the conflict of truth with error, of right with wrong. She
wrote many books; but her articles in reviews and newspapers were
innumerable. We find no attempt in either part of this biography to
give a complete list of her writings. Perhaps it would be impossible.
She never seems to have thought of keeping such a record herself, any
more than a hero records the number of the blows he strikes, in battle.
No sooner had she dismissed one task than another came; and sometimes
several were going on together. Like other voluminous writers, she
enjoyed the exercise of her productive powers; and, as she somewhere
tells us, her happiest hours were those in which she was seated at her
desk with her pen.
Her principal works cover a large range of thought and study. One of
her first books, "The Traditions of Palestine," she continued to regard
long after with more affection than any other of her writings, except
"Eastern Life." But her authorship began when she was nineteen, in an
article contributed to a Unitarian monthly. Afterwards she obtained
three separate prizes offered by the Central Unitarian Association
for three essays on different topics. About the same time she wrote
"Five Years of Youth," a tale which she never looked at afterward. But
her first great step in authorship, and that which at once made her a
power in politics and in literature, was taken when she commenced her
series of tales on "Political Economy." She began, however, to write
these stories, not knowing that she was treating questions of Political
Economy, "the very name of which," she says, "was then either unknown
to me, or conveyed no meaning." She was then about twenty-five years
old. She had the usual difficulties with various publishers which
unknown authors are sure to experience, and these tales, which became
so popular, were rejected by one firm after another. One of them was
refused by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, as being
too dull. The president of that Society, Lord Brougham, afterward
vented his rage on the sub-committee which rejected the offered story,
and so had permitted their Society, "instituted for that very purpose,
to be driven out of the field by a little deaf woman at Norwich."
At last a publisher was found who agreed to take the books on very
unsatisfactory terms. As soon as the first number appeared, the success
of the series was established. A second edition of five thousand copies
was immediately called for,--the entire periodical press came out in
favor of the tales,--and from that hour Miss Martineau had only to
choose what to write, sure that it would at once find a publisher.
She was at this time thirty years old. She was already deaf, her health
poor; but she then began a career of intellectual labor seldom equaled
by the strongest man through the longest life. She began to write every
morning after breakfast; and, unless when traveling, seldom passed a
morning during the rest of her life without writing,--working from
eight o'clock until two. Her method was, after selecting her subject,
to procure all the standard works upon it, and study them. She then
proceeded to make the plan of her work, and to draw the outline of her
story. If the scene was laid abroad, she procured books of travels and
topography. Then she drew up the contents of each chapter in detail,
and, after this preliminary labor, the story was written easily and
with joy.
Of these stories she wrote thirty-four in two years and a half. She
was then thirty-two. She received £2,000 for the whole series,--a
sufficiently small compensation,--but she established her position
and her fame. Her principal books published afterward were her two
works on America, the novels "Deerbrook" and "The Hour and the Man;"
nine volumes of tales on the Forest and Game Laws; four stories in the
"Playfellow;" "Life in the Sick-Room;" "Letters on Mesmerism;" "Eastern
Life, Past and Present;" "History of England during the Thirty Years'
Peace;" "Letters on the Laws of Man's Social Nature and Development;"
"Translation and Condensation of Comte's Positive Philosophy;" besides
many smaller works, making fifty-two titles in Allibone. In addition
to this, she wrote many articles in reviews and magazines; and Mrs.
Chapman mentions that she sent to a single London journal, the "Daily
News," sixteen hundred articles, at the rate sometimes of six a week.
Surely Harriet Martineau was one who worked faithfully while her day
endured.
But, if we would do her justice, we must consider also the motive and
spirit in which she worked. Each thing she did had for its purpose
nothing merely personal, but some good to mankind. Though there was
nothing in her character of the sentimentalism of philanthropy, she was
filled with the spirit of philanthropy. A born reformer, she inherited
from her Huguenot and her Unitarian ancestors the love of truth and the
hatred of error, with the courage which was ready to avow her opinions,
however unpopular. Thus, her work was warfare, and every article or
book which she printed was a blow delivered against some flagrant
wrong, or what she believed such,--in defense of some struggling truth,
or something supposed to be truth. She might be mistaken; but her
purposes through life were, in the main, noble, generous, and good.
And there can be no question of her ability, moral and intellectual.
No commonplace mind could have overcome such obstacles and achieved
such results. Apparently she had no very high opinion of her own
intellectual powers. She denies that she possesses genius; but
she asserts her own power. She criticises "Deerbrook" with some
severity. And, in fact, Harriet Martineau's mind is analytic rather
than creative; it is strong rather than subtle; and, if it possesses
imagination, it is of rather a prosaic kind. Her intellect is of
a curiously masculine order; no other female writer was ever less
feminine. With all her broad humanity she has little sympathy for
individuals. A large majority of those whom she mentions in her memoirs
she treats with a certain contempt.
Her early life seems to have been very sad. We are again and again
told how she was misunderstood and maltreated in her own home. Her
health was bad until she was thirty; partly owing, as she supposed, to
ill-treatment. She needed affection, and was treated with sternness.
Justice she did not receive, nor kindness, and her heart was soured
and her temper spoiled, so she tells us, by this mismanagement. As she
does not specify, or give us the details of this ill-treatment, the
story is useless as a warning; and we hardly see the reason for thus
publishing the wrongs of her childhood. As children may be sometimes
unjust to parents, no less than parents to children, the facts and the
moral are both left uncertain. And, on the whole, her chief reason for
telling the story appears to be the mental necessity she was under of
judging and sentencing those from whom she supposes herself to have
received ill-treatment in any part of her life.
This is indeed the most painful feature of the work before us. Knowing
the essentially generous and just spirit of Harriet Martineau, it is
strange to see how carefully she has loaded this piece of artillery
with explosive and lacerating missiles, to be discharged after her
death among those with whom she had mingled in social intercourse or
literary labors. Some against whom she launches her sarcasms are still
living; some are dead, but have left friends behind, to be wounded
by her caustic judgments. Is it that her deficiency in a woman's
sensibility, or the absence of a poetic imagination, prevented her from
realizing the suffering she would inflict? Or is it the habit of mind
from which those are apt to suffer who devote themselves to the reform
of abuses? As each kind of manual occupation exposes the workman to
some special disease,--as those who dig canals suffer from malaria,
and file-grinders from maladies of the lungs,--so it seems that each
moral occupation has its appropriate moral danger. Clergymen are apt
to be dogmatic or sectarian; lawyers become sharp and sophistical;
musicians and artists are irritable; and the danger of a reformer is of
becoming a censorious critic of those who cannot accept his methods, or
who will not join his party. That Harriet Martineau did not escape this
risk will presently appear.
While writing her politico-economical stories she moved to London,
and there exchanged the quiet seclusion of her Norwich life for
social triumphs of the first order, and intercourse with every kind
of celebrity. All had read her books, from Victoria, who was then a
little girl perusing them with her governess, to foreign kings and
savants of the highest distinction. So this young author--for she was
only thirty--was received at once into the most brilliant circles of
London society. But it does not appear that she lost a single particle
of her dignity or self-possession. Among the great she neither asserted
herself too much nor showed too much deference. Vanity was not her
foible; and her head was too solidly set upon her shoulders to be
turned by such successes. She enjoyed the society of these people of
superior refinement, rank, and culture, but did not come to depend upon
it; and in all this Harriet Martineau sinned not in her spirit.
But why, in writing about these people long afterward, should she have
thought it necessary to produce such sharp and absolute sentences on
each and all? Into this judgment-hall of Osiris-Martineau, every one
whom she has ever known is called up to receive his final doom. The
poor Unitarian ministers, who had taught the child as they best could,
are dismissed with contemptuous severity. This religious instruction
had certainly done her some good. Religion, she admits, was her best
resource till she wrought her way to something better. Ann Turner,
daughter of the Unitarian minister, gave her piety a practical turn,
and when afraid of every one she saw, she was not at all afraid of God;
and, on the whole, she says religion was a great comfort and pleasure
to her. Nevertheless, she is astonished that Unitarians should believe
that they are giving their children a Christian education. She accuses
these teachers of her childhood of altering the Scripture to suit their
own notions; being apparently ignorant that most of the interpolations
or mistranslations of which they complained have since been conceded
as such by the best Orthodox critics. But she does not hesitate to
give her opinion of all her old acquaintances in the frankest manner,
and for the most part it is unfavorable. Mrs. Opie and Mrs. John
Taylor are among the "mere pedants." William Taylor, from want of
truth and conviction, talked blasphemy. She speaks with contempt of a
physician who politely urged her to come and dine with him, because
he had neglected her until she became famous. Lord Brougham was
"vain and selfish, low in morals, and unrestrained in temper." Lord
Campbell was "flattering to an insulting degree;" Archbishop Whately,
"odd and overbearing," "sometimes rude and tiresome," and "singularly
overrated;" Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, "timid," "sensitive,"
"heedless," "without courage or dignity." Macaulay "talked nonsense"
about the copyright bill, and "set at naught every principle of
justice in regard to authors' earnings." Macaulay's opposition to that
bill was based on such grounds of perfect justice that he defeated
it single-handed. But Harriet Martineau decided then and there that
Macaulay was a failure, and that "he wanted heart," and that he "never
has achieved any complete success." The poet Campbell had "a morbid
craving for praise." As to women, Lady Morgan, Lady Davy, Mrs. Jameson,
Mrs. Austin, "may make women blush and men be insolent" with their
"gross and palpable vanities." Landseer was a toady to great people.
Morpeth had "evident weaknesses." Sir Charles Bell showed his ignorance
by relying on the argument for Design. The resources of Eastlake were
very _bornés_. John Sterling "rudely ignored me." Lady Mary Shepherd
was "a pedant." Coleridge, she asserts, will only be remembered as a
warning; though twenty years ago she, Miss Martineau, "regarded him
as a poet." Godwin was "timid." Basil Montagu was "cowardly;" and Lord
Monteagle "agreeable enough to those who were not particular about
sincerity." Urquhart had "insane egotism and ferocious discontent." The
Howitts made "an unintelligible claim to my friendship," their "tempers
are turbulent and unreasonable." It may be some explanation of this
unintelligible claim that it was heard through her trumpet. Fredrika
Bremer is accused of habits of "flattery" and "a want of common sense."
Miss Mitford is praised, but then accused of a "habit of flattery,"
and blamed for her "disparagement of others." And it is Miss Martineau
who brings this charge! She also tells us that Miss Bremer "proposes
to reform the world by a floating religiosity," whatever that may be.
But perhaps her severest sentence is pronounced on the Kembles, who
are accused of "incurable vulgarity" and "unreality." In this case,
as in others, Miss Martineau pronounces this public censure on those
whom she had learned to know in the intimacy of private friendship and
personal confidence. She thus violates the rules rather ostentatiously
laid down in her Introduction. For she claims there that she practices
self-denial in interdicting the publication of her letters,[47] and
gives her reasons thus: "Epistolary conversation is written speech;
and the _onus_ rests with those who publish it to show why the laws of
honor, which are uncontested in regard to conversation, may be violated
when the conversation is written instead of spoken." Most of her sharp
judgments above quoted are pronounced on those whom she learned to
know in the private intercourse of society. Sometimes she recites the
substance of what she heard (or supposed that she heard; for she used
an ear-tube when she first went to live in London). Thus she tells
about a conversation with Wordsworth, and reports his complaints of
Jeffrey and other reviewers, and quotes him as saying about one of his
own poems, that it was "a chain of very _valooable_ thoughts." "You
see, it does not best fulfill the conditions of poetry; but it is"
(solemnly) "a chain of extremely valooable thoughts." She then proceeds
to pronounce her sentence on Wordsworth as she did on Coleridge. She
felt at once, she says, in Wordsworth's works, "the absence of sound,
accurate, weighty thought, and of genuine poetic inspiration." She
also informs us that "the very basis of philosophy is absent in him,"
and that it is only necessary "to open Shelley, Tennyson, or even poor
Keats ... to feel that, with all their truth and all their charm, few
of Wordsworth's pieces are poems." "_Even poor Keats!_" This is her
_de haut en bas_ style of criticism on Wordsworth, one of whose poems
is generally accepted as the finest written in the English language
during the last hundred years. And this is her way of respecting "the
code of honor" in regard to private conversation!
In 1834, at the age of thirty-two, Harriet Martineau sailed for the
United States, where she remained two years. She went for rest; but
the quantity of work done in those two years would have been enough
to fill five or six years of any common life. At this point she began
a new career; forming new ties, engaging in new duties, studying new
problems, and beginning a new activity in another sphere of labor. The
same great qualities which she had hitherto displayed showed themselves
here again; accompanied with their corresponding defects. Her wonderful
power of study enabled her to enter into the very midst of the
phenomena of American life; her noble generosity induced her to throw
herself heart, hand, and mind into the greatest struggle then waging
on the face of the earth. The antislavery question, which the great
majority of people of culture despised or disliked, took possession
of her soul. She became one of the party of Abolitionists, of which
Mr. Garrison was the chief, and lived to see that party triumph in the
downfall of slavery. She took her share of the hatred or the scorn
heaped on that fiery body of zealous propagandists, and was counted
worthy of belonging to what she herself called "the Martyr Age of the
United States."
Fortunately for herself, before she visited Boston, and became
acquainted with the Abolitionists, she went to Washington, and traveled
somewhat extensively in the Southern States. At Washington she saw many
eminent Southern senators, who cordially invited her to visit them at
their homes. In South Carolina she was welcomed or introduced by Mr.
Calhoun, Governor Hayne, and Colonel Preston. Judge Porter took charge
of her in Louisiana. In Kentucky she was the guest of Mrs. Irwin, Henry
Clay's daughter and neighbor. Without fully accepting Mrs. Chapman's
somewhat sweeping assertion that there was no eminent statesman, man
of science, politician, partisan, philanthropist, jurist, professor,
merchant, divine, nor distinguished woman, in the whole land, who did
not pay her homage, there is no doubt that she received the respect
and good-will of many such. She was deeply impressed, she says, on
arriving in the United States, with a society basking in one bright
sunshine of good-will. She thought the New Englanders, perhaps, the
best people in the world. Many well-known names appear in these pages,
as soon becoming intimate acquaintances or friends; among these were
Judge Story, John G. Palfrey, Stephen C. Phillips, the Gilmans of South
Carolina, Mr. and Mrs. Furness of Philadelphia, and in Massachusetts
the Sedgwicks, the Follens, Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Gray Loring, Mr. and
Mrs. Charles G. Loring, Dr. Channing, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ware, Dr.
Flint of Salem, and Ephraim Peabody.
When Miss Martineau had identified herself with Mr. Garrison and his
friends by taking part in their meetings, those who had merely sought
her on account of her position and reputation naturally fell away. But
it may be doubted whether she was in such danger of being mobbed or
murdered as she and her editor suppose. She seems to think that Mr.
Henry Ware did a very brave deed in driving to Mr. Francis Jackson's
house to take her home from an antislavery meeting. She speaks of
the reign of terror which existed in Boston at that time. No doubt
she, and other Abolitionists, had their share of abuse; but it is not
probable that any persons were, as she thought, plotting against her
life. She and her friends were deterred from taking a proposed journey
to Cincinnati and Louisville by being informed that it was intended
to mob her in the first city and to hang her in the second. Now, the
writer of this article was at that time residing in Louisville, and
though antislavery discussions and antislavery lectures had taken
place there about that period, and though antislavery articles not
unfrequently appeared in the city journals, no objection or opposition
was made to all this by anybody in that place. In fact, it was easier
at that time to speak against slavery in Louisville than in Boston. The
leading people in Kentucky of all parties were then openly opposed
to slavery, and declared their hope and purpose of making Kentucky a
free State. A year later, Dr. Channing published his work on slavery,
which was denounced for its abolitionism by the "Boston Statesman," and
sharply criticised in a pamphlet by the Massachusetts attorney-general.
But copious extracts from this work, especially of the parts which
exposed the sophisms of the defenders of slavery, were published in
a Louisville magazine, and not the least objection was made to it in
that city. At a later period it might have been different, though an
antislavery paper was published in Louisville as late as 1845, one of
the editors being a native Kentuckian.
After her return from the United States she published her two works,
"Society in America," and "Retrospect of Western Travel;" and then
wrote her first novel, "Deerbrook." The books on America were perhaps
the best then written by any foreigner except De Tocqueville. They
were generous, honest, kind, and utterly frank,--they were full of
capital descriptions of American scenery. She spoke the truth to us,
and she spoke it in love. The chief fault in these works was her tone
of dogmatism, and her _ex cathedrâ_ judgments; which, as we have before
hinted, are among the defects of her qualities.
In 1838, when thirty-six years old, she was taken with serious illness,
which confined her to her room for six years. She attributes this
illness to her anxiety about her aged aunt and mother. Her mother,
she tells us, was irritable on account of Miss Martineau's fame and
position in society; in short, she was jealous of her daughter's
success. Miss Martineau was obliged to sit up late after midnight to
mend her own clothes, as she was not allowed to have a maid or to hire
a working-woman, even at her own expense. How she could have been
prevented is difficult to see, especially as she was the money-making
member of the family. It seems hardly worth while to give us this
glimpse into domestic difficulties. But, no doubt, she is quite correct
in adding, as another reason for her illness, the toils which were
breaking her down. The strongest men could hardly bear such a strain on
the nervous system without giving way.
And here comes in the important episode of Mr. Atkinson, mesmerism,
and the New Philosophy. She believes that she was cured of a disease,
pronounced incurable by the regular physicians, by mesmerism. By this
she means the influence exerted upon her by certain manipulations
from another person. And as long as we are confessedly so ignorant
of nervous diseases, there seems no reason to question the facts to
which Miss Martineau testifies. She was, there is little doubt, cured
by these manipulations; what the power was which wrought through them
remains to be ascertained.
In regard to Mr. Atkinson and his philosophy, accepted by her with
such satisfaction, and which henceforth became the master-light of
all her seeing, our allotted space will allow us only to speak very
briefly. The results of this new mental departure could not but disturb
and afflict many of her friends, to whom faith in God, Christ, and
immortality was still dear. To Miss Martineau herself, however, her
disbelief in these seemed a happy emancipation. She carried into the
assertion of her new and unpopular ideas the same honesty and courage
she had always shown, and also the same superb dogmatism and contempt
for those who differed from her. Apparently it was always to her an
absolute impossibility to imagine herself wrong when she had once
come to a conclusion. In theory she might conceive it possible to be
mistaken, but practically she felt herself infallible. The following
examples will show how she speaks, throughout her biography, of those
who held the opinions she had rejected.
Miss Martineau, being a Necessarian, says, "All the best minds I know
are Necessarians; all, indeed, who are qualified to discuss the subject
at all." "The very smallest amount of science is enough to enable any
rational being to see that the constitution and action of will are
determined by the influences beyond the control of the possessor of
the faculty." She adds, that for more than thirty years she has seen
how awful "are the evils which arise from that monstrous remnant of
old superstition,--the supposition of a self-determining power, etc."
Now, among those she had intimately known were Dr. Channing and James
Martineau, neither of them believing in the doctrine of Necessity.
Speaking of Christianity, after she had rejected it, she calls it
"a monstrous superstition." Elsewhere she speaks of "the Christian
superstition of the contemptible nature of the body;" says that
"Christians deprave their moral sense;" talks of "the selfish
complacencies of religion," and of "the atmosphere of selfishness which
is the very life of Christian doctrine and of every other theological
scheme;" speaks of "the Christian mythology as a superstition which
fails to make happy, fails to make good, fails to make wise, and
has become as great an obstacle in the way of progress as the prior
mythologies it took the place of." "For three centuries it has been
undermined, and its overthrow completely decided." Thus easily does she
settle the question of Christianity.
Miss Martineau ceased to believe in immortality; and immediately all
believers in immortality became, to her mind, selfish or stupid, or
both. "I neither wish to live longer here," she says, "nor to find
life again elsewhere. It seems to me simply absurd to expect it, and
a mere act of restricted human imagination and morality to conceive
of it." There is "a total absence of evidence for a renewed life."
"I myself utterly disbelieve in a future life." She would submit,
though reluctantly, to live again, if compelled to. "If I find myself
conscious after the lapse of life, it will be all right, of course;
but, as I said, the supposition appears to me absurd."
Under the instructions of Mr. Atkinson, Miss Martineau ceased to
believe in a personal God, or any God but an unknown First Cause,
identical with the Universe. The argument for Design, on which Mr. John
Stuart Mill, for instance, lays such stress, seemed to her "puerile
and unphilosophical." The God of Christians she calls an "invisible
idol." He "who does justice to his own faculties" must give up "the
personality of the First Cause." She considered the religion in her
"Life in the Sick-Room" to have been "insincere;" which we, who know
the perfect honesty of Harriet Martineau, must take the liberty to
deny. Though declaring herself to be no Atheist, because she believes
in an unknown and unknowable First Cause, she regards philosophical
Atheists as the best people she had ever known, and was delighted in
finding herself unacquainted with God, and so at peace.
It is curious to read these "Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and
Development," of which Harriet Martineau and Mr. Atkinson are the joint
authors. The simple joy with which they declare themselves the proud
discoverers of this happy land of the unknowable is almost touching.
All that we know, say they, is matter or its manifestation. "Mind
is the product of the brain," and "the brain is not, as even some
phrenologists have asserted, the instrument of the mind." The brain
is the source of consciousness, will, reason. Man is "a creature of
necessity." "It seems certain that mind, or the conditions essential
to mind, is evolved from gray vesicular matter." "Nothing in nature
indicates a future life." "Knowledge recognizes that nothing can be
free, or by chance; no, not even God,--God is the substance of Law."
Whereupon Miss Martineau inquires whether Mr. Atkinson, in speaking of
God, did not merely use another name for Law. "We know nothing beyond
law, do we?" asks this meek disciple, seeking for information. Mr.
Atkinson replies that we must assume some fundamental principle "as a
thing essential, though unknown; and it is this which I wrongly enough
perhaps termed God." But if it is wrong to call this principle God,
and if they know nothing else behind phenomena, why do they complain
so bitterly at being charged with Atheism? And directly Mr. Atkinson
asserts that "Philosophy finds no God in nature; no personal being or
creator, nor sees the want of any." "A Creator after the likeness of
man" he affirms to be "an impossibility." For, though he professes to
know _nothing_ about God, he somehow contrives to know that God is
_not_ what others believe him to be. Eternal sleep after death he
professes to be the only hope of a wise man. The idea of free-will
is so absurd that it "would make a Democritus fall on his back and
roar with laughter." "Christianity is neither reasonable nor moral."
Miss Martineau responds that "deep and sweet" is her repose in the
conviction that "there is no theory of God, of an author of Nature,
of an origin of the Universe, which is not utterly repugnant to my
faculties; which is not (to my feelings) so irreverent as to make me
blush, so misleading as to make me mourn." And thus do the apostle and
the disciple go on, triumphantly proclaiming their own limitations to
the end of the volume.
And yet the effect of this book is by no means wholly disagreeable. To
be sure, in their constant assertions of the "impossibility" of any
belief but their own being true, their honest narrowness may often be
a little amusing. They seem like two eyeless fish in the recesses of
the darkness of the Mammoth Cave talking to each other of the absurdity
of believing in any sun or upper world. But they are so honest, so
sincere, so much in love with Truth, and so free from any self-seeking,
that we find it easy to sympathize with their naïve sense of discovery,
as they go sounding on their dim and perilous way. Only we cannot
but think what a disappointment it must be to Harriet Martineau to
find herself alive again in the other world. In her case, as Mr.
Wentworth Higginson acutely remarks, we are deprived of the pleasure
of sympathizing with her gladness at discovering her mistake, since
another life will be to her a disagreeable as well as an unforeseen
event.
Nor is it extraordinary, to those who trace Harriet Martineau's
intellectual history, that she should have fallen into these melancholy
conclusions. In her childhood and youth, most of the Unitarians of
England, followers of Priestley, adopted his philosophy of materialism
and necessity. Priestley did not believe in a soul, but trusted for
a future life to the resurrection of the body. He was also a firm
believer in philosophical necessity. An active and logical mind like
Miss Martineau's, destitute of the keenness and profundity which
belonged to that of her brother James, might very naturally arrive at
a disbelief in anything but matter and its phenomena. From ignorance
of these facts, Mrs. Chapman expresses surprise that the inconsistency
of Harriet Martineau's belief in necessity, with other parts of
her Unitarianism, "should not have struck herself, her judges, or
the denomination at large." It _would_ have been inconsistent with
American Unitarianism, but it was not foreign from the views of English
Unitarians at that time.
The publication of these "Letters" naturally caused pain to religious
people, and especially to those of them who had known and honored Miss
Martineau for her many past services in the cause of human freedom and
progress. Many of these were Unitarians and Unitarian ministers, who
had been long proud of her as a member of their denomination and one of
their most valued co-workers. It seemed necessary for them to declare
their dissent from her new views, and this dissent was expressed in an
article in the "Prospective Review," written by her own brother, James
Martineau. Mrs. Chapman now makes known, what has hitherto been only
a matter of conjecture, that this review gave such serious offense
to Miss Martineau that she from that time refused to recognize her
brother or to have any further communication with him. Mrs. Chapman,
who seldom or never finds her heroine in the wrong, justifies and
approves her conduct also here, quoting a passage from the review in
support of Miss Martineau's conduct in treating her brother as one of
"the defamers of old times whom she must never again meet." In this
passage Mr. Martineau only expresses his profound grief that his sister
should sit at the feet of such a master as Mr. Atkinson, and lay down
at his bidding her early faith in moral obligation, in the living God,
in the immortal sanctities. He calls this "an inversion of the natural
order of nobleness," implying that Mr. Atkinson ought to have sat at
her feet instead; and, turning to the review itself, we find this the
only passage in which a single word is said which could be regarded as
a censure on Miss Martineau. But Mr. Atkinson is indeed handled with
some severity. His language is criticised, and his logic is proved
fallacious. Much the largest part of the review is, however, devoted to
a refutation of his philosophy and doctrines. Now, as so large a part
of the "Letters" is pervaded with denunciations of the bigotry which
will not hear the other side of a question, and filled with admiration
of those who prefer truth to the ties of kindred, friendship, and old
association, we should have thought that Miss Martineau would rejoice
in having a brother who could say, "Amica Harriet, sed magis amica
veritas." Not at all. It was evident that he had said nothing about
herself at which she could take offense; but in speaking against
her new philosophy and her new philosopher he had committed the
unpardonable sin. And Mrs. Chapman allows herself to regard it as a
natural inference that this honest and manly review resulted from
"masculine terror, fraternal jealousy of superiority, with a sectarian
and provincial impulse to pull down and crush a world-wide celebrity."
She considers it "incomprehensible in an advocate of free thought" that
he should express his thoughts freely in opposition to a book which
argued against all possible knowledge of God and against all faith in
a future life. It is, however, only just to Miss Martineau to say that
she herself has brought no such charges against her brother, but left
the matter in silence. We cannot but think that it would have been
better for Miss Martineau's reputation if her biographer had followed
her example.
But, though we must object to Mrs. Chapman's views on this point, and
on some others, we must add that her part of the second volume is
prepared with much ability, and is evidently the result of diligent
and loyal friendship. Miss Martineau could not have selected a more
faithful friend to whom to confide the history of her life. On two
subjects, however, we are obliged to dissent from her statements.
One is in regard to Dr. Channing, whom she, for some unknown reason,
systematically disparages. He was a good man, Mrs. Chapman admits,
"but not in any sense a great one. With benevolent intentions, he
could not greatly help the nineteenth century, for he knew very little
about it, or, indeed, of any other. He had neither insight, courage,
nor firmness. In his own Church had sprung up a vigorous opposition to
slavery, which he innocently, in so far as ignorantly, used the little
strength he had to stay." Certainly it is not necessary to defend the
memory of Dr. Channing against such a supercilious judgment as this.
But we might well ask why, if he is not a great man, and did not help
the nineteenth century, his works should continue to be circulated all
over Europe? Why should such men in France as Laboulaye and Rémusat
occupy themselves in translating and diffusing them? Why should
Bunsen class him among the five prophets of the Divine Consciousness
in Human History,--speaking of "his fearless speech," his "unfailing
good sense," and "his grandeur of soul, which makes him a prophet
of the Christianity of the Future"? Bunsen calls him a Greek in his
manly nature, a Roman in his civic qualities, and an apostle in his
Christianity. And was that man deficient in courage or firmness who
never faltered in the support of any opinions, however unpopular,
whether it was to defend Unitarianism in its weak beginnings, to appear
in Faneuil Hall as the leader against the defenders of the Alton mob,
to head the petition for the pardon of Abner Kneeland, and to lay on
the altar of antislavery the fame acquired by past labors? Is he to be
accused of repressing the antislavery movement in his own church, when
there is on record the letter in which he advocated giving the use of
the church building to the society represented by Mrs. Chapman herself;
and when the men of influence in his society refused it? Nor, in those
days of their unpopularity, did Mrs. Chapman and her friends count
Dr. Channing's aid so insignificant. In her article on "The Martyr
Age," Miss Martineau describes the profound impression caused by Dr.
Channing's sudden appearance in the State House to give his countenance
and aid to Garrison and the Abolitionists, in what, she says, was a
matter to them of life and death. And she adds, "He was thenceforth
considered by the world an accession to their principles, though not to
their organized body."
Nor do we quite understand Mrs. Chapman's giving to Miss Martineau
the credit of being the cause of the petition for the pardon of Abner
Kneeland; as his conviction, and the consequent petition, did not take
place until she had been nearly two years out of the country. And why
does Mrs. Chapman select for special contempt, as unfaithful to their
duty to mankind, the Unitarian ministers? Why does she speak of "the
cowardly ranks of American Unitarians" with such peculiar emphasis? It
is not our business here to defend this denomination; but we cannot
but recall the "Protest against American Slavery" prepared and signed
in 1845 by one hundred and seventy-three Unitarian ministers, out of
a body containing not more than two hundred and fifty in all. And it
was this body which furnished to the cause some of its most honored
members. Of those who have belonged to the Unitarian body, we now
recall the names of such persons as Samuel J. May, Samuel May, Josiah
Quincy, John Quincy Adams, John Pierpont, Mr. and Mrs. Ellis Gray
Loring, John G. Palfrey, John P. Hale, Dr. and Mrs. Follen, Theodore
Parker, John Parkman, John T. Sargent, James Russell Lowell, Wm. H.
Furness, Charles Sumner, Caleb Stetson, John A. Andrew, Lydia Maria
Child, Dr. S. G. Howe, Horace Mann, T. W. Higginson. So much for the
"cowardly ranks of American Unitarians."
The last years of Miss Martineau were happy and peaceful. She had a
pleasant home at Ambleside, on Lake Windermere. She had many friends,
was conscious of having done a good work, and if she had no hopes in
the hereafter, neither had she any fears concerning it. She was a
strong, upright, true-hearted woman; one of those who have helped to
vindicate "the right of women to learn the alphabet."