PEN-PORTRAITS OF
LITERARY WOMEN
BY THEMSELVES AND OTHERS
EDITED BY
HELEN GRAY CONE
AND
JEANNETTE L. GILDER
_WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES BY THE FORMER_.
VOL. II.
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED,
739 & 741 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
COPYRIGHT,
1887,
By O. M. DUNHAM.
Press W. L. Mershon & Co.,
Rahway, N. J.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
HARRIET MARTINEAU, 11
AURORE DUDEVANT (GEORGE SANDS), 59
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 93
MARGARET FULLER (OSSOLI), 131
CHARLOTTE BRONTË, }
EMILY BRONTË, } 179
MARIAN EVANS CROSS (GEORGE ELIOT), 245
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
1802-1876.
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
Harriet Martineau was born at Norwich, on the 12th of June, 1802. The
Martineau family were descendants of Huguenot refugees. Harriet’s
father, Thomas Martineau, was a Norwich manufacturer; Elizabeth
Rankin was the maiden name of her mother, who is described as “a true
Northumbrian woman.” Harriet was the sixth child in a family of eight.
Her childhood was sickly, repressed, and unhappy. “My life has had no
spring,” she wrote long afterwards. At eleven years of age she was
sent to the school of a Mr. Perry, who laid a solid foundation for her
education. About two years later Mr. Perry left Norwich, and Harriet’s
education was then carried on at home under visiting masters. At
fourteen she was sent to a Bristol boarding school, where she stayed
fifteen months. After this, her keen appetite for knowledge led her to
carry on her studies at home, despite much discouragement. Like other
young women of that day, she was expected to “spend a frightful amount
of time in sewing,” and at one period could only steal the hours for
intellectual work from her sleep.
She had begun to be deaf at eight years old, and at eighteen had almost
entirely lost the sense of hearing. This was a bitter trial to her. In
1822, when she was twenty, an attachment arose between herself and a
Mr. Worthington, a student for the Unitarian ministry, and the friend
of her brother (afterward Dr. James Martineau). Worthington was poor,
and her family refused to sanction a formal engagement. Three years of
waiting and suspense followed. In June, 1826, Thomas Martineau died.
The financial crisis of the winter of 1825 had left him comparatively
poor, and he could only provide in his will “a bare maintenance” for
his wife and daughters. By this time Mr. Worthington had completed his
studies, and obtained a position; and the Martineau family, under these
altered conditions, permitted Harriet to enter into an engagement with
him. The unfortunate young man, however, was seized with a brain fever,
which left him mentally shattered, and toward the close of the year
1826 he died.
Harriet’s literary career had already begun with certain contributions
to the Monthly Repository, a Unitarian magazine. In 1823 she had
published, anonymously, a small volume of _Devotional Exercises_, and
in 1826 a book of _Addresses, Prayers, and Hymns_. In the comparative
poverty to which she was now reduced, she took up her pen with a will,
but for some time with little result. She supplied anonymous short
stories to a publisher named Houlston, and wrote for him a tale called
_Principle and Practice_, and a sequel thereto. She contributed,
without payment, to the Repository and wrote, on commission, a _Life of
Howard_, for which she never received the remuneration promised.
In June, 1829, the old Norwich house, in which, after their father’s
death, her brother Henry had remained a partner, became bankrupt. As
Mrs. Martineau and her daughters had been dependent on the profits of
the factory for the payment of their small income, they were now left
utterly without support. The other sisters became teachers; Harriet
worked with her needle by day, and wrote by night. She continued her
contributions to the Repository, for a compensation of £15 a year; and
wrote for this periodical a story called _The Hope of the Hebrews_,
which was so highly praised among the Unitarians that Mr. W. J. Fox,
the editor, advised her to publish a volume of such stories. She did
so, and it was moderately successful. She took part in a competition
for three prizes offered by a Unitarian association “for the best
essays designed to convert Roman Catholics, Jews, and Mohammedans,
respectively, to Unitarianism.” She won all three of the prizes, thus
gaining twenty-five guineas, and much honor in the sect. In the same
year, 1830, she wrote the long story, _Five Years of Youth_, and a
volume called _Traditions of Palestine_.
All this work, done with wonderful perseverance, under great
disadvantages, was presented to a limited public only, and has long
since been forgotten. But in the autumn of the year 1831 she conceived
the idea of presenting, in the shape of popular tales, the principles
of political economy. She persisted in this idea, notwithstanding the
steady refusal of the London publishers to have anything to do with the
scheme; she went to London to push the matter personally; and at last
succeeded in making an arrangement, on iron terms, with Mr. Charles
Fox, the brother of the editor of the Repository. To the great surprise
of this gentleman, and the calm satisfaction of the author, the first
numbers of ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY met with immediate and
immense success. The first tale was published in February, 1832, and
Harriet Martineau became famous at once.
In November she came to live in London. She was received as a lion
in society, but abated no jot of her labor, producing every month a
number of from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty pages.
On the completion of her _Illustrations_, two years after her coming to
London, she travelled for two years in America, where she displayed, by
her affiliation with the Abolitionists, no little moral courage. She
returned to England in August, 1836, and turned her recent experiences
to account in writing, during the next six months, a three-volume
work called _Society in America_, for the first edition of which she
received £900. This was followed by her _Retrospect of Western Travel_,
which was sold for £600. She contributed to various magazines; produced
in 1838 a work called _How to Observe in Morals and Manners_, and also
some little books ordered by the Poor-Law Commissioners for a series of
‘Guides to Service.’
She began her novel, _Deerbrook_, in June, 1838, and visited Scotland
in August and September. _Deerbrook_ appeared in the spring. It is
generally considered her weakest work.
At this time Mrs. Martineau, who was becoming blind, Harriet’s
brother, Henry, and an invalid aunt, were all dependent upon Harriet
for support. Her anxiety and over-work led to a serious illness. She
started for a tour of the Continent after publishing _Deerbrook_, but
on reaching Venice, became so ill that she was obliged to return to
England. She was taken, in the autumn of 1839, to Tynemouth, where she
remained for the next five years under the care of her brother-in-law,
a physician named Greenhow. This was a period of great suffering, but
her intellectual activity was not suspended. _The Hour and the Man_,
a historical romance, appeared in November, 1840; and early in 1841,
_The Playfellow_, a series of children’s stories, containing the
famous _Crofton Boys_; in 1843, _Life in the Sick-Room_, published
anonymously, but generally recognized at once; and numerous stories and
articles in aid of various causes. In 1841 she refused, on principle,
Lord Melbourne’s offer of a pension of £150 per annum. In 1843 her
friends presented her with a testimonial of £1,400.
In June of the following year she consented to try mesmeric treatment.
In December she was so much better as to be enabled to leave Tynemouth.
For the next ten years she enjoyed perfect health. With characteristic
enthusiasm, she published the Athenæum, and subsequently in pamphlet
form, six _Letters on Mesmerism_, detailing this wonderful cure. This
open declaration of her faith in mesmerism led to a breach with Mr.
Greenhow.
Miss Martineau now purchased land near Ambleside, and took lodgings in
the village, during the winter of 1845-6, to superintend the building
of a house according to her own plans. Here she wrote her _Forest
and Game Law Tales_. In the spring she took possession of her home,
called “The Knoll.” After writing a story for the young, _The Billow
and the Rock_, she started with some friends for the East, in the
autumn of 1846, returning in October, 1847. Her life at “The Knoll”
was beneficent and busy. She engaged in farming, on a very small
scale, and wrote on the subject a book called _Health, Husbandry and
Handicraft_.
In _Eastern Life, Past and Present_, published in 1848, Miss Martineau
first allowed it to be seen that an important change had taken place in
her opinions on theology. This was in some measure due to the influence
of Mr. Henry G. Atkinson, with whom she became acquainted during her
recovery from her long illness, and who remained her dearest friend
until her death. Her next work was _Household Education_, followed, in
1850, by her important HISTORY OF THE THIRTY YEARS’ PEACE. In January,
1851, appeared _Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development_,
the joint production of herself and Mr. Atkinson. In this book her new
opinions were distinctly stated. The work was received with horror
by the orthodox press. An article on the subject in the Prospective
Review, by Dr. James Martineau, caused a breach between the brother and
sister.
Miss Martineau published soon after an introductory volume to the
HISTORY OF THE PEACE. In November, 1853, appeared her translation of
Comte’s ‘Positive Philosophy.’ At this time she contributed frequently
to periodicals. In the autumn of 1852 she visited Ireland, writing
while there a series of letters to the Daily News, which were reprinted
in a volume at the end of the year. In 1854 she prepared a _Complete
Guide to the Lakes_.
Toward the end of this year her health failed. Early in 1855 it was
the verdict of her physicians that she was suffering from enlargement
and enfeeblement of the heart, and that her life would probably not be
long. Under this impression her AUTOBIOGRAPHY was rapidly written. She
never left Ambleside again; but, contrary to expectation, lived on for
twenty-one years. She continued to write leaders for the Daily News--to
which she is said to have contributed in all over sixteen hundred
political articles--and papers and pamphlets on various subjects of
public interest. A volume of _Sketches from Life_ was issued in 1856,
and in 1859 appeared _England and Her Soldiers_, written in aid of the
army work of Florence Nightingale.
In 1868 a number of _Biographical Sketches_, originally published in
the Daily News, were collected in a volume. Before this time she had
been obliged, by increasing illness, to lay aside her literary work.
She had suffered a severe blow, in 1864, in the death of her niece,
Maria, her faithful companion and nurse. Another niece, Jane, undertook
to fill the vacant place. Miss, or rather _Mrs._ Martineau, as she
preferred to be called in her later years, was calm and cheerful to the
last. She died on the 27th of June, 1876. A tumor of slow growth was
found to have been the real cause of death.
Probably no one ever lived of whom more varied opinions were
entertained. One saw her as harsh, dry, and egotistical; another
as tender, full of humor, self-sacrificing, carried away by noble
enthusiasms. Wit had its fling at this singular figure. Hartley
Coleridge said of her, aptly, that she was “a monomaniac about _every_
thing.” “After all, she is a trump!” exclaims George Eliot. It is
sufficiently certain that she was Quixotic, in a noble sense, and
disinterested. In need, she refused a pension; she vaunted rather than
suppressed unpopular opinions; a descendant of the Huguenots, and
herself without religion, she gallantly broke a lance with Charlotte
Brontë for the Roman Catholics; and he must be prejudiced indeed
who could refuse the tribute of admiration to her dogged, steady,
soldier-like determination.
“Hail to the steadfast soul,
Which, unflinching and keen,
Wrought to erase from its depth
Mist and illusion and fear!
Hail to the spirit which dared
Trust its own thoughts, before yet
Echoed her back by the crowd!
Hail to the courage which gave
Voice to its creed, ere the creed
Won consecration from time!”[1]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Repressed and morbid childhood.]
Never was poor mortal cursed with a more beggarly nervous system. The
long hours of indigestion by day and nightmare terrors are mournful
to think of now.... Sometimes the dim light of the windows, in the
night, seemed to advance till it pressed upon my eyeballs, and then
the windows would seem to recede to an infinite distance. If I laid
my hand under my head on the pillow, the hand seemed to vanish almost
to a point, while the head grew as big as a mountain. Sometimes I was
panic-struck at the head of the stairs, and was sure I could never get
down; and I could never cross the yard to the garden without flying
and panting, and fearing to look behind, because a wild beast was
after me. The starlight sky was the worst; it was always coming down,
to stifle and crush me, and rest upon my head. I do not remember any
dread of thieves or ghosts in particular; but things as I actually saw
them were dreadful to me; and it now appears to me that I had scarcely
any respite from the terror. My fear of persons was as great as any
other.... Our house was in a narrow street; and all its windows, except
two or three at the back, looked eastwards. It had no sun in the front
rooms, except before breakfast in summer. One summer morning I went
into the drawing-room, which was not much used in those days, and saw
a sight which made me hide my face in a chair, and scream with terror.
The drops of the lustres on the mantel-piece, on which the sun was
shining, were somehow set in motion, and the prismatic colors danced
vehemently on the walls. I thought they were alive--imps of some sort;
and I never dared go into that room alone in the morning, from that
time forward. I am afraid I must own that my heart has beat, all my
life long, at the dancing of prismatic colors on the wall.
It is evident enough that my temper must have been very bad. It seems
to me now that it was downright devilish, except for a placability
which used to annoy me sadly. My temper might have been early made a
thoroughly good one, by the slightest indulgence shown to my natural
affections, and any rational dealing with my faults; but I was almost
the youngest of a large family, and subject, not only to the rule
of severity to which all were liable, but also to the rough and
contemptuous treatment of the elder children, who meant no harm, but
injured me irreparably. I had no self-respect, and an unbounded need
of approbation and affection. My capacity for jealousy was something
frightful.... I tried for a long course of years--I should think from
about eight to fourteen--to pass a single day without crying. I was a
persevering child; and I know I tried hard, but I failed.
HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
1877.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Spartan training.]
The first words of encouragement she ever received, came to her in the
guise of severity. She was suffering from a fly having got into her
eye. “Harriet,” said the mother, firmly grasping her for the operation,
“I know that you have resolution, and you must stand still till I get
it out.” Thus conjured, the startled, nervous little creature never
stirred till the obstruction was removed. And was she, the trembling
little one, “with cheeks pale as clay,” “flat white forehead, over
which the hair grew low,” “eyes hollow,--eyes light, large, and full,
generally red with crying,--a thoroughly scared face,”--was _she_,
then, _resolute_? She ran to the great gateway, near the street, and
beckoned to a playmate, to tell her what her mother had said. “Is
_that_ all you have made me come to hear?” It was the first encouraging
word she had ever heard, and she could find no one with whom to share
the new joy. Till now she had never thought herself worth anything
whatever.
MARIA WESTON CHAPMAN: ‘Memorials of Harriet Martineau.’
(‘Autobiography,’ _vol. ii._)
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Early religious feeling.]
Intensely religious I certainly was from a very early age. The
religion was of a bad sort enough, as might be expected from the
urgency of my needs; but I doubt whether I could have got through
without it. I pampered my vain-glorious propensities by dreams of
divine favor, to make up for my utter deficiency of self-respect;
and I got rid of otherwise incessant remorse by a most convenient
confession and repentance, which relieved my nerves without at all, I
suspect, improving my conduct.... While I was afraid of everybody I
saw, I was not in the least afraid of God.... The Sundays began to be
marked days, and pleasantly marked, on the whole. I do not know why
crocuses were particularly associated with Sunday at that time, but
probably my mother might have walked in the garden with us some early
spring Sunday. My idea of heaven was of a place gay with yellow and
lilac crocuses. My love of gay colors was very strong.... The Octagon
Chapel at Norwich [Unitarian], has some curious windows in the roof;
not skylights, but letting in light indirectly. I used to sit staring
up at those windows, and looking for angels to come for me and take
me to heaven, in sight of all the congregation,--the end of the world
being sure to happen while we were at chapel. I was thinking of this,
and of the hymns, the whole of the time, it now seems to me. It was
very shocking to me that I could not pray at chapel. I believe that I
never did in my life. I prayed abundantly when I was alone, but it was
impossible to do it in any other way, and the hypocrisy of appearing to
do so was a long and sore trouble to me.
[Sidenote: Finds Milton at seven.]
[Sidenote: Shakespeare at thirteen.]
When I was seven years old, ... I was kept from chapel one Sunday
afternoon by some ailment or other. When the house door closed
behind the chapel-goers I looked at the books on the table. The
ugliest-looking of them was turned down open, and my turning it up
was one of the leading incidents of my life. That plain, clumsy,
calf-bound volume was ‘Paradise Lost,’ and the common bluish paper,
with its old-fashioned type, became as a scroll out of heaven to me.
The first thing I saw was “Argument,” which I took to mean a dispute,
and supposed to be stupid enough, but there was something about Satan
cleaving Chaos which made me turn to the poetry; and my mental destiny
was fixed for the next seven years. That volume was henceforth never to
be found but by asking me for it, till a young acquaintance made me a
present of a little Milton of my own. In a few months, I believe, there
was hardly a line in ‘Paradise Lost’ that I could not have instantly
turned to. I sent myself to sleep by repeating it; and when my curtains
were drawn back in the morning, descriptions of heavenly light rushed
into my memory. I think this must have been my first experience of
moral relief through intellectual resource. I am sure I must have been
somewhat happier from that time forward.... My beloved hour of the
day was when the cloth was drawn, and I stole away from the dessert
and read Shakespeare by firelight, in winter, in the drawing-room. My
mother was kind enough to allow this breach of good family manners;
and again, at a subsequent time, when I took to newspaper reading
very heartily. I have often thanked her for this forbearance since.
Our newspaper was the _Globe_, in its best days, when, without
ever mentioning Political Economy, it taught it, and viewed public
affairs in its light.... I was all the while becoming a political
economist without knowing it, and, at the same time, a sort of walking
concordance of Milton and Shakespeare.
[Sidenote: Political Economy at fifteen.]
HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Deafness.]
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 womanhood.
MRS. FENWICK MILLER: ‘Harriet Martineau.’ (Famous Women Series.)
Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1885.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Lack of the sense of taste.]
She had no sense of taste whatever. “Once,” she told me, when I was
expressing my pity for this deprivation of hers, “I tasted a leg of
mutton, and it was delicious. I was going out, as it happened, that
day, to dine, and, I am ashamed to say, that I looked forward to the
pleasures of the table with considerable eagerness; but nothing came
of it--the gift was withdrawn as suddenly as it came.” The sense of
smell was also denied her, as it was to Wordsworth; in his case, too,
curiously enough, it was vouchsafed to him, she told me, upon one
occasion only. “He once smelled a bean-field and thought it heaven.”
JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’ New York: Harper & Bros.,
1884.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Practical education.]
“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.
MRS. FENWICK MILLER: ‘Harriet Martineau.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Happy result of family loss of income.]
In a very short time, my two sisters at home and I began to feel the
blessing of a wholly new freedom. I, who had been obliged to write
before breakfast, or in some private way, had henceforth liberty to
do my own work in my own way; for we had lost our gentility. Many
and many a time since have we said that, but for that loss of money,
we might have lived on in the ordinary provincial method of ladies
with small means, sewing and economizing, and growing narrower every
year; whereas, by being thrown, while it was yet time, on our own
resources, we have worked hard and usefully, won friends, reputation
and independence, seen the world abundantly, abroad and at home, and,
in short, have truly lived instead of vegetated.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Manner of life during period immediately following.]
Every night that winter, 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 exhaustion 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 I was 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 overcome my obstructions, and force my way to
that power of public speech of which I believed myself more or less
worthy.
HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Discouragement in regard to Political Economy Tales.]
[Sidenote: Her singular resolution.]
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. 1 were sold in the first fortnight!...
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. e._, to a house attached
to Whitbread’s establishment, where she was a guest]. “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, pretending to look at a cabbage-bed, but saying to myself,
as I stood with closed eyes, ‘My book will do yet.’” That very night
she wrote the long, thoughtful, 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 person supposes 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.
MRS. FENWICK MILLER: ‘Harriet Martineau.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Calm reception of her success.]
To the best of my recollection, I waited ten days from the day of
publication, before I had another line from the publisher. My mother,
judging from his ill-humor, inferred that he had good news to tell:
whereas I supposed the contrary. My mother was right; and I could now
be amused at his last attempts to be discouraging, in the midst of
splendid success. At the end of those ten days, he sent with his letter
a copy of my first number, desiring me to make, with all speed, any
corrections I might wish to make, as he had scarcely any copies left.
He added that the demand led him to propose that we should now print
two thousand. A postscript informed me that since he wrote the above,
he had found that we should want three thousand. A second postscript
proposed four thousand, and a third, five thousand. The letter was
worth having, now it had come. There was immense relief in this; but I
remember nothing like intoxication--like any painful reaction whatever.
I remember walking up and down the grass-plot in the garden (I think it
was on the tenth of February), feeling that my cares were over. And so
they were. I think I may date my release from pecuniary care from that
tenth of February, 1832.
HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Manner of life in London.]
Her course in London was as follows: 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 immense 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
and 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
returning 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.
MRS. FENWICK MILLER: ‘Harriet Martineau.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Carlyle’s first impression of her.]
Two or three days ago ... there came to call on us a Miss Martineau,
whom you have, perhaps, often heard of in the _Examiner_. A hideous
portrait was given of her in _Fraser_ one month.[2] She is a notable
literary woman of her day; has been travelling in America these two
years, and is now come home to write a book about it. She pleased us
far beyond expectation. She is very intelligent-looking, really of
pleasant countenance; was full of talk, though, unhappily, deaf almost
as a post, so that you have to speak to her through an ear-trumpet.
She must be some five-and-thirty. As she professes very “favorable
sentiments” towards this side of the street, I mean to cultivate her a
little.
THOMAS CARLYLE: _Letter to his mother_. ‘Thomas Carlyle: A History of
His Life in London,’ by James Anthony Froude, M. A. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1884.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Personal appearance.]
How well I remember the first sight of her, so long ago! We first
saw her at church--Dr. Channing’s. It was a presence one did not
speedily tire of looking on--most attractive and impressive; yet the
features were plain, and only saved from seeming heavily moulded by
her thinness. She was rather taller and more strongly made than most
American ladies. Her complexion was neither fair nor sallow, nor yet of
the pale, intellectual tone that is thought to belong to authorship.
It was the hue of one severely tasked, but not with literary work.
She had rich, brown, abundant hair, folded away in shining waves
from the middle of a forehead totally unlike the flat one described
by those who knew her as a child. It was now low over the eyes, like
the Greek brows, and embossed rather than graven by the workings of
thought. The eyes themselves were light and full, of a grayish greenish
blue, varying in color with the time of day, or with the eye of the
beholder--_les yeux pers_ of the old French romance writers. They were
steadily and quietly alert, as if constantly seeing something where
another would have found nothing to notice. Her habitual expression
was one of serene and self-sufficing dignity--the look of perfect and
benevolent repose that comes to them whose long, unselfish struggle to
wring its best from life has been crowned with complete victory. You
might walk the livelong day, in any city streets, and not meet such a
face of simple, cheerful strength, with so much light and sweetness in
its play of feature.
MARIA WESTON CHAPMAN: ‘Memorials of Harriet Martineau.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Her best portrait described.]
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 remarkable degree. The most
noticeable peculiarity of the face is found in a slight projection of
the lower 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 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 texture--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.
MRS. FENWICK MILLER: ‘Harriet Martineau.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: “A strange phenomenon.”]
Miss Martineau’s Book on America is out.... I have read it for the
good authoress’s sake, whom I love much. She is one of the strangest
phenomena to me. A genuine little poetess, buckramed, swathed like a
mummy into Socinian and Political Economy formulas; and yet verily
alive in the inside of that! “God has given a Prophet to every People
in its own speech,” say the Arabs. Even the English Unitarians were one
day to have their poet, and the best that could be said for them, too,
was to be said. I admire this good lady’s integrity, sincerity; her
quick, sharp discernment to the depth it goes: her love also is great;
nay, in fact it is too great: the host of illustrious obscure mortals
whom she produces on you, of Preachers, Pamphleteers, Antislavers, Able
Editors, and other Atlases bearing (unknown to us), the world on their
shoulder, is absolutely more than enough.
THOMAS CARLYLE: _Letter to Emerson_, June, 1837. ‘Correspondence of T.
Carlyle and R. W. Emerson.’ Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1883.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Her admiration of Carlyle.]
You cannot fancy what way he (Carlyle), is making with the fair
intellects here! There is Harriet Martineau presents him with her
ear-trumpet, with a pretty, blushing air of coquetry, which would
almost convince me out of belief in her identity!
JANE W. CARLYLE: _Letter to John Sterling_. ‘Letters and Memorials
of Jane Welsh,’ edited by James Anthony Froude. New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1883.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Her conversation.]
She is the most continual talker I ever heard; it is really like the
babbling of a brook, and very lively and sensible, too; and all the
while she talks she moves the bowl of her ear-trumpet from one auditor
to another, so that it becomes quite an organ of intelligence and
sympathy between her and yourself. The ear-trumpet seems a sensible
part of her, like the antennæ of some insects. If you have any little
remark to make, you drop it in; and she helps you to make remarks by
this delicate little appeal of the trumpet, as she slightly directs it
towards you; and if you have nothing to say, the appeal is not strong
enough to embarrass you.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: ‘Passages from the English Note-Books.’ Boston:
James R. Osgood & Co., 1873.
* * * * *
He [Southey] was speaking of Miss Martineau patiently, but without
respect, describing her as “talking more glibly than any woman he had
ever seen, and with such a notion of her own infallibility.”
HENRY F. CHORLEY: ‘Autobiography, Memoir, and Letters.’ London: 1873.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Pertinent anecdote of Sydney Smith.]
When he was so ill that all his friends were full of anxiety about him,
M---- having called to see him, and affectionately asking what sort of
night he had passed, Sydney Smith replied, “Oh, horrid, horrid, my dear
fellow! I dreamt I was chained to a rock and being talked to death by
Harriet Martineau and Macaulay.”
FRANCES ANN KEMBLE: ‘Records of Later Life.’ New York: Henry Holt &
Co., 1882.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Mr. Payn’s account of her conversation and character.]
The author of the ‘Vestiges of Creation’ said to me once, in his
dry, humorous way, “Your friend, Miss Martineau, has been giving me
the address in town where she gets _all her ear-trumpets_. Why, good
heavens! what does she want of them? Does she mean to say that she ever
wore one ear-trumpet out in all her life in listening to what anybody
had to say?”
She was, no doubt, masterful in argument (which is probably all that
he meant to imply), but I always found her very ready to listen, and
especially to any tale of woe or hardship which it lay in her power
to remedy. Her conversation, indeed, was by no means monologue, and
rarely have I known a social companion more bright and cheery; but her
talk, when not engaged in argument, was, which is unusual in a woman,
very anecdotal. She had known more interesting and eminent persons than
most men, and certainly than any woman, of her time; the immense range
of her writings--political, religious, and social--had caused her to
make acquaintances with people of the most different opinions, and of
all ranks, while among the large circle of her personal acquaintance
her motherly qualities, her gentleness, and (on delicate domestic
questions), her good judgment, made her the confidante of many persons,
especially young people; which enlarged her knowledge of human life to
an extraordinary degree. I never knew a woman whose nature was more
essentially womanly than that of Harriet Martineau, or one who was more
misunderstood in that respect by the world at large.
JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Recollections of her long illness at Tynemouth.]
On the sofa where I stretched myself, after my drive to Tynemouth,
on the sixteenth of March, 1840, I lay for nearly five years, till
obedience to a newly-discovered law of nature raised me up and sent
me forth into the world again, for another ten years of strenuous
work, and almost undisturbed peace and enjoyment of mind and heart....
During the whole of my illness, comforts and pleasures were lavishly
supplied to me. Sydney Smith said that everybody who sent me game,
fruit, and flowers, was sure of heaven, provided always that they
punctually paid the dues of the Church of England. If so, many of my
friends are safe. Among other memorials of that time, which are still
preserved and prized, are drawings sent me by the Miss Nightingales,
and an envelope-case (in daily use), from the hands of the immortal
Florence. I was one of the sick to whom she first ministered, and it
happened through my friendship with some of her family.... I did not
think I could have wished so much for anything as I wished to see
foliage. I had not seen a tree for above five years, except a scrubby
little affair that stood above the haven at Tynemouth. An old friend
sent me charming colored sketches of old trees in Sherwood Forest, and
an artist who was an entire stranger to me, Mr. McIan, stayed away
from a day’s excursion, at a friend’s house in the country, to paint
me a breezy tree. For months the breezy tree was pinned up on the wall
before me, sending many a breeze through my mind.... During many a
summer evening, while I lay on my window-couch, and my guest of the day
sat beside me, overlooking the purple sea, or watching for the moon to
rise up from it, like a planet growing into a sun, things were said,
high and deep, which are fixed into my memory now, like stars in a dark
firmament. Now a philosopher, now a poet, now a moralist, opened to me
speculation, vision or conviction.
HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Correspondence with Elizabeth Barrett.]
I have had a great pleasure, lately, in some correspondence with Miss
Martineau, the noblest female intelligence between the seas,--“as sweet
as spring, as ocean deep.” She is in a hopeless anguish of body, and
serene triumph of spirit, with at once no hope and all hope.
ELIZABETH BARRETT: _Letter to R. H. Horne._ ‘Letters of Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, addressed to Richard Hengist Horne.’ New York: James
Miller, 1877.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Prompt relief by mesmerism.]
Within one minute, the twilight and phosphoric 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 sickness during the seance, nor any disorder afterwards.
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.
HARRIET MARTINEAU: _Letters on Mesmerism_, quoted by Mrs. Fenwick
Miller in her ‘Harriet Martineau.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Subsequent good health.]
Saw a brown-faced looking woman watching for the coach--thought I
knew the face--looked out of window--it was Miss Martineau.... Walked
with her to her newly built, or building house, a most commodious,
beautifully-situated and desirable residence in all respects. I could
not but look with wonder at the brown hue of health upon her face, and
see her firm and almost manly stride as she walked along with me to Fox
How, Dr. Arnold’s place.
W. C. MACREADY: _Diary_, 1846. ‘Macready’s Reminiscences and Selections
from his Diaries and Letters,’ edited by Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart.
New York: Macmillan & Co., 1875.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Carlyle’s later impression.]
Miss Martineau was here and is gone--to Norwich, after which to
Egypt--broken into utter weariness, a mind reduced to these three
elements: imbecility, dogmatism, and unlimited hope. I never in my life
was more heartily bored by any creature.
THOMAS CARLYLE: _Letter_ in ‘Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in
London.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Change of opinions harshly stated.]
On Wednesday, Mr. Henry Bright came over to dine. He visited Miss
Martineau, at Ambleside, and found her very entertaining, and in a
very singular state of doctrine--for she now professes to believe
and declare that there is no God and no future life! He says it is
wholly impossible to argue with her, because she is so opinionative
and dogmatical, and has such a peculiar advantage in putting down
her ear-trumpet when she does not choose to hear any reply to her
assertions. She has been making some beautiful designs for the windows
of her brother’s church, in Liverpool, which are accepted and to be
painted thereupon; but she is at enmity with her brother, and has no
intercourse with him.
MRS. HAWTHORNE: _Letter to her Father._
* * * * *
Among the drawbacks of this wretched weather is that I have not yet
been able to get to Ambleside to see Miss Martineau. When she has
dined with us, or been at all to Liverpool, I have always missed her
by being at Cambridge; and I own myself a little curious to hear from
her, _viva voce_, some of her experiences. Her latest “craze” (to use
a word of DeQuincey’s), is the establishment of a shop in London for
the sale of--in plain English--infidel literature. She complained most
bitterly, the other day, to my brother-in-law, that whenever her book
on ‘Man’s Nature and Development’ is inquired for, the shopman pulls
it stealthily out from under the counter, as if ashamed of selling it,
and fearful lest some bystander be scandalized. So that there’s to be a
shop in a central situation, full of Miss Martineau and August Comte,
and Froude, who wrote the ‘Nemesis of Faith’; and Frank Newman, who
wrote ‘Phases of Faith,’ and (as Clough said), the world is to receive
the unbiassed truth: “That there’s no God, and Harriet is his Prophet.”
HENRY BRIGHT: _Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne_. ‘Nathaniel Hawthorne and
his Wife: a Biography,’ by Julian Hawthorne. Boston: James R. Osgood &
Co., 1885.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Stated by herself.]
I have no objection to words, when, as you do, people understand
things; but I am not an atheist, according to the settled meaning of
the term. An atheist is “one who rests in second causes,” who supposes
things that he knows to be made or occasioned by other things that he
knows. This seems to me complete nonsense; and this Bacon condemns as
the stupidity of atheism. I cannot conceive the absence of a First
Cause; but then, I contend, that it is not a person; _i. e._, that it
is to the last degree improbable, and that there is no evidence of its
being so. Now, though the superficial, ignorant and prejudiced will not
see this distinction, you will; and it will be clear to you what scope
is left for awe and reverence under my faith.
HARRIET MARTINEAU: _Letter to Charlotte Brontë_, in ‘Memorials of
Harriet Martineau,’ by Maria Weston Chapman.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Florence Nightingale’s testimony to Martineau’s religious
feeling.]
I think, contradictory as it may seem, she had the truest and deepest
religious feeling I have ever known.... To the last, her religious
feeling--in the sense of good working out of evil, of a Supreme Wisdom
penetrating and moulding the whole universe; the natural subordination
of intellect to purposes of good, even were these merely the small
purposes of social or domestic life;--all this, which supposes
something without ourselves, higher, and deeper, and better than
ourselves, and more permanent, that is, eternal, was so strong in
her--so strong that one could scarcely explain her (apparently only)
losing sight of that Supreme Wisdom and Goodness in her later years.
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE: _Letter to Maria Weston Chapman_, published in
the latter’s ‘Memorials of Harriet Martineau.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: “The Lady Oracle.”]
Her form and features were repellent; she was the Lady Oracle in all
things, and from her throne, the sofa, pronounced verdicts from which
there was no appeal. Hers was a hard nature: it had neither geniality,
indulgence nor mercy. Always a physical sufferer, so deaf that a
trumpet was constantly at her ear; plain of person--a drawback of
which she could not have been unconscious--and awkward of form; she
was entirely without the gifts that attract man to woman: even her
friendships seem to have been cut out of stone; she may have excited
admiration, indeed, but from the affections that render woman only a
little lower than the angels she was entirely estranged.
S. C. HALL: ‘Retrospect of a Long Life.’ New York: D. Appleton & Co.,
1883.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Hawthorne’s account of Miss Martineau, 1854.]
I saw Miss Martineau a few weeks since. She is a large, robust, elderly
woman, and plainly dressed, but withal, she has so kind, cheerful
and intelligent a face that she is pleasanter to look at than most
beauties. Her hair is of a decided gray, and she does not shrink from
calling herself old.... All her talk was about herself and her affairs;
but it did not seem like egotism, because it was so cheerful and free
from morbidness. And this woman is an Atheist; and thinks that the
principle of life will become extinct when her body is laid in the
grave! I will not think so, were it only for her own sake. What! only a
few weeds to spring out of her mortality, instead of her intellect and
sympathies flowering and fruiting forever!
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: ‘Passages from the English Note-Books.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Her home, “The Knoll.”]
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-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!”