Harriet Martineau Part 10

The introductory volume of the _History of the Peace_ was published soon after the Atkinson _Letters_. The next work which she undertook 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 groundwork of philosophy and his outline of all the sciences in six bulky volumes, full of repet.i.tions, and written in an imperfect French style. Harriet Martineau rendered the whole substance 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 pa.s.s that Comte's own work fell entirely out of use, and his complete teachings became inaccessible to the French people in their own tongue; so that twenty years afterwards, when one of his disciples wished to call public attention to the master's work as teaching the method of social science by which the French nation must find its way back to prosperity 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 grat.i.tude; 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 500, 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 publication, 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 annually disposed of. It came out in November, 1853, having partly occupied her time during the preceding two years. Only partly, however; for, besides all the efforts for her neighborhood 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 thousand; 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 effectively 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 custom, 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 happened to go into an isolated village at the very time that half its inhabitants were lying stricken down by an epidemic.

"Woodruffe, the Gardener," 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 t.i.tle of "Sketches from Life," was also contributed 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 feelings with which an educated elderly woman, past her work, and with an injured hand, sought refuge in the workhouse; and how she conducted herself there. These stories were republished in a volume in 1856.

A series of descriptive accounts of manufactures, 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.[20] There are some pa.s.sages 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 simplicity 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 ill.u.s.tration of this eloquence of style.

[20] _Health, Husbandry and Handicraft._

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 proposition; 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.[21] The "Letters from Ireland"

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.

[21] 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 const.i.tutional reform; and again, 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.

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 Condition and Prospects of Ireland."

All this journalism was done at the same time that the heavy sustained task of the condensation 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 practice 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 extraordinary. But, besides this, her work was of a high order of literary excellence, and full of intellectual power.

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 impending 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 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 warmest 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 civilization 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 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 outburst had been that of a child's frank merriment. 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 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 deliberateness with which she expressed judgments of persons and p.r.o.nounced 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 "_Ill.u.s.trations_" in the hands of Mr. C. Fox, onwards; and she had now given what was for her means an extravagant contribution to the maintenance of the _Westminster Review_, taking a mortgage on the proprietorship 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 a.s.sistance 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 deserves 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 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. Atkinson'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 disorganized 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 candid 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 sometimes for hours. She received her death sentence then, and began a course of life as trying to the nerves and as searching a test of character as could well be imagined. That trial she bore n.o.bly for twenty-one long suffering years. She was carefully carried home, and at once 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 doc.u.ment. 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 progress 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 autobiography, 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 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 _Autobiography_. Readers of that interesting but misleading 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 immediate 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 portion. She had already given forth, in _Household 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 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 aggressive, 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 writings 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 are 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 letters, of little tracts, awe-inspiring hymns, and manuals of divinity. The letters were controversial, 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 mult.i.tude, whom she could not but know were mentally and morally incapable of judging her, as a sinner, worthy of their pity and reprobation. Knowing that she had long been recognized as a teacher, in advance of the ma.s.s 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 wonder that her wounded self-esteem seemed for a little while to pa.s.s into vanity, when she had to remind the world, from which such insults were pouring in, of all that she had done for its instruction in the past? What wonder that the strength which was summed up to bear with fort.i.tude 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 printing were done gave no time for the subsidence of such painful impressions; and great physical 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 sufferer's whole nature. In short, an autobiography 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 knowledge, the mental faculty which might have supplied its place, nor the literary skill requisite to present a truer picture.

Her _Autobiography_ completed, the plates engraved, and all publishing arrangements 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 uninterruptedly, 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 "leaders" for the _Daily News_. Every week it contained 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 pa.s.sion-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 a.s.sistance 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 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--undertaking to provide by law against personal vices, and certain special social contracts.

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 pamphlet, and had such influence upon a bill then before Parliament that the a.s.sociation 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 Traditions 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 welfare of the United States, and the progress of the anti-slavery cause, seemed to require of her that she should avail herself of every possible means of addressing the public upon it. Then, in 1857, she wrote an article on _The Manifest Destiny of the American Union_, which 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 a.s.sume 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 t.i.tle 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 from day to day; but it may as well be explicitly 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 prescribed for her, and partly the result of the displacement 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 irregular, 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 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 devoted 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 landlady than as a friend to whom to send in every difficulty.

Nor did she cease to do whatever was possible to her in the local public life. The question of Church Rates was approaching a crisis when she was taken ill; and when the Ambleside 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 distraint was not made.

The next article that she contributed to the _Westminster Review_ appeared in the July (1858) number, and, under the t.i.tle 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 October, 1858, there was another long article in the _Westminster_, ent.i.tled _Travel during the Last Half-Century_. She was now, however, 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.