Harriet Martineau Part 13

DEAR FRIEND,

I am not writing about poets to-day, nor about any "play" topic, nor anything gay, or pretty, or amusing. I write on business only.

When you heard of Mr. Shepherd's death, you must, I should think, have considered what was to be done in regard to fulfilling the provision of my will about skull and brain. It is to inform you of this that I write.

Mr. Shepherd's a.s.sistant and successor is _Mr. William Moore King_, a young man who is considered very clever, and is certainly very kind, gentlemanly, simple in mind and manners, and married to a charming girl (grand-daughter of Martin, the artist). Jenny has known them for two years, having called on their arrival. I had seen him twice before this last week. I wrote to him the other day, to ask him to give me half an hour for confidential conversation; and he came when I was quite alone for the morning.

I told him the whole matter of the provision in my will, and of Mr. Shepherd's engagement, in case of his surviving me in sufficient vigor to keep his word. Mr. King listened anxiously, made himself master of the arrangement, and distinctly engaged to do what we ask, saying that it was so completely clear between us that we need never speak of it again.

I may add that Mr. King has shown me the letters in which Mrs.

Martineau made the necessary arrangements with him for his task. Mr.

Atkinson was, however, now residing out of England, and not in a position to usefully accept the bequest, so he intimated his desire to be freed from his promise to undertake the examination of his friend's brain. A codicil was added to Harriet Martineau's will, therefore, revoking the provision about this matter.

The next quotation shows how little the long prospect of death had changed her expectations and desires about things supernatural:--

November 19, '72.

I mean to try to do justice to what I think and believe, by avowing the satisfaction I truly feel with my release from selfish superst.i.tion and trumpery self-regards, and with the calm conclusions of my reason about what to desire and expect in the position in which each one of us mysterious human beings finds him or herself. It is all we have to do now (such as you and I), to be satisfied with the conditions of the life we have left behind us, and fearless of the death which lies before us. n.o.body will ever find me craving the "glory and bliss" which the preachers set before us, and pray that we may obtain. Some of them are very good and kind, I know; but they will never create any longing of the sort in me. But why should I scribble on in this way to you? Perhaps because our new Evangelical curate has written me almost the worst and silliest letter of this sort that I ever saw. Enough of him then! But I have left myself no room or strength for other matters this time. I wanted to tell you about the effect--according to my experience--of a second reading of _Adam Bede_, Miss Evans' first great novel. A singular mind is hers, I should think, and truly wonderful in power and scope. Her intellectual power and grace attract and win people of very high intellectual quality.

Miss Jane Martineau was at this time in very delicate health, and, after long fluctuations of hope and fear, was compelled to leave her aunt for the winter and go to a warmer climate. Mrs. Martineau's letters show how cruel was her anxiety for "my precious Jenny," and are filled with expressions of her feelings about the state of her beloved young companion. All this is, of course, too personal for quotation, but a perusal of it amply confirms the accounts of her domestic affection, and the warmth and sensitiveness of her heart.

The loss of her niece from her side ultimately compelled the engagement of a companion, Miss Goodwin, a young lady who became as much attached to Harriet Martineau as did all others who came in close relationship with her in those years.

May 10th, '73.

... The great event to me and my household is, that Caroline--my dear maid and nurse--has seen Jenny.... It was such a pouring out on both sides. It would have almost broken Jenny's heart not to have seen this very dear friend of ours, when only half an hour off. All her longing is to be by my side again. I never discourage this; but I don't believe it can come to pa.s.s....

Everybody is kind and helpful; and our admiration of Miss Goodwin ever increases.

AMBLESIDE, Sept. 7th, '73.

DEAR FRIEND,

I am not ungrateful nor insensible about your treating me with letters, whether I reply or not. You may be sure I _would_ write if I could. But you know I cannot, and why. At times I really indulge in the hope and belief that the end is drawing near, and then again, if I compare the present day with a year ago, it seems as if there was no very great change. I still do not make mistakes--or only in trifling slips of memory common enough at seventy. Still I have no haunting ideas, no delusions, no fears,--except that vague sort of misgiving that occurs when it becomes a fatigue to talk, and to move about, and to plan the duties of the day. Yet aware as I am of the character of the change in me, and confident as I still am of not making a fool of myself till I alter further, I now seldom or never (almost never) feel _quite_ myself. I have told you this often lately; but I feel as if it would not be quite honest to omit saying it while feeling it to be the most prominent experience of my life at this time. It is not always easy to draw the line as to what one should tell in such a case. On the one hand, I desire to avoid all appearance of weak and tiresome complaining of what cannot be helped; and on the other, I do wish not to appear unaware of my failures. I am sure you understand this, and can sympathize in the anxiety about keeping the balance honest. There have been heart-attacks now and then lately, which have caused digitalis and belladonna to be prescribed for me; and this creates a hope that the general bodily condition is declining in good proportion to the brain weakening.... Miss ---- and her naval partner remind me of the pair in the novel that I have read eleven times--Miss Austen's _Persuasion_--unequalled in interest, charm and truth (to my mind). There is a hint there of the drawback of separation; but yet,--who would have desired anything for Anne Elliot and her Captain Wentworth but that they should marry? I am now in the middle of Miss Thackeray's _Old Kensington_--reading it with much keen pleasure, and some satisfaction and surprise.

There are exquisite touches in it; and there is a further disclosure of power, of genuine, substantial, vital power; but her mannerism grows on her deplorably, it seems to me. The amount and the mode of a.n.a.lysis of minds and characters are too far disproportioned to the other elements to be accepted without regret, and, perhaps, some fear for the future. But I have not read half the book yet; and I hope I may have to recall all fault-finding, and to dwell only on the singular value and beauty of the picture-gallery she has given us.

An incident of this year's (1873) story, which must not be overlooked, was an offer of a pension made to Harriet Martineau by Mr. Gladstone. She had written sadly of her own sufferings in a letter to Mrs. Grote, which referred also to Mr. Grote's life, and that lady had published the letter. Mr. Gladstone, in delicate and friendly terms, intimated to Mrs. Martineau that if pecuniary anxiety in any way added to her troubles, he would recommend the Queen to give her one of the literary pensions of the Civil List. She declined it with real grat.i.tude, partly upon the same grounds which had before led her to refuse a similar offer, but with the additional reason now that she would not expose the Queen and the Premier to insult for showing friendliness to "an infidel."

The next letter is mainly domestic, but I am sure that those spoken of by name in it will not object to publication of references in order to show Harriet Martineau in her amiable, considerate household character:--

December 6, 1873.

DEAR FRIEND,

I will not trouble and pain you by a long story about the cares and anxieties which make the last stage of my long life hard to manage and to bear. If I could be quite sure of the end being as near as one would suppose, I could bear my own share quietly enough; but it is a different thing watching a younger life going out prematurely. My beloved Jenny will die, after all, we think, bravely as she has borne up for two years. The terrible East winds again got hold of her before she went (so early as October!) to her winter quarters; and there are sudden and grave symptoms of dropsy. The old dread of the post has returned upon me; and I am amazed to find how I can still suffer from fear. I am quite unfit to live alone--even for a week; yet I mean to venture it, if necessary. Miss Goodwin _shall_ go (to Leeds) for Christmas Day, on which the family have always. .h.i.therto a.s.sembled. I will not prevent their doing so now. My niece Harriet (Higginson) was to come, as usual, for a month's holiday at Christmas; but her mother has lamed herself by a fall, and it must be doubtful whether she can be left. Parents protest the dear girl shall come, but she and I wait to see. There is n.o.body else; for there is illness in all families, or anxiety about illness elsewhere. "Well! we shall be on the other side of it somehow," as people say, and it won't matter much then. My young cook is wanted on Christmas Day to be a bridesmaid, at Nottingham. So I have a real reason for giving up the great Christmas party I have given (in the kitchen) every year till now. It will be costly giving the people handsome dinners in their own homes; but the house will be quiet, and to me the day will be like any other day. It is not now a time for much mirth; the Arnolds meeting at their mother's grave, my Jenny absent, from perilous illness, my brain failing, so that I can do nothing for anybody but by money (and not very much in that way). We are all disposed to keep quiet--wishing the outside world a "Merry Christmas."

April 15th, 1874.

I am reading again that marvellous _Middlemarch_, finding I did not half value it before. It is not a book to issue as a serial.

Yet, read _en suite_, I find it almost more (greater) than I can bear. The Casaubons set me dreaming all night. Do you ever hear _any_-thing of Lewes and Miss Evans?

During the whole of the time over which these letters extend Mrs.

Martineau was subject to fainting fits, in any one of which her life might have ended. It was thus necessary for her to have her maid sleeping in her bed-room. Caroline, the "dear friend and servant" for twenty-one years, died early in 1875. Her place was filled by the younger maid, Mary Anne, whom Caroline had trained. The maid has told me of her mistress's kindness and readiness to be amused; of the gentleness of her manner, and the grat.i.tude which she seemed to feel for all loving tendance. The next letter gives a glimpse of the daily life from the mistress' pen:--

Dec. 8, '75.

East winds have been abundantly bitter; but this house is sheltered from the east and north. We do pity the babes and their mothers in the cottages below; and there is no denying that I am painfully stupefied by such cold as we have; but my _aides_ and my maids are all as well and as happy as if we had the making of the season. It is a daily surprise to me to see how Jenny holds _out_ and on, without any sort of relapse; yet I _cannot_ rise above the anxiety which haunts me in the midst of every night and early morning--dread of hearing that she and Miss Goodwin are ill with the cold which makes _me_ so ill. By six o'clock I can stay in bed no longer. My maid and I (in the same room) turn out of our beds as the clock strikes; she puts a match to the fire, and goes for my special cup of tea (needed after my bad nights), while I brush my hair. I take the tea to the window, and look out for the lights (Fox How usually the first) as they kindle and twinkle throughout the valley--Orion going down behind Loughrigg as day is breaking. Then I get on the bed for half an hour's reading, till the hot water comes up. By that time I am in a panic about my _aides_; but as soon as I am seated at my little table ready for breakfast, in come the dear creatures, as gay as larks, with news how the gla.s.s stands, out-door and in. Out-door (not on the ground) it is somewhere between 32 and 40 at present; and in my room (before the fire has got up), from 50 to 57. So now you know what our present life and climate are like.

After dinner--I must end almost before I have begun! But, have you seen, in any newspaper, the address presented to Carlyle on his 80th birthday? I had no doubt about subscribing, and my name is there. I feel great deference for Ma.s.son, who asked me; and though I do not agree with all the ascriptions of the address, there is enough in which I do heartily agree to enable me to sign; so I send my sovereign with satisfaction. I shall not see the medal, not even a bronze one (you know Carlyle's is gold). My expenses are considerable _at present_ (not always), and I must not spend on such an object. The way in which the thing was done is delicate. Instead of overwhelming the old man with a deputation, the promoters had the packet quietly left at his door. It would set him weeping for his loneliness,--that his long-suffering, faithful wife did not witness this crowning glory. He does love fame (or _did_), and no man would despise such a tribute as this; but I think he will find it oppressive.

What a change since the day when the _Edinburgh Review_ was obliged, as Jeffrey said, to decline articles from Carlyle--much as he wished to aid him--because the readers could not tolerate C.'s writings! And that was after his now famous "Burns" article had appeared, and founded his fame in America!

Did you see that the _Times_ death-list showed, in two days last week, thirty-three deaths of persons over 70, eleven of whom were over 80? The effect of the cold!

... The sick and aged will die off fast this winter. May I be one!

January 25, '76.

DEAR OLD FRIEND,

It is time that you were hearing from us of the marked increase in my illness within the few days since I last reported of matters of mutual interest. I will not trouble you with disagreeable descriptions of ailments which admit of no advantageous treatment. Last week there was, as twice before (and now again twice), a copious hemorrhage from some interior part, by which I am much weakened. The cause is not understood; and what does it matter? I neither know nor much care how it happens that I find myself sinking more rapidly than hitherto. All I know is that I am fully satisfied with my share of the interest and amus.e.m.e.nt of life, and of the value of the knowledge which has come to me by means of the brain, which is worth all the rest of us.

I have not much pain, none very severe, but much discomfort. At times I _see_ very badly, and _hear_ almost nothing; and then I recover more or less of both powers. There is so much cramp in the hands, and elsewhere, that it seems very doubtful whether you and other friends will hear much from me during the (supposed) short time that I shall be living. But I do hope you will let me hear, to the last, of your interests and pursuits, your friendships and companionships, and prospects of increasing wisdom. I cannot write more to-day. Perhaps I may become able another day. My beloved niece Jenny is well; better here than she would be anywhere else, and more happy in her restoration to her home with me than I can describe. I could easily show you how and why my death within a short time may be for the happiness of some whom I love, and who love me; and if it should be the severest trial to this most dear helper of my latter days, I am sure she will bear it wisely and well. It cannot but be the happiest thought in her mind and heart--what a blessing she has been to my old age! What have not _you_ been, dear friend! I must not enter on that now. Jenny observed this morning that old or delicate people live wonderfully long. True! but I hope my term will be short, if I am to continue as ill as at present.

The end was, indeed, approaching; and now, when at the worst of her illness, it so came about that she was asked and consented to do one last piece of writing for publication. Her young companion, Miss Goodwin, had translated Pauli's _Simon de Montfort_, and Mr. Trubner, unaware of course, how ill Mrs. Martineau was, offered to publish the translation on the condition that she would write an introduction.

She would not refuse this favor to Miss Goodwin, and did the work with great difficulty. It was characteristic that she should think it necessary to take the trouble to _read_ the whole MS. before writing her few pages of introduction.

She was now nearing her seventy-fourth birthday; and the strong const.i.tution which had worn through so much pain and labor had almost exhausted its vitality.

Even in these last weeks she could not be idle. Her hands were cramped, her eyes weak, her sensations of fatigue very hard to bear; still, she not only continued her correspondence with one or two of her dearest friends, but also went on with her fancy work. The latter was now of that easiest kind, requiring least effort of eye and thought--knitting. She occupied herself with making cot blankets, in double knitting, for the babies of her young friends; some of them among her poorer neighbors, whom she had known when they were little children themselves and she came first to Ambleside, others among more distant and wealthier couples. She finished one blanket early in the year 1876, for a baby born in Ambleside in the January, and she left a second one unfinished when she died.

Babies were an unfailing delight to her, to the end. Her maids knew that even if she were too ill to see grown-up visitors, a little child was always a welcome guest, for at least a few moments. Her letters to children were altogether charming, and so were her ways with them, and children always loved her with all their wise little hearts. She was a pleasant old lady, even for them to look at. The expression of the countenance became very gentle and motherly, when the strife of working life was laid aside; the eyes were ever kind; and the mouth loved to laugh, sternly and firmly though it could at times be compressed. She wore a large cap of delicate lace, and was dainty about her person, as regarded the fairest cleanliness. Plain in her youth and middle life, she had now grown into a beautiful old age--beauty of the kind which such years can gain from the impress on the features of the high thoughts and elevated emotions of the past, with patience, lovingness, and serenity in the present.

Patient, loving, and serene the last years of Harriet Martineau were.

Those who lived with her knew less than her correspondents of what she suffered; for she felt it a duty to tell the absent what they could not see for themselves of her state; but to her household she spoke but seldom, comparatively, of her painful sensations, leaving the matter to their own observation. She could be absorbed to the last in all that concerned the world and mankind; and she was equally accessible to the smaller and more homely interests of the quiet daily life of her inmates. The incidents which go to show what she was in her domestic circle are but trifling; but what is it that makes the difference between an intolerable and a venerable old age (or youth, for the matter of that, in domestic life) except its conduct about trifles? One who was with her tells of her delight when a basket of newly-fledged ducklings was brought to her bedside, before she was up, on St. Valentine's Day in the year of her death, offering her a doggerel tribute as follows:--

St. Valentine hopes you will not scorn This little gift on St. Valentine's morn.

We'd have come with the chime of last evening's bells, But, alas! we could not break our sh.e.l.ls!

Then another remembers her amus.e.m.e.nt when one of her nephews had just started to go to the coach for London, and the doctor, coming in unannounced, left his hat on the hall table, which the active servant seeing, and jumping to the conclusion that Mr. Martineau (travelling in a felt) had left his high hat behind him, rushed off with it to the coach-office, half a mile away; so that when the doctor wanted to go, his hat was off to the coach; and "the old lady did laugh so."

Only a week or two before her death, she was merry enough to ask her doctor that dreadful punning conundrum about the resemblance between an ice-cream vender, and an hydrophobic patient--the answer turning on the legend "Water ices and ice creams" (water I sees, and I screams)--telling him that it was a _professional_ conundrum. At the same time she was kind enough to repeat to him the compliments which a visitor of hers had been paying his baby. This was the lighter side of the aged woman's life, the more serious aspect of which is shown in some of her letters to Mr. Atkinson. The last of these letters must now be given:--

AMBLESIDE, May 19, 1876.

DEAR FRIEND,

Jenny, and also my sister, have been observing that you ought to be hearing from us, and have offered to write to you. You will see at once what this means; and it is quite true that I have become so much worse lately that we ought to guard against your being surprised, some day soon, by news of my life being closed.

I feel uncertain about how long I _may_ live in my present state.