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.
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 purposesof 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.’
“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.
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.’
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 centreof these is a gray granite sun-dial, with the characteristic motto around it: “Come Light! Visit me!”
... Within, “The Knoll” is just a nice little residence for a maiden lady, with her small household, and room for an occasional guest.... The drawing-room has two large windows, one of which descends quite to the floor, and is provided with two or three stone steps outside, so that the inmates may readily step forth on to the terrace. Hunters of celebrities were wont, in the tourist season, not merely to walk round her garden and terrace without leave, but even to mount the steps and flatten the tips of their noses against her window. Objectionable as the liability to this friendly attention would be felt by most of us, it was doubly so to Miss Martineau because of her deafness, which precluded her from receiving warning of her admirers’ approaches by the crunching of their footsteps on the gravel, so that the first intimation she would receive of their presence would be to turn her head by chance and find the flattened nose and the peering eyes against the window-pane.
Her principles and her practice went hand-in-hand in her domestic arrangements, as in her life generally; and her kitchen was as airy, light and comfortable for her maids as her drawing-room was for herself. The kitchen, too, was provided with a bookcase for a servants’ library. There lingers no small interest about the guest-chamber, where Harriet Martineau received such guests as Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Emerson, and Douglas Jerrold.... Climbing plants soon covered “The Knoll” on every side. The ivy kept it green through all the year; the porch was embowered in honeysuckle, clematis, passion-flowerand Virginia creeper. Wordsworth, Macready, and other friends of note planted trees for Harriet below the terrace.
A capable housewife.
Her housekeeping was always well done. Her own hands, indeed, as well as her head, were employed in it on occasion. When in her home, she daily filled her lamp herself. She dusted her own books, too, invariably. Sometimes she did more. Soon after her establishment at the lakes ... a lady who greatly reverenced her for her writings, called upon her in her new home, accompanied by a gentleman friend. As the visitors approached the house by the carriage-drive, they saw some one perched on a set of kitchen steps, cleaning the drawing-room windows. It was the famous authoress herself! She calmly went for her trumpet, to listen to their business; and, when they had introduced themselves she asked them in, and entered into an interesting conversation on various literary topics. Before they left she explained, with evident amusement at having been caught at her housemaid’s duties, that the workmen had been long about the house; that this morning, when the dirty windows might for the first time be cleaned, one of her servants had gone off to marry a carpenter, and the other to see the ceremony; and so the mistress, tired of the dirt, had set to work to wash and polish the windows for herself.
Life at “The Knoll.”
She rose very early; not infrequently, in the winter, before daylight; and immediately set out for a goodlong walk. Sometimes, I am told, she would appear at a farm-house, four miles off, before the cows were milked. The old post-mistress recollects how, when she was making up her early letter-bags, in the gray of the morning mists, Miss Martineau would come down with her large bundle of correspondence, and never failed to have a pleasant nod and smile, or a few kindly inquiries. “I always go out before it is quite light,” writes Miss Martineau to Mr. Atkinson ... “and in the fine mornings I go up to the hill behind the church—the Kirkstone road.... When the little shred of moon that is left, and the morning star, hang over Wansfell, among the amber clouds of the approaching sunrise, it is delicious.”... Returning home, she breakfasted at half-past seven; filled her lamp ready for the evening, and arranged all household matters; and by half-past eight was at her desk, where she worked undisturbed till two, the early dinner-time. These business hours were sacred, whether there were visitors in the house or not. After dinner, however, she devoted herself to guests, if there were any.
Mrs. Fenwick Miller: ‘Harriet Martineau.’
Winter evenings at Ambleside.
In winter evenings I light the lamp, and unroll my wool-work, and meditate or dream till the arrival of the newspaper tells me that the tea has stood long enough.... After tea, if there was news from the seat of war, I called in my maids, who brought down the great atlas, and studied the chances of the campaign with me.Then there was an hour or two for Montaigne or Bacon, or Shakespeare, or Tennyson, or some dear old biography, or last new book from London—historical, moral, or political. Then, when the house and neighborhood were asleep, there was the half-hour on the terrace, or if the weather was too bad for that, in the porch, whence I seldom or never came in without a clear purpose for my next morning’s work. I believe that, but for my country life, much of the benefit and enjoyment of my travels, and also of my studies, would have been lost to me. On my terrace, there were two worlds extended bright before me, even when the midnight darkness hid from my bodily eyes all but the outlines of the solemn mountains that surround our valley on three sides, and the clear opening to the lake on the south. In the one of those two worlds, I saw now the magnificent coast of Massachusetts in autumn, or the flowery swamps of Louisiana, or the forests of Georgia in spring, or the Illinois prairie in summer; or the blue Nile, or the brown Sinai, or the gorgeous Petra, or the view of Damascus from the Salahiey; or the Grand Canal under a Venetian sunset, or the Black Forest in twilight, or Malta in the glare of noon, or the broad desert, stretching away under the stars, or the Red Sea, tossing its superb shells on shore, in the pale dawn. That is one world, all comprehended within my terrace wall, and coming up into the light at my call. The other, and finer scenery, is of that world, only beginning to be explored, of Science.
Harriet Martineau: ‘Autobiography.’
Miss Martineau as a hostess.
The coach brought me to Miss Martineau’s gate athalf-past six yesterday evening, and she was there, with a beaming face, to welcome me.... We have been trudging about, looking at cottages and enjoying the sight of the mountains, spite of the rain and mist.... Miss M. is charming in her own home—quite handsome from her animation and intelligence. She came behind me, put her hands round me, and kissed me in the prettiest way this evening, telling me she was so glad she had got me here.
Marian Evans:Letter to the Brays, 1852.
Many of the most interesting little stories in it [her ‘Autobiography’] about herself and others she had told me, ... when I was staying with her, and almost in the very same words. But they were all the better for being told in her silvery voice. She was a charming talker, and a perfect lady in her manners as a hostess.
Marian Evans [Lewes]:Letter to Mrs. Bray, 1877. ‘George Eliot’s Life,’ edited by J. W. Cross. New York: Harper & Bros., 1885.
Personal appearance.
In the porch stood Miss Martineau herself. A lady of middle height, “inclined,” as the novelists say, “to embonpoint,” with a smile on her kindly face, and her trumpet at her ear. She was at that time, I suppose, about fifty years of age; her brown hair had a little gray in it, and was arranged with peculiar flatness over a low, but broad forehead. I don’t think she could ever have been pretty, but her features were not uncomely, and their expression was gentle and motherly.
James Payn: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’
One of her letters described.
Aunt Charles read us a clever letter from Harriet Martineau, combining the smoker, the moralist, the political economist, the gossip, and the woman.
Caroline Fox:Journal(1849). ‘Memories of Old Friends.’ Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1882.
Smoking.
The degree of deafness, as I have said, varied; and she tried all sorts of remedies. No one who knew her would suspect her of anything “fast” or unfeminine, but under the advice of some scientific person, or another, she tried smoking.
Cigars.
I had the privilege of providing her privately with some very mild cigars, and many and many a summer night have we sat together for half an hour or so in her porch at “The Knoll,” smoking. If some of the good people, her neighbors, had known ofthat, it would, we agreed, have really given them something to talk about. She only tried this remedy, if I remember right, for a few months, but she fancied it had a beneficial effect upon her hearing. For my part, I enjoyed nothing so much as these evenings.
James Payn: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’
A chiboque.
Sleepless nights were a source of great suffering to her in these latest years. Under medical advice, she tried smoking as a means of procuring better rest, with some success. She smoked usually through the chiboque, which she had brought home with her from the East, and which she had there learned to use, as she relates with her customary simplicity and directness in the appendix to ‘Eastern Life’:“I found it good for my health,” she says there, “and I saw no more reason why I should not take it than why English ladies should not take their glass of sherry at home—an indulgence which I do not need. I continued the use of my chiboque for some weeks after my return, and then only left it off because of the inconvenience.” When health and comfort were to be promoted by it, she resumed it.
Mrs. Fenwick Miller: ‘Harriet Martineau.’
Charlotte Brontë’s account of a visit to Ambleside.
I am at Miss Martineau’s for a week. Her house is very pleasant, both within and without; arranged at all points with admirable neatness and comfort. Her visitors enjoy the most perfect liberty; what she claims for herself, she allows them. I rise at my own hour, breakfast alone. I pass the morning in the drawing-room, she in her study. At two o’clock we meet, talk and walk till five—her dinner hour—spend the evening together, when she converses fluently and abundantly, and with the most complete frankness. I go to my own room soon after ten, and she sits up writing letters. She appears exhaustless in strength and spirits, and indefatigable in the faculty of labor. She is a great and good woman; of course not without peculiarities, but I have seen none as yet that annoy me. She is both hard and warm-hearted, abrupt and affectionate. I believe she is not at all conscious of her own absolutism. When I tell her of it, she denies the charge, warmly; then I laugh at her.
Charlotte Brontë:Letterin Mrs. Gaskell’s ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’ London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1857.
Her ear-trumpet.
Sense of humor.
Owing to her keen intelligence, I found it difficult to realize her extreme deafness, and used often to address her when she was not prepared for it. She never lost her sense of the absurdity of this practice, and I can see the laughter in her kind eyes now, as she snatched up her trumpet. She loved a good-natured pleasantry, even at her own expense.... A ludicrous incident happened. I had got so well accustomed to her ear-trumpet that I began to look upon it as a part of herself. It was lying on the table, a good distance away from her, and having some remark to make to her, I inadvertently addressed it to the instrument, instead of her ear. Heavens, how we laughed! She had a very keen sense of fun, of which, however, she was quite unconscious.
James Payn: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’
“Not to be judged by writings alone.”
Of my kind hostess, I cannot speak in terms too high. Without being able to share all her opinions—philosophical, political, or religious—I yet find a worth and greatness in herself, and a consistency, and benevolence, and perseverance in her practice, such as win the sincerest esteem and affection. She is not a person to be judged by her writings alone, but rather by her own deeds and life, than which nothing can be more exemplary or noble. The government of her household is admirably administered; all she does is well done, from the writing of a history down to the quietest feminine occupation. No sort of carelessness or neglect is allowed under her rule, and yet she is not over-strict,or too rigidly exacting; her servants and her poor neighbors love as well as respect her.
Charlotte Brontë:Letterin Mrs. Gaskell’s ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’
“Proud, not vain.”
Proud, I think she was, but not in the least vain; and the pride was rather the consciousness of power, and theunconscious sense, so to speak, of absolute rectitude and truthfulness.... The clear, quick apprehension of the nature and merits of a question was her strong point, and she never talked or wrote of what she did not understand, and saw at once how to make a difficult matter intelligible to others.
Henry G. Atkinson:Letter to Maria Weston Chapman, published in the latter’s ‘Memorials of Harriet Martineau.’
Her egotism.
Her conception of heaven.
Are not nearly all recent autobiographers egotists? A number of such works have appeared during the last ten years, and the position of the autobiographer has been in nearly every case the same,—namely, that God did a good thing when he made him; but that he should have made anybody else, and should have taken an interest in the other individual equal to that which he manifested in the autobiographer, is a proposition which he cannot bring himself for a moment to consider. Two books in which this view is conspicuous are the autobiographies of John Quincy Adams and Miss Harriet Martineau. Carlyle is a mild egotist beside these writers. Adams does not speak of himself as an individual, but as a cause which he has espoused. Of the two, MissMartineau is the more naïve. She is for arranging the world entirely from her own point of view. For instance, she attacked the late Lord Lytton, because he did not carry an ear-trumpet. Lord Lytton was deaf, and preferred not to carry an ear-trumpet. Miss Martineau was deaf also, and did carry one. She did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and was very hard upon any one who was of a contrary opinion. Her heaven, had her belief permitted her to have one, would have been a place where they all sat round with ear-trumpets and derided the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
—— ——: ‘Zweibak: or, Notes of a Professional Exile,’ inThe Century, February, 1886.
Her lofty stand in money matters.
It is well known that a pension was offered to her by three Prime-ministers in succession—Earl Grey, Lord John Russell, and Mr. Gladstone—which, like Cæsar, she “did thrice refuse,” it being against her principles to burden the State with any such obligation. And yet she was entirely dependent upon that reed, the pen, for subsistence.
James Payn: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’
Her needlework.
She had a liking for the occupation [needlework] and continued to do much of it all through her life. Many of her friends can show handsome pieces of fancy work done by her hands. Again and again she contributed to public objects by sending a piece of her own beautiful needlework to be sold for the benefit of a society’s funds. Not even in the busiest time of her literary life did she everentirely cease to exercise her skill in this feminine occupation. In fact, she made wool-work her artistic recreation.
Mrs. Fenwick Miller: ‘Harriet Martineau.’
An Ambleside story.
A right of way was in dispute, at one time, through certain fields (a portion, I think, of Rydal Park), in the neighborhood of Ambleside, and the owner closed them to the public. Miss Martineau, though a philanthropist on a large scale, could also (which is not so common with that class) pick up a pin for freedom’s sake, and play the part of a village Hampden. When the rest of her neighbors shrank from this contest with the Lord of the Manor, she took up the cudgels for them, and “the little tyrant of those fields withstood.” She alone, not, indeed, “with bended bow and quiver full of arrows,” but with her ear-trumpet and umbrella, took her walk through the forbidden land, as usual. Whereupon the wicked lord (so runs the story, though I never heard it from her own lips) put a young bull into the field. He attacked the trespasser, or at all events prepared to attack her, but the indomitable lady faced him and stood her ground. She was quite capable of it, for she had the courage of her opinions, ... and, at all events, whether from astonishment at her presumption, or terror of the ear-trumpet (to which, of course, he had nothing to say), the bull in the end withdrew his opposition, and suffered her to pursue her way in peace. I wish I could add that she had the good-fortune of another patriotic lady, “to take the tax away,” but I am afraid the wicked lord succeeded in his designs. More than once,however, I have had pointed out to me over the wall—for the bull was still there—the little eminence wherefrom, with no weapon but her ear-trumpet (for she had her umbrella over her head all the time to keep the sun off) this dauntless lady withstood the horrid foe.
James Payn: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’
A good neighbor.
I was pleased to find that, notwithstanding her heresies, the common people in Ambleside held her in gentle and kindly remembrance. She was a good neighbor, charitable to all, considerate toward the unlettered, never cynical or ill-tempered, always cheerful and happy as the roses and ivy of “The Knoll” she so much loved.
Moncure D. Conway, inHarper’s Magazine, January, 1881.
Her manner of working.
I wrote a vulgar, cramped, untidy scrawl till I was past twenty; till authorship made me forget manner in matter, and gave freedom to my hand. After that I did very well, being praised by compositors for legibleness first, and in course of time for other qualities.... I found that it would not do to copy what I wrote, and discontinued the practice forever—thus saving an immense amount of time which, I humbly think, is wasted by other authors. There was no use in copying it. I did not alter; and if ever I did alter, I had to change back again; and I, once for all, committed myself to a single copy.... I have always used the same method in writing. I have always made sure of what I meant to say, andthen written it down without care or anxiety—glancing at it again only to see if any words were omitted or repeated, and not altering a single phrase in a whole work. I mention this because I think I perceive that great mischief arises from the notion that botching in the second place will compensate for carelessness in the first.... It has always been my practice to devote my best strength to my work, and the morning hours have therefore been sacred to it, from the beginning. I never pass a day without writing, and the writing is always done in the morning. I have seldom written anything more serious than letters by candlelight. [While at work on the ‘Political Economy Tales’] on an average I wrote twelve pages a day on large letter paper (quarto, I believe it is called), the page containing thirty-three lines.
Desk, etc.
The impending war [1853] rendered desirable an article on England’s Foreign Policy, for theWestminster Review, and I agreed to do it. I went to the editor’s house for the purpose.... On taking possession of my room there, and finding a capital desk on my table, with a singularly convenient slope, and of an admirable height for writing without fatigue, it struck me that during my whole course of literary labor, of nearly five-and-thirty years, it had never once occurred to me to provide myself with a proper, business-like desk. I had always written on blotting-paper, on a flat table, except when in a lazy mood, in winter, I had written as short-sighted people do (as Mrs. Somerville and “Currer Bell” always did), on a board, or something stiff, held in the left hand. I wrote a good deal of the ‘PoliticalEconomy’ in that way, and with steel pens, ... but it was radically uncomfortable; and I have ever since written on a table, and with quill pens. Now I was to begin on a new and luxurious method—just, as it happened, at the close of my life’s work. Mr. Chapman obtained for me a first-rate Chancery-lane desk, with all manner of conveniences, and of a proper sanitary form; and, moreover, some French paper of various sizes, which has spoiled me for all other paper; ink to correspond; and a pen-maker, of French workmanship, suitable to eyes which were now feeling the effects of years and over-work.
Harriet Martineau: ‘Autobiography.’
Appearance of MS.
I have seen the original manuscript of one of the ‘Political Economy Tales.’ The writing has evidently been done as rapidly as the hand could move; every word that will admit of it is contracted, to save time. “Socy.,” “opporty.,” “agst.,” “abt.,” “independce.,” these were amongst the abbreviations submitted to the printer’s intelligence; not to mention commoner and more simple words, such as “wh.,” “wd.,” and the like. The calligraphy, though very readable, has a somewhat slipshod look. Thus, there is every token of extremely rapid composition. Yet the corrections on the MS. are few and trifling; the structure of a sentence is never altered, and there are but seldom emendations of even principal words. The manuscript is written (in defiance of law and order), on both sides of the paper.
Mrs. Fenwick Miller: ‘Harriet Martineau.’
Fluctuations of mind about work.
The fluctuations of mind which I underwent aboutevery number of my work, were as regular as the tides. I was fired with the first conception, and believed that I had found a treasure. Then, while at work, I alternately admired and despised what I wrote. When finished, I was in absolute despair; and then, when I saw it in print, I was surprised to see how well it looked.
Harriet Martineau: ‘Autobiography.’
George Eliot on ‘The Crofton Boys.’
What an exquisite little thing that is of Harriet Martineau’s—‘The Crofton Boys!’ I have had some delightful crying over it. There are two or three lines in it that would feed one’s soul for a month. Hugh’s mother says to him, speaking of people who have permanent sorrow, “They soon had a new and delicious pleasure, which none but the bitterly disappointed can feel—the pleasure of rousing their souls to bear pain, and ofagreeing with God silently, when nobody knows what is in their hearts.”
Marian Evans:Letter to Mrs. Bray, 1845. ‘George Eliot’s Life,’ edited by J. W. Cross.
Carlyle on ‘Deerbrook’.
How do you like it [Deerbrook]? people ask. To which there are serious answers returnable, but few so good as none.
Thomas Carlyle:Letter to Emerson, 17th April, 1839.
On ‘The Hour and the Man.’
The good Harriet is not well; but keeps a verycourageous heart. She lives by the shore of the beautiful blue Northumbrian Sea; “a many-sounding” solitude which I often envy her. She writes unweariedly.... You saw herToussaint l’Ouvertour; how she has made such a beautiful “black Washington” ... of a rough-handed, hard-hearted, semi-articulate, gabbling Negro; and of the horriblest phasis that ‘Sansculottism’canexhibit, of a Black Sansculottism, a musical Opera or Oratorio in pink stockings! It is very beautiful. Beautiful as a child’s heart,—and in so shrewd a head as that. She is now writing express Children’s Tales, which I calculate I shall find more perfect.
Thomas Carlyle:Letter to Emerson, 21st February, 1841. ‘Correspondence of T. Carlyle and R. W. Emerson.’
FOOTNOTES:[1]Haworth Churchyard, by Matthew Arnold.[2]The portrait alluded to is probably the caricature by D. Maclise, representing Miss Martineau seated, with a cat perched upon her shoulder, before a cooking-stove.
[1]Haworth Churchyard, by Matthew Arnold.
[1]Haworth Churchyard, by Matthew Arnold.
[2]The portrait alluded to is probably the caricature by D. Maclise, representing Miss Martineau seated, with a cat perched upon her shoulder, before a cooking-stove.
[2]The portrait alluded to is probably the caricature by D. Maclise, representing Miss Martineau seated, with a cat perched upon her shoulder, before a cooking-stove.