Florence Fenwick Miller

“ I seem to have got to a new state of mind about war, or I may perhaps forget the emotions of youth; but I seem never before to have felt the horror, disgust, shame—in short, misery—that the spectacle of this war creates now. I am reading less and less in the newspapers; for the truth is, I cannot endure it. There is no good in any hopeless spectacle; and for France, I am, like, most people, utterly hopeless.... By selling themselves for twenty years to the worst and meanest man in Europe, the people of France have incurred destruction ”

“ Love came to brighten the life so dark hitherto for lack of that sunshine. Much as it is to any woman to know herself beloved by the man whom she loves, to Harriet Martineau it was even more than to most. It was not only that her character was a strong one, and that to such a nature all influences that are accepted become powerful forces, but besides this she had always loved more than she had been loved; and her self-esteem had been systematically suppressed by her mother's stern discipline, and afterwards injured by the mortifications to which the on-coming of her deafness gave rise. ”

“ Ready to work for them, to endure for them, to struggle to provide them with all necessary comforts, and even with pleasures, at the cost, if need be, of personal sacrifice of comfort and pleasure, such mothers yet do not give to their children that bountiful outpouring of tender, caressing, maternal love, which the young as much require for their due and free growth as plants do the floods of the summer sunshine. To starve the emotions in a child is not less cruel than to stint its body of food. ”

“ I suppose the French will have no alternative but peace in a little while; but, when all that is settled, internal strife and domestic ruin will remain ahead. The truth is, the morale of the French is corrupted to the core. All habit of integrity and sincerity is apparently lost; and when a people prefers deception to truth, vain-glory to honor, passion to reason—all is over. I will leave it, for it is a terrible subject. I must just say that I believe and know that there are French citizens—a very few—who understand the case, but they are as wretched as they necessarily must be. ”

“ The printing-press, which multiplies the words of the thinker; the steam-engine, which both feeds the press and rushes off with its product, and the electric telegraph, which carries thought around the globe, make this an age in which mental force assumes an importance which it never had before in the history of mankind. Mind will be more and more valued and cultivated, and will grow more and more influential ”

“ The wife who is beloved and treated as an equal partner in life, the mother whose natural rights in the guardianship of her family are respected, the mistress of a home in which she is the sunshine of husband and children, must ever be the happiest of women. But far better is it to be as Harriet Martineau was—a widow of the heart by death—than to have the affections torn through long years by neglect and cruelty, springing less from natural badness than from the evil teaching of vile laws and customs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ More than one publisher who had previously rejected the series made overtures for it now. Its refusal, as they saw, had been one of those striking blunders of which literary history has not a few to tell. But there is no occasion to cry out about the stupidity of publishers. They can judge well how far a work written on lines already popular will meet the demand of the market; but an entirely original idea, or the work of an original writer, is a mere lottery. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even with all motherly sympathy and encouragement, so sickly a child would have been likely to suffer from timidity, and to fall into occasional fits of despondency and irritability; but, with fear continually excited in her mind, and with an eternal storm of passionate opposition to arbitrary authority raging in her soul, it is no wonder that the poor child made for herself a character for willfulness and obstinacy, while internally she suffered dreadfully from her conscience. ”

“ Her body was chained to two small rooms; but her mind, with all its powers and affections, yet swept freely through the universe. No one would have been more impatient than she herself of any pretence that she lived incessantly on a high plane of lofty emotions, where pain ceased to be felt, or that her care for others was so extraordinary that self-regard was swallowed up in the depths of altruism. I have quoted her candid revelations about her sufferings and her opiates, to avoid the possibility of conveying an impression that she was thus guilty of hypocrisy or affectation. ”

“ So frankly and candidly, and with such an utter absence of affectation, did she accept this condition of her life, that those around her hardly realized that she felt it as a deprivation; and a few lines in her autobiography, in which she mentions how conscious she was of intellectual fatigue from the lack of those distractions to the mind which enter continually through the normal ear, came like a painful shock to her friends, making them feel that they had been unconscious of a need ever present with her throughout life. ”

“ Well! of course the tendency of the exposition is to show that the absolute darkness of the Unseen Life supposed must produce a demoralizing effect, and destroy ease of mind. There is something almost appalling in the unflinching representation of the mischief of the spirit of fear, of its torment, and of its damaging effects in creating a habit of adulation, in perverting the direction of our desires, in corrupting our estimate of good and evil, in leaving us, in short, no chance of living a healthy and natural life, but rather, making cowards, liars, and selfish rascals of us all. ”

“ This is rare logic and arithmetic, and not a little curious as natural history. A plain person now would have supposed that if the produce doubled itself in ten, and the people only in a hundred years, the people would not increase quite so fast as the produce, seeing that at the end of the first century the population would be multiplied but by two, the produce by one thousand and twenty-four. But these are the discoveries of genius! Why does Miss Martineau write, except to correct our mistaken notions and to expound to us the mysteries of "the principle of population." ”

“ In addition to all this she had to lay down for each tale the propositions which had to be illustrated in it; to assure herself that she clearly saw the truth and the bearings of every doctrine of political economy; and then to work into a connected fiction in a concrete form the abstract truths of the science—representing them as exemplified in the lives of individuals.
Political economy treats of the production, distribution and consumption, or use, of all the material objects of human desire, which are called by the general name of wealth. ”

“ A love in youth, fervent, powerful, and pure; a love, happy and successful in the essential point that it is reciprocated by its object, however fate may deny it outward fruition; such a love once filling a woman's soul, sweetens it and preserves it for her whole life through. Pity the shriveled and decayed old hearts which were not thus embalmed in youth! Harriet Martineau did have this precious experience; and her womanliness of nature remained fresh and true and sweet to the end of her days because of it. ”

“ For political sagacity, for nobility of public spirit, for effective thought, for knowledge of facts, for clear presentation of them, for accuracy in judging of their permanent importance, for candor, and impartiality, for insight into character, and for vivid and glowing eloquence, The History of the Thirty Years' Peace stands forth unmatched amongst books of its class. ”

“ I had infinitely rather bear the perpetual sense of privation than become unaware of anything which is true—of my intellectual deficiences, of my disqualifications for society, of my errors in matter of fact, and of the burdens that I necessarily impose on those who surround me. We can never get beyond the necessity of keeping in full view the worst and the best that can be made of our lot. ”

“ It may do much, indeed, for us that we have had such a pioneer as Harriet Martineau. It is not only that she lived so that all worthy people, however differing from her in opinion, respected and honored her—though that is much. It is not only that she has settled, once for all, that a woman can be a political thinker and a teacher from whom men may gladly receive guidance—though that is much. ”

“ Do you really think there are any people that have passed through life without knowing what that moment was, that stir in one's heart on being first sure that one is beloved? It is most like the soul getting free of the body and rushing into Paradise, I should think. ”

“ Walter feared it might be so; but, if so, a man missed the moment that made a man of one that was but an unthinking creature before; and a woman the moment best worth living for....
"It seems to me," said Effie, "that though God has kindly given this token of blessedness to all—or to so many that we may nearly say all—without distinction of great or humble, rich or poor, the great and the lowly use themselves to the opposite faults. The great do not seem to think it the most natural thing to marry where they first love; and the lowly are too ready to love." ”

“ Miss Jane Martineau and the maid Caroline were each ready with their offers, and the invalid mistress of the house was with difficulty induced to continue her wine and dinner ale, while she declared, with a brave assumption of carelessness, that she should be rather glad than otherwise to be rid of seeing the Times daily and getting the periodic box of books from "Mudie's." It is touching to note how she tried to lightly pass off this sacrifice of current literature, when one knows that reading was the chief solace of her lonely and suffering days. ”

“ The school-life was delectable to Harriet. Mr. Perry, the master, was gentle in his manner, and methodical in his style of teaching; and under his tuition the shy, nervous child felt for the first time encouraged to do her best, and aided not merely to learn her lessons, but also to expand her mental faculties. The two years that she remained at Mr. Perry's school gave her a fair insight into Latin and French, and enabled her to discover that arithmetic was to her mind a delightful pastime rather than a difficult study. ”

“ If they could see all that the eyes of the firmament look upon, and hear all the whispered secrets that the roving winds bear in their bosoms, they could learn but little new; for the deepest mysteries are those of human love, and the vastest knowledge is that of the human heart. ”

“ She had already attained to such an insight into the human mind as to recognize that religious devotion is an exercise of the emotions. Proof, too, is given in this little work of the fullness with which she realized that true religion must be expressed by service to mankind; to those nearest to one first, and afterwards to others; and indeed, that a high sense of social duty, with a fervent and unselfish devotion to it, is religion, rather than either the spiritual dram-drinking, or the dogmatic irrationality to which that name of high import is frequently applied. ”

“ For that piety which has humanity for its object—must not that heart feel most of which tenderness has become the element? Must not the spirit which is most exercised in hope and fear be most familiar with hope and fear wherever found? ”

“ A child so delicate in health could not have been very happy under any home conditions. Only a truly wise and tender maternal guardianship could have made the life of such an one at all tolerable; but Harriet Martineau was one of the large family of a sharp-tempered, masterful, stern, though devoted mother, whose cleverness found vent in incessant sarcasm, and in whom the love of power natural to a capable, determined person degenerated, as it so often does in domestic life, into a severe despotism. ”

“ When the course of my exposition brought me to the population subject, I, with my youthful and provincial mode of thought and feeling—brought up, too, amidst the prudery which is found in its great force in our middle class—could not but be sensible that I risked much in writing and publishing on a subject which was not universally treated in the pure, benevolent, and scientific spirit of Malthus himself.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Only an accurate thinker, with a mind both capacious and orderly, can perform such a task. The highest function of the human mind is, doubtless, that of the discoverer. The original thinker, he who observes his facts from nature at first hand, who compares them, and reasons about them, and combines them, and generalizes a principle from them, is the one whom posterity to all time must honor and reverence for his additions to the store of human knowledge. ”

“ The Bishops had just thrown out the Reform Bill; but no person who watched the temper of the time could doubt that their feeble opposition would be speedily swept aside, and that self-government was about to be extended to a new class of the people. Most suitable was the occasion, then, for offering information to these upon the science and art of society. Harriet was right in her judgment when she started her project of a series of tales illustrative of Political Economy, under a "thorough, well-considered, steady conviction that the work was wanted, was even craved for by the popular mind." ”

“ Five times in her life did Harriet Martineau write and publish that which she believed would ruin her prospects, silence her voice for ever, and close her career. Far from her was that common paltering with the conscience by which so many men confuse their minds—the poor pretence that truth must not be spoken for fear that the speaker's influence for future worthy work may be injured by his boldness. ”

“ This is the poem of Harriet Martineau's love. This is what remains to show that the girl whose intellect was so powerful, and who had habitually and of choice exercised her mind upon the most abstruse studies and the most difficult thoughts which can engage the attention, could nevertheless feel at least as fervently, and deliver herself up to her emotions at least as fully, as any feeble, ignorant, or narrow-minded creature that ever lived. ”

“ There could be no idea of making money out of a work on philosophy—even if either of the authors had been in the habit of writing merely to make money; while as to fame and applause, everyone is more or less acquainted with the history of the reception given in all ages to those who have questioned the popular beliefs of their time! The sole motive with which Harriet Martineau wrote and issued this book was the same that impelled her to do all her work—the desire to teach that which she believed to be true, and to be valuable in its influence upon conduct. ”

“ Of all the causes that unite to make the women of the present more favorably circumstanced than those of the past, none is more potent than the progress of mechanical discovery having relieved them from the necessity of making all the clothing of mankind with their own hands. From the era when Errina, the Greek poetess, mournfully lamented that her mother tied her to her distaff, down to the days in which Harriet Martineau studied by snatches, and spent her days in making shirts in the parlor, an enormous amount of feminine power has been squandered wastefully in this direction. ”

“ The fact that other children are suffering similarly every day makes the record worth repeating. But, besides this, her vivid remembrance of her childish pangs tends to show how warm and strong were her natural affections. If Harriet Martineau's mind had not been sensitive and emotional, and if her love for those united to her by family ties had not been ardent, she would not have felt as she did in her childhood, and she would not have remembered, all through her life, how she had suffered in her early years from unsatisfied affection. ”

“ More and more it will grow customary for women to study such subjects as Harriet Martineau studied; more commonplace will it constantly become for women to use all their mental faculties, and to exert every one of their powers to the fullest extent in the highest freedom. What, then, have we to wish about that which is inevitable, except that the old high womanly standard of moral excellence may be no whit lowered, but may simply be carried into the wider sphere of thought and action? ”

“ How great the revolution in her mind when she found that the man whom she could love would choose her from all the world of women to be his dearest, the partner of his life!
It would be a proof, if proof were needed at this time of day, that it is well-nigh impossible for any person to give a candid, full and unerring record of his own past, and the circumstances in it which have most influenced his development, to turn from the brief and cursory record which Harriet Martineau's autobiography gives of this attachment, to the complete story as I have it to tell, here and in a future chapter. ”

“ No sensitive person can possibly pass through this fiery trial unchanged. Such an experience must either refine or harden; must either strengthen the powers of endurance or break down the mind to querulous ill-temper; must either make self the centre of creation or greatly add to the power of putting personal interests aside for the sake of wider and more unselfish thoughts and feelings. Which class of influences Harriet Martineau accepted from her trial the history of her courageous, resolute life-work, and her devotion to truth and duty as she saw them, will sufficiently show. ”

“ The duties of a wife and mother, as domestic life is at present arranged, absorb much time and strength, and so diminish the possibilities of intellectual labor. Moreover, the laws regulating marriage are still, and fifty years ago were far more, in a very bad state; and, leaving a woman wholly dependent for fair treatment, whether as a wife or mother, upon the mercy and goodness of the man she marries, justify Harriet Martineau's observation: "The older I have grown, the more serious have seemed to me the evils and disadvantages of married life, as it exists among us at this time." ”

“ Harriet Martineau's constant sympathy with democracy, her hatred of oppression and tyranny, and her aversion to class government, all became conspicuous in this story. "The greatest happiness of the greatest number" of mankind was her ideal of the aim of legislation; and she well knew, as Bentham saw, that only the democratic form of government can produce a body of laws approximating to this ideal. Her efforts were constant, therefore, to prepare the people to demand, and to afterwards wisely use, the power of governing themselves. ”

“ There may be many married women old maids in heart—to be so is the punishment of those who marry without love; and there are many, like Harriet Martineau, who are single in life, but whose hearts have been mated, and so made alive. ”

“ In the paths where Harriet Martineau trod at first almost alone, many women are now following. Serious studies, political activity, a share in social reforms, an independent, self-supporting career, and freedom of thought and expression, are by the conditions of our age, becoming open to the thousands of women who would never have dared to claim them in the circumstances in which she first did so. ”

“ It is most interesting to thus discover that Harriet Martineau's first writings were upon that "woman question" which she lived to see make such wonderful advances, and which she so much forwarded, both by her direct advocacy, and by the indirect influence of the proof which she afforded, that a woman may be a thinker upon high topics and a teacher and leader of men in practical politics, and yet not only be irreproachable in her private life, but even show herself throughout it, in the best sense, truly feminine. ”

“ Such is the medical history, so interesting to all physiological students and to all sufferers of the same class, of Harriet Martineau's five years' illness and recovery. My business is simply to state facts, and I need not here undertake any dissertation upon mesmerism. It is sufficient to add that only those who are unaware of the profundity of our ignorance (up to the present day) about the action of the nervous system, and still more about what life really is, can be excused for rash jeering and hasty incredulity in such a case as this. ”