Harriet Martineau

“ 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. ”

“ The two volumes of autobiography tell all that we can seek to know, and the reader who judges them in an equitable spirit will be ready to allow that, when all is said that can be said of her hardness, arbitrariness, and insularity, Harriet Martineau is still a singular and worthy figure among the conspicuous personages of a generation that has now almost vanished. ”

“ Mr. Henry Reeve, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, was a relative and intimate friend of Harriet Martineau; and her correspondence with so distinguished a man of letters was, naturally, peculiarly interesting—not the less so because they differed altogether on many matters of opinion. Her letters, which Mr. Reeve has kindly allowed me to see, have been of very great service to me. Miss F. Arnold, of Fox How, (the youngest daughter of Dr. Arnold, of Rugby,) is the second to whom like particular acknowledgments is due. She was young enough to have been Harriet Martineau's daughter ”

“ 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. ”

“ Harriet Martineau was a lifelong widow of the heart. That first great passion of her early womanhood, the love that was lost, remained with her all the days of her life: springing fresh every morning, her last thought as she closed her eyes at night. Other loves came to her, attachments varying in nature and degree, but in this supreme love all was fused and absorbed. In this love, you get the secret of power.
A great love is a pain, yet it is a benison and a benediction. If we carry any possession from this world to another it is the memory of a great love. ”

“ Ill and suffering as she was before, this shock completed the wreck of Harriet Martineau's health. She had a dreary time of illness immediately after her niece's death; and although she went on writing for some time longer, it was always with the feeling that the end of her long life's industry was near at hand.
She was not left alone; for Maria's youngest sister, Jane, presently offered voluntarily to fill, as far as she could, the vacant place at "The Knoll." ”

“ She might then have asked herself whether the story as she had told it was more possible than it was possible that gunpowder should be put to flame without an explosion. A girl in her teens might have been forgiven for playing with the history of the wildest passions of the human heart; but Harriet Martineau erred because she tried to enslave herself to fact in a matter in which she should have inferred, judged from psychological principles, and trusted to the intuitions of her own mind for the final working out of her problem. ”

“ Nathanael came round to her and held her hand; and she kissed his forehead, addressing her remaining words to him.
“When everybody is harsh with a sovereign who is above human judgment,” she said, “it is the right and the duty of even the humblest of his subjects to declare for right and duty. It might be easier to be silent—”
“Not to you surely, Henrietta,” said Alice.
“I think it is easier to Henrietta to speak than to be silent,” Lady Carewe observed with a smile. “But I trust we are all willing that everyone should think and speak his or her own thoughts and feelings. ”

“ Indeed, Harriet Martineau was not one to allow her friendships, or any like selfish consideration, to overbalance her “fidelity to conscience,” and the knowledge of her uncompromising honesty of character could not fail to make her friends respect and admire her, however much they might dissent from her conclusions on theology.
All through this book (“Laws of Man's Nature and Development”) there runs a tone of glad defiance of what the world may choose to think of her, and of restful triumph over her own educational prejudices. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If she had had the curiosity and courage to watch for a little while, she would have seen her offering carried off by an odd little figure, with nothing very terrible in its appearance—namely, a woman about four feet high, with a flat face, and eyes wide apart, wearing a reindeer garment like a waggoner's frock, a red comforter about her neck, a red cloth cap on her head, a blue worsted sash, and leather boots up to the knee—in short, such a Lapland girl as Erica would have given a rye-cake to as charity, but would not have thought of asking to sit down even in her master's kitchen ”

“ 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. ”

“ Great expectations had been entertained by the literary public of Harriet Martineau's first novel. The excellences of her Illustrations as works of fiction had been so marked and so many, that it was anticipated that she might write a novel of the highest order when released from the trammels under which she wrote those tales. To most of those who had expected so much Deerbrook was a complete disappointment. I believe I may justly say that it is the weakest of all Harriet Martineau's writings. It is, indeed, far superior in all respects to nine hundred out of every thousand novels published. ”

“ Harriet Martineau was born at Norwich in 1802, and she died, as we all remember, in the course of the summer of 1876. Few people have lived so long as three-quarters of a century, and undergone so little substantial change of character, amid some very important changes of opinion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is the very fulness with which she is possessed by this large way of conceiving a life in its manifold relations to the service of the world, that is the secret of Harriet Martineau's firm, clear, calm, and almost neutral way of judging both her own work and character and those of others. ”

“ That life must be well worth living which is permitted to see its most advanced and cherished convictions realized. Such a life is likely to be Harriet Martineau's, and, when her “summons comes to join the innumerable caravan,” she will not need to cry in anguish, “all is vanity and vexation of spirit”! for she has lived to see negro slavery abolished, and English women, under certain restrictions, entitled to vote. Let us dare also to hope that, old as she is, she may yet live to see American women entitled to the same privilege. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He had faith in man, hope for democracy, belief in America's destiny, unbounded confidence in his ability to make his dreams come true. Said Harriet Martineau in 1834, "I regard the American people as a great embryo poet, now moody, now wild, but bringing out results of absolute good sense: restless and wayward in action, but with deep peace at his heart; exulting that he has caught the true aspect of things past, and the depth of futurity which lies before him, wherein to create something so magnificent as the world has scarcely begun to dream of. ”

“ Harry did not stay. Colonel Hampden never wore the scarf; but his standard went to the fight on Chalgrove Field.
Henrietta had not known nor conceived what it would be to send men forth to fight against their King. If she had imagined what passion it was that she had been smothering within her for so many months, and how the dread of battle and the horror of blood would work upon her, she would rather have hidden herself and the children in any chalk-pit of the hills than have been at Hampden House that day.
Her husband had but a moment. ”

“ Rose and Selina were grown into fine young women; and Mrs. Fletcher was amazed at the change of manners and appearance in her young friends—Mary especially—which she had believed could be only effected by their residence abroad.
“Somebody has taken my task out of my hands,” said she: “I am afraid there is nothing left for me to do.”
“More than you are prepared for, I am afraid,” replied Mr. Byerley. “But I will not turn informer against my children. I will leave it to your judgment (a better judgment in many respects than mine) to discover whatever deficiency or excess there may be.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Génifrède! We may sleep in peace. General Brunet will hardly be able to digest your hospitality, my Margot; but you may sleep. Who else?” he asked, as he looked round upon his trembling household.
“We are following,” said Monsieur Pascal, who had his wife and Euphrosyne on either arm.
“Pardon me,” said General Brunet. “Our orders extend only to General Toussaint and his family. You must remain. Reverend father,” he said to Father Laxabon, “you will remain also—to comfort any friends of General Toussaint whom you may be able to meet with to-morrow. They will be all inconsolable, no doubt.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is because I value the noble faculty of imagination so highly, that it grieves me to see it weakened and perverted by early indulgence.”
“As it is in my girls,” said Mr. Byerley, gravely.
“No,” said Mr. Fletcher, “not in your girls; at least, not in Mary; and not to an irremediable degree in Anna: but it is time you were taking care.”
“If I had Mr. Byerley’s fears, (which I have not,) ” said Mrs. Fletcher, “I should take the girls into the world; or, at least, let them see more society here. If they had a greater variety of realities to think about, they would have fewer imaginations.” ”

“ Harriet Martineau's person, practice, and character inspire me with the truest affection and respect.
"I 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 nobler. She seems to me the benefactress of Ambleside, yet takes no sort of credit to herself for her active and indefatigable philanthropy. The government of her household is admirably administered ”