HARRIET MARTINEAU'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.*

THE Scripture expression-" The God of this world" (2 Cor. iv. 4) not out of connection with its contextis much with me in going through these volumes. For how much that the world worships of mere intellectual superiority may be held, in brilliant possession, by those whom charity herself dare not describe as "the children of the kingdom"! These volumes, notwithstanding the irreligion, egotism, and self-sufficiency of them, are sure to be read; for it is not denied that they are interesting; and that which else might be injurious to the reader, will be likely to carry with it its own antidote in the open (not to say brazen) exhibition of these three characteristics,-none of them attractive even to those themselves addicted to self-preference, and disloyal to Christianity. If some extracts be made of what may interest without wounding Christian hearts, it is for the sake of those who may neither possess, nor desire to possess, these three well-filled volumes, containing some things that are even approvable, amid so much that is more than objectionable. Her industry and independence are certainly admirable; few besides herself, in her then circumstances, would have refused the offered pension to which the distinguished ability and undoubted usefulness of her works on public economical questions justly entitled her. Her views on religious subjects,

* Harriet Martineau's Autobiography: with Memorials by Maria Weston Chapman. With Portraits and Illustrations: in three Volumes. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1877.

and on what she ventures to describe as the "monstrous superstition" of Christianity, are too well known for it to be doubted that appalling evidences of them deform this autobiography; such indeed as must forbid more than this general notice in that behalf, or this paper would give pain, instead of answering its design in communicating some particulars of unharming in

terest.

At the age of twenty-five, in the year 1827, and after the death of her father, what she says was the last of a series of family misfortunes, occurred :

"I call it a misfortune, because in common parlance it would be so treated; but I believe that my mother and all her other daughters would have joined heartily, if asked, in my conviction, that it was one of the best things that ever happened to us. My mother and her daughters lost, at a stroke, nearly all they had in the world, by the failure of the house, the old manufactory [of her father] in which their money was placed. We never recovered more than the merest pittance; and at the time I, for one, was left destitute; that is to say with exactly one shilling in my purse. The effect upon me of this new calamity,' as people called it, was like that of a blister upon a dull, weary pain, or series of pains. I rather enjoyed it, even at the time; for there was scope for action; whereas in the long, dreary series of preceding trials there was nothing possible but endurance. In a very short time my two sisters at home and I began to feel the blessing of a wholly new freedom. I, who had been obliged to write before breakfast, or in some private way [she had begun authorship, but, till now, when it was seen to be needful, it had not been openly pursued] had, henceforth, liberty to do my own work in my own way, for we had lost our gentility. Many and many a time since have we said that, but for that loss of money, we might have lived on in the ordinary provincial method of ladies with small means, sewing, and economising, and growing narrower every year; whereas, by being thrown, while it was yet time, on our own resources, we have worked hard and usefully, won friends, reputation, and independence, seen the world abundantly, abroad and at home; and, in short, have truly lived instead

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of vegetated. Nobody knew that I was left with only one shilling, insomuch that I dreaded the arrival of a thirteenpenny letter, in those days of dear postage. The family supposed me to be well-supplied, through Houlston's recent payment for one of my little bocks: but that money had gone where all the rest was. The sale of a ball dress brought me three pounds. That was something. I hoped, and not without reason, that my needle would bring me enough for my small expenses for a time; and I did earn a good many pounds by fancy-work, in the course of the next year,―after which it ceased to be necessary." (Vol. i., pp. 142-3.)

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The above extract may be truly deemed " provable," being as instructive as it is interesting; and it is but fair to admit that, not only here but elsewhere, a considerable magnanimity of natural character is manifest, albeit rather Spartan than otherwise. In allusion to the difficulties and trials of her youth, she says:

"My life began with winter, burst suddenly into summer, and is now" (1855, but she lived to 1876) "ending with autumn, mild and sunny. I have had no spring: but that cannot be helped now. It was a moral disadvantage, as well as a great loss of happiness: but we all have our moral disadvantages to make the best of; and 'happiness' is not, as the poet says, 'our being's end and aim,' but the result of one faculty among many, which must be occasionally overborne by others, if there is to be any effectual exercise of the whole being. So I am satisfied in a higher sense than that in which the necessarian is always satisfied. I cannot but know that in my life there has been a great waste of precious time and material : but I had now, by thirty years of age, ascertained my career, found occupation, and achieved independence; and thus the rest of my life was provided with its duties and its interests. Any one to whom that happens by thirty years of age may be satisfied, and I was so." (Vol. i. pp. 180-1.) "In my London lodging ... I became the fashion, and I might have been the 'lion' of several seasons, if I had chosen to permit it. I detested the idea, and absolutely put down the practice in my own case: but I saw as much of a very varied society as if I had allowed myself to be 'lionised,'

and with a more open mind than if I had not insisted on being simply treated as a lady, or let alone. The change from my life in Norwich to my life in London was certainly prodigious, and such as I did not dream of when I exchanged the one for the other. My deafness was terribly in the way (at Norwich). From the time that I went to London all that was changed. People began with me as with a deaf person; and there was little more awkwardness about hearing, when they had once reconciled themselves to my trumpet. They came to me in good will, or they would not have come at all. They and I were not jumbled together by mere propinquity; we met purposely; and if we continued our intercourse, it was through some sort of affinity. I now found what the real pleasures of social intercourse are, and was deeply sensible of its benefits."

In relation to her having been always, from fifteen, to "the moment in which I am writing" (1855) "scolded in one form or another for working too hard," she says, "there may be some little malice in the satisfaction with which I find myself dying," (having found herself given over for organic disease of the heart; but she lived and worked for twenty-one years after,)" after all, of a disease which nobody can possibly attribute to overwork. . . . I have never

denied that less toil and more leisure would be wholesome and agreeable to me." (Vol. i., p. 189.) It is surprising that, with her excellent sense and accurate observation, this remark should occur, as, probably, nothing more brings on heart disease than mental strain and overwork. "Authorship has never been with me a matter of choice. I have not done it for amusement, or for money, or for fame, or for any reason but because I could not help it. Things were pressing to be said, and there was more or less evidence that I was the person to say them." (Vol. i., p. 188.)

A physician thus advised her, under her toil:"You have a cupboard there at your right hand,' (said he) keep a bottle of hock and a wine-glass there,

and help yourself when you feel you want it.' 'No, thank you,' said I, 'if I took wine, it should not be when alone; nor would I help myself to a glass. I might take a little more and a little more, till my solitary glass might become a regular tippling habit. I shall avoid the temptation altogether."" (Vol. i., p. 193.)

At p. 229 of the same volume, she gives an account of her interview with Elizabeth Fry, who desired to see her upon two subjects:

"The inferior one was to engage me to interest the Government in her newly-planned District Societies. The higher one was connected with the Poor-Law Reform, then in preparation. She told me that her brother, J. J. Gurney, and other members of her family, had become convinced, by reading 'Cousin Marshall,' and others of my tales, that they had been for a long course of years unsuspectingly doing mischief where they meant to do good; that they were now convinced that the true way of benefiting the poor was to reform the Poor-Law system," &c. What follows is interesting but too much to cite. Describing the society of the old cathedral city of Norwich, she says:-"The great days of the Gurneys were not come yet. The remarkable family from which issued Mrs. Fry and Priscilla and Joseph John Gurney, were then a set of dashing young people, dressing in gay ridinghabits and scarlet boots, as Mrs. Fry told us afterwards, and riding about the country to balls and gaieties of all sorts. Accomplished and charming young ladies they were; and we children used to overhear some whispered gossip about the effect of their charms on heart-stricken young men ; but their final characteristics were not yet apparent." (Vol. i., p. 301.)

"As he" (Macaulay) "announced a history, the public received as a bond fide history, the work on which he proposes to build his fame. If it had been announced as an historical romance, it might have been read with almost unmixed delight, though exception might have been taken to his presentment of several characters and facts. He has been abundantly punished, for instance, for his slanderous exhibition of William Penn. But he has fatally manifested his loose and unscrupulous method of narrating," &c. (Vol. i., p. 349.)

At page 371 of the same volume-"She" (Lady Stepney) "began talking to me on the ground of our mutual acquain

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