CHAPTER XI.
THE LAST YEARS.
Harriet Martineau had never gone the right way to work to become rich by literature. She had not chosen her subjects with a view to the mere monetary success she might attain, and, not infrequently, she had displayed a rare generosity in her pecuniary affairs. In April, 1867, she was plunged into perplexity about the means of living, by the temporary failure of the Brighton Railway to pay its dividends. After all her work, she had but little to lose. She had from investments in the preference stock of that railway £230 per annum, and she had only £150 yearly from all other sources. Such was the fortune saved, after labors such as hers, through a long life of industry and thrift. There was a beautiful contest between the inmates of that home, when the trouble came, as to which of them should begin to make the necessary sacrifices involved in economizing. 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. Her family intervened, however, to prevent any such deprivations, and by-and-by the company resumed payment of its dividends.
In 1868, she received a generous offer, which touched her very deeply. Mr. J. R. Robinson, of the Daily News, proposed to her that there should be a reprint of the several biographical sketches which she had contributed to the paper during her connection with it; and he offered to take all the trouble and responsibility of putting the volume through the press, while leaving to her the whole of the profits. She had not even supposed that the copyright in the biographies which she had written for the paper from time to time, upon the occasions of the deaths of eminent persons, remained her property. Mr. Robinson had the satisfaction of assuring her that the proprietors held her at liberty to reproduce these writings, and, with that comrade's generosity which is not altogether rare among journalists, her kind friend devoted himself to securing her a good publisher, and editing the volume, Biographical Sketches, for her benefit. These vignettes well deserved re-production. She had had more or less personal acquaintance with nearly every one of the forty-six eminent persons of whom she treated; and the portraits which she sketched were equally vivid and impartial. The work was received by the public with an enthusiasm which repaid Mr. Robinson for his generous efforts. It was reprinted in America; and it is now in its fourth English edition.
The last occasion upon which she was to give her powers and her influence to a difficult but great public work must now be mentioned. It was the final effort of her career. Marked as that life had been all through by devotedness to public duty, she never before was engaged in a task so painful and difficult, or one which, upon mere personal grounds, she might more strongly have desired to evade. But at near seventy years old, and so enfeebled that she had thought her work quite finished, she no more hesitated to come to the front under fire when it became necessary, than she had done in those active younger days when combat may have had its own delights.
The subject was an Act of Parliament passed in 1869, having reference to certain police powers over women in various large towns. "In our time, or in any other," wrote Mrs. Martineau, "there never was a graver question." It was clear to her that if women "did not insist upon the restoration of the most sacred liberties of half the people of England, men alone would never do it;" and she wrote four letters on the subject to the Daily News, as powerful, as sensible, as free from cant of any kind, as clear in the appreciation of facts, and as definite and able in the presentation of them, as anything she had ever written. She wrote, also, and signed an "Appeal to the Women of England" upon the subject, where her name headed the list of signers, whilst that of Florence Nightingale came next. Two such women, venerated not less for the intellectual capacity and practical wisdom than for the devoted benevolence that they had shown in their long lives, were well able to arouse and lead the moral sense of the womanhood of England in this crisis. Other respected names were soon added to theirs, but it would not be easy to over-estimate the value of the self-sacrificing, brave action, at the most critical moment, of these two great and honorable women.
Besides writing articles, and appeals, and signing documents which were placarded as election posters in some great towns, Mrs. Martineau helped that cause in the way told in the following letter to Mr. Atkinson:
May 21st, 1871.
One pleasant thing has happened lately. I longed for money for a public object [repeal of the acts in question], and, unable to do better, worked a chair, and had it beautifully made up. It was produced at a great evening party in, London, and seized upon and vehemently competed for, and it has actually brought fifty guineas! In the middle of the night it occurs to me what a thing it is to give fifty guineas—so much as I had longed for money to give that fund. I was asked for a letter of explanation and statement to go with the chair, and, of course, did it by that post.
Work for this cause formed the most keen and active interest of her latest years. In this she thought and labored constantly. She gave her name and support to other objects, but only quietly. Amongst other things she was a member of the Women's Suffrage Society; and she was a subscriber to the movement for the medical education of women.
In all public affairs, indeed, her interest remained keen and unabated to the very last, as the letters for which I am indebted to Mr. Atkinson, and which I am to quote, will abundantly show. These letters will indicate, too, something of the quiet course of her now uneventful daily life. Sick and weary as she was, it will be seen that literature and politics, the public welfare, and the concerns of her household's inmates, still occupied her thoughts and her pen.
Letters to Mr. Atkinson.
August 24, 1870.
… I am as careful as possible to prevent anyone losing sleep on my account, and being disturbed at meals, or failing in air, exercise and pleasure. If these regular healthy habits of my household become difficult, we are to have a trained nurse at once. This is settled. I am disposed to think, myself, that the last stage will be short, probably the end sudden.
The tone of this last sentence is no affectation. "She used to talk about her death as if it meant no more than going into the next room," said one who knew her in these years.
September 10, 1870.
… I am not sure whether you have read Dr. Bence Jones's Life and Letters of Faraday. I have been thankful, this last week, for the strong interest of that book, which puts Continental affairs out of my head for hours together. The first half volume is rather tiresome—giving us four times as much as necessary of the uncultivated youth's early prosing on crude moralities, etc. It is quite right to give us some of this, to show from how low a point of thought and style he rose up to his perfection of expression as a lecturer and writer; but a quarter of the early stuff would have been enough for that. The succeeding part, for hundreds of pages, is the richest treat I have had for many a day. I can only distantly and dimly follow the scientific lectures and writings; but I understand enough of sympathy; and the disclosures of the moral nature of the man is perfectly exquisite. I have never known, and have scarcely dreamed of, a spirit and temper so thoroughly uniting the best attributes of the sage and the child.
October 18, 1870.
I had my envelope directed yesterday, but was prevented writing, and in the evening came your welcome letter. I am glad to know when you mean to leave your quarters; and every line from France is interesting.
I wonder whether you remember a night in London when dear Mrs. Reid and you and I were returning in her carriage from Exeter Hall and the Messiah. I was saying that that sacred drama reminded me of Holy Philæ, and the apotheosis of Osiris, and how the one was as true as the other, with its "Peace on earth, and good-will to men," so false a prophesy, etc., etc. Whereupon Mrs. Reid said, plaintively (of the Messiah), "I believe it all at the time," but she did not set up any pretense of the promises having been fulfilled. It does not seem as if Christendom had got on very much since the world said, "See how these Christians love one another!" 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; and though most of us knew this all the time, we do not suffer the less from the spectacle now.... 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. But "the gay, licentious, proud," the pleasure-loving, self-seeking aristocracy, and the brutally ignorant rural population, must entirely paralyze the intelligent, an honest few scattered in their midst. But I must leave all this.
The only news we have is of the royal marriage (Princess Louise) which pleases everybody. It is a really great event—as a sign politically, and as a fact socially and morally. After the Queen's marriage, I wrote repeatedly on behalf of repealing the Royal Marriage Act then, while there could be no invidious appearance in it. The present chaotic condition of Protestant princedoms in Germany may answer the purpose almost as well as a period of abeyance. Any way, the relaxation seems a wise and happy one.
My items of news are small in comparison, but not small to me; especially that a happy idea struck me lately, of trying a spring mattress as a means of obtaining sleep of some continuance. I have ventured upon getting one; and, after four nights, there is no doubt of my being able to sleep longer, and with more loss of consciousness than for a very long time. Last night I once slept three hours with only one break. Otherwise, I go on much the same. There is one objection to these beds which healthy people are unaware of—that so much more strength is required to move in bed, from want of purchase. This is a trouble, but the advantages far outweigh it.
Dear Jenny comes home to-morrow evening, all the better, I am assured, for three weeks at the sea, in breeze and sun, and all manner of beauty of land and sea (at Barmouth, and with a merry party of young people). And here is a game basket, arrived from parts unknown, with a fine hare, two brace of partridges, and a pheasant. A savory welcome for Jenny! Cousin Mary has been more good and kind than I can say. She stays for Jenny, and leaves us on Friday. I must not begin upon Huxley, Tyndall, and Evans, whom I have been reading. Much pleasure to you, dear friend, in your closing weeks.
Yours ever,
H. Martineau.
The sleepless nights repeatedly mentioned in these letters 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. Her nights were, nevertheless, very broken, and frequent allusions occur in her letters to the suffering of sleeplessness, with its concomitant of drowsiness in the day-time.
The next letter is on trivial topics, truly; but is none the less valuable for the unconscious record which it affords of her domestic character. The anxiety for her household companion's enjoyment, the delight in the kindness that the young folk had shown to each other and to the poor Christmas guests, the pleasure in the happiness of other people, are all characteristic features which are of no trivial consequence.
Ambleside, Jan. 2, '71.
I am so sorry for the way you are passing from the old year to the new that I cannot help saying so. I ought to be anything but sorry, considering what good you are doing—essential, indispensable good; but you must be so longing for your own quiet, warm home, and the friends around it, that I heartily wish you were there.... As for me, my business is to promote, as far as possible, the cheerfulness of my household. There really has been much fun,—and yet more sober enjoyment, throughout this particular Christmas. In my secret mind I am nervously anxious about Jenny to whom cold is a sort of poison; but, when she had once observed that there was much less cold here than at home, or anywhere else that she could be, I determined to say no more, and to make the best of it. She said it for my sake, I know (the only reason for her ever speaking of herself), and I frankly received it as a comfortable saying. She is getting on better than any of us expected, and she has been thoroughly happy in exercising our hospitalities.... Jenny's brother Frank came for three days at Christmas; and Harriet made herself housekeeper and secretary, and made Jenny the guest, to set her wholly at liberty for her brother. It was quite a pretty sight—they were all so happy! There was a kitchen party on Christmas Day; by far the best we ever had; for Frank did the thing thoroughly—read a comic tale, taught the folk games, played off the snapdragons, and finally produced boxes of new and strange crackers, which spat forth the most extraordinary presents! All the guests and the servants were in raptures with him. The oldest widow but one vowed that "she did not know when she had seen such a gentleman"—which I think very probable. They came to dinner at noon, and stayed till past 10 p.m. Think of spending those ten hours entirely in the two kitchens, and having four meals, in the time! My nieces, and nephews were tired! So was I, though I had only the consciousness of the occasion.... All this is so good for Jenny! and she will like the quiet and leisure that will follow....
I am more alive and far less suffering than in the great heats of autumn. Your slips and cuttings are very interesting, and I am very thankful for them. More of them when (or if) my head is worth more. Of course we shall hear when you get home. May it be soon!
Yours ever, dear friend,
H. Martineau.
Ambleside, March 6, '71.
We are in a queer state just now. Gladstone turns out exactly as I expected. I once told some, who are his colleagues now, that he would do some very fine deeds—give us some separate measures of very great value, and would do it in an admirable manner; but that he would show himself incapable of governing the country. For two years he did the first thing; and now, this third year, he is showing the expected incapacity. Were there ever such means thrown away as we see this session? Probably you are out of the way of hearing the whole truth of the situation, and I cannot go into it here. Suffice it, that Gladstone totters (and three or four more), and that several departments are in such a mess and muddle that one hardly sees how they are to be brought straight again; and all this without the least occasion! One matter, in which I feel deep interest, and on which I have acted, is prospering, and we have the Government at our disposal; so that we hope they will remain in office till we have secured what we want; but the more we have to do with Ministers, the weaker we find them. And Gladstone is not only weak as a reasoner (with all his hair-splitting), but ignorant in matters of political principle.
The next letter is very characteristic and perfectly true to her state of mind with regard to flatterers:
May 21, '71.
And now you will want to know how Miss —— and we fared this day week. We (she and I) were together only three-quarters of an hour; and for part of that time I was too much exhausted to benefit much. My impression is that she is not exactly the person for the invalid room. But I may be utterly wrong in this. I might be misled by the fatiguing sort of annoyance of overpraise—of worship in fact. I don't want to be ungracious about what my books were to her in her childhood and youth; I am quite ready to believe her sincere in what she said. But not the less is it bad taste. It must be bad taste to expatiate on that one topic which it is most certain that the hearer cannot sympathize in. Also, I have much doubt of her being accurate in her talk. There is a random air about her statements, and she said two or three things that certainly were mistakes, more or less. These things, and a general smoothness in her talk, while she was harsh about some of the —— were what I did not quite like. As for the rest, she was as kind as possible; and not only kind to me, but evidently with a turn that way, and a habit of it in regard to children and friends....
June 11, '71.
… Of all odd things, Dean Stanley and Lady Augusta have been, by way of a trip, to Paris, from last Monday to Saturday. How can they! One would think nothing could take one there but some strong call of duty. The least that one must read and hear is enough to make one's heart ache, and to spoil one's sleep, and to disfigure life till one does not wish to look at it any more. I do long to have done with it. I believe it is the first occasion in my life of my having felt hopeless of any destiny, individual or national.... How badly our public affairs are going! Gladstone & Co, are turning out exactly as many of us foresaw. The thing nearest my heart (repeal of the acts above alluded to), and more important than all other public questions, will do well. It is, I believe, secure, in virtue of an amount of effort and devotedness never surpassed. You know what I mean. I rest upon that achievement—a vital aim with me and others for many years—with satisfaction and entire hopefulness, but in all other directions the prospect is simply dreary. In that one case, we, who shall have achieved the object, have saved Ministers from themselves, and from evil councillors. Wherever they have, this year, trusted their own wisdom and resources, they have failed, or see that they must fail. They would have been out since early in April, but for want of a leader on the Conservative side; and they still make their party dwindle till there will be no heart or energy left in the Liberal ranks—lately so strong and ardent! They may be individually clever; but they cannot govern the country. This is eminently the case with Gladstone; and it may serve as the description of the group. I shall not dare to ask the Arnolds about such matters—so thoroughly did they assume, when they went away, that all must be right with "William" and Co. in the Cabinet.
Nov. 5, '71.
… Mrs. Grote seems to like to open her feelings to me, as a very old friend of hers and her husband's. Did I tell you that she sent me—to put me in possession of her state—her private diary, from the first day of her alarm about her husband's health to the day she sent it? It was more interesting than I can say; but it brought after it something more striking still. Some half-century ago, Jeremy Bentham threw upon paper some thoughts on the operation of natural religion on human welfare, or ill-fare. His MSS. were left to Mrs. Grote (or portions of them), and those papers were issued by the Grotes under the title, "Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion, etc. etc., by Philip Beauchamp." It is a tract of 142 pp. It is the boldest conceivable effort at fair play; and in this particular effect, it is most striking. At the outset, all attempts to divide the "abuses" of religion from other modes of operation are repudiated at once; and the claim is so evidently sound that the effect of the exposure is singular. 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. I can't go on, being tired; and you will be thinking, as you read, that this is only the old story—of the mischiefs and miseries of superstition. But there is something impressive in the cheerful simplicity with which Bentham tells us his opinion of the sort of person recommended to us for a master under the name of God, and with which he warns us all of the impossibility of our being good or happy under such a Supreme Being. In looking at the table of contents, and seeing the catalogue he gives of evil effects of belief in the barest scheme of Natural Religion, one becomes aware, as if for the first time, of the atmosphere of falsehood against which we ought to have recoiled all our lives since becoming capable of thought.
Dec. 30, '71.
… I go off rapidly as a correspondent; there is no use blinking the fact. I am so slow and write so badly! and leave off too tired. Oddly enough, this very week one of the Daily News authorities has been uttering a groaning longing for my pen in the service of that paper, as of old. The occasion is a short letter of mine in last Thursday's paper, which you may have seen. [25] If so, you will see that I had no choice. W. E. Forster was at Fox How; and I got Jenny to carry the volume of Brougham (vol. iii. p. 302) to consult Forster and Arnolds about what I should do, W. E. Forster being in the same line of business with my father, and a public man—man of the world. He was clear: it was impossible to leave my father under a false imputation of having failed. And when my letter appeared, he was delighted with it; so are those of my family that I have heard from; and, above all, Daily News editors. They hope and believe it will excite due distrust of Brougham's representations, and encourage others to expose his falsehoods. His suppressions are as wonderful as his disclosures; e.g. the very important crisis in his career, known by the name of the "Grey Banquet" at Edinburgh, he cuts completely out of the history of the time—perverting Lord Durham's story as well as his own. I can see how the false story of me and mine got made; but enough of that—especially if you have not seen the letter in the Daily News. Forster is kindly and quiet, but he is altered. He is now—the Courtier!—and odd sort of one, with much Quaker innocence and prudence in it; but of a sort which leaves me no hope of his handling of his Education measure. There will be such a fight! and the Nonconformists are right, and know that they are. You will probably see that achieved—a real National Education established, secular and compulsory.
The Ambleside surgeon, who had undertaken, in acccordance with Harriet Martineau's will, to prepare and transmit her skull and brain to Mr. Atkinson, died in the year 1872. The following letter shows that the progress of time had in no way diminished her willingness to leave her head for scientific investigation:
Ambleside, April 23, '72.
(Shakespere's birthday and Wordsworth's death-day.)
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 assistant 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 superstition 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. Nobody 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 pass.... 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 analysis 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 gratitude, 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 hitherto assembled. 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 nobody 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 gratitude 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 glass 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 Masson, 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 amusement 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. Trübner, 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 constitution 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 shells!
Then another remembers her amusement 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. I can only follow the judgment of unprejudiced observers; and I see that my household believe the end to be not far off. I will not trouble you with disagreeable details. It is enough to say that I am in no respect better, while all the ailments are on the increase. The imperfect heart-action immediately affects the brain, causing the suffering which is worse than all other evils together,—the horrid sensation of not being quite myself. This strange, dreamy non-recognition of myself comes on every evening, and all else is a trifle in comparison. But there is a good deal more. Cramps in the hands prevent writing, and most other employment, except at intervals. Indications of dropsy have lately appeared: and after this, I need not again tell you that I see how fully my household believe that the end is not far off. Meantime I have no cares or troubles beyond the bodily uneasiness (which, however, I don't deny to be an evil). I cannot think of any future as at all probable, except the "annihilation" from which some people recoil with so much horror. I find myself here in the universe,—I know not how, whence, or why. I see everything in the universe go out and disappear, and I see no reason for supposing that it is not an actual and entire death. And for my part, I have no objection to such an extinction. I well remember the passion with which W. E. Forster said to me, "I had rather be damned than annihilated." If he once felt five minutes' damnation, he would be thankful for extinction in preference. The truth is, I care little about it any way. Now that the event draws near, and that I see how fully my household expects my death, pretty soon, the universe opens so widely before my view, and I see the old notions of death and scenes to follow to be so merely human—so impossible to be true, when one glances through the range of science—that I see nothing to be done but to wait without fear or hope, or ignorant prejudice, for the expiration of life. I have no wish for further experience, nor have I any fear of it. Under the weariness of illness I long to be asleep; but I have not set my mind in any state. I wonder if all this represents your notions at all. I should think it does, while yet we are fully aware how mere a glimpse we have of the universe and the life it contains.
Above all, I wish to escape from the narrowness of taking a mere human view of things, from the absurdity of making God after man's own image, etc.
But I will leave this, begging your pardon for what may be so unworthy to be dwelt on. However, you may like to know how the case looks to a friend under the clear knowledge of death being so near at hand. My hands are cramped and I must stop. My sister is here for the whole of May, and she and Jenny are most happy together. Many affectionate relations and friends are willing to come if needed (the Browns among others), if I live beyond July. You were not among the Boulogne theological petitioners, I suppose. I don't know whether you can use——there? I was very thankful for your last, though I have said nothing about its contents. If I began that, I should not know how to stop.
So good-bye for to-day, dear friend!
Yours ever,
H. M.
The internal tumor which was the prime cause of her malady (an entirely different kind of thing, however, from that which she suffered from at Tynemouth), had long been the source of great inconvenience, compelling her to descend the stairs backwards, and to spend much time in a recumbent position. The post mortem examination made by her medical attendant, at the request of her executors, two days after she died, revealed the fact that this tumor was the true cause of her sufferings. She never knew it herself. Relying on the statement of the eminent men whom she consulted in 1855, that it was the heart that was affected, she accepted that as her fate. It was, however, the slow growth of a "dermoid cyst" which made her linger till such an age, through the constant suffering of twenty-one preceding years.
In the early part of June, 1876, she had an attack of bronchitis, and though medical treatment subdued this speedily, it exhausted her strength greatly. From about the 14th of that month—two days after her seventy-fourth birthday—she was confined to her room, but still rose from bed. On the 24th she was too ill to get up. Then drowsiness gradually increased and in a little while she sank quietly into a dreamy state, in which she seemed to retain consciousness when aroused, but was too weak to either take food or to speak. At last, on the 27th of June, 1876, just as the summer sunset was gilding the hills that she knew and loved so well, she quietly and peacefully drew her last breath, and entered into eternal rest.
Truly her death—not only the last moments, but the long ordeal—might stand for an illustration of the saying of the wise men of old—"Keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing that is right, for that shall bring a man peace at the last."
She was buried amidst her kindred, in the old cemetery of Birmingham; and upon the tombstone, where it stands amidst the smoke, there is no inscription beyond her name and age, and the places of birth and death.
More was, perhaps, needless. Her works, and a yet more precious possession, her character remain. Faults she had, of course—the necessary defects of her virtues. Let it be said that she held her own opinions too confidently—the uncertain cannot be teachers. Let it be said that her personal dislikes were many and strong—it is the necessary antithesis of powerful attachments. Let it be said that her powers of antagonism at times were not sufficiently restrained—how, without such oppugnancy, could she have stood forth for unpopular truths? Let all that detractors can say be said, and how much remains untouched!
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. In a yet earlier age such a life, even to such powers as hers, would have been impossible. As it was, she was only a pioneer of the new order of things inevitable under the advance of civilization and knowledge. 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; and the condition and status of women must alter accordingly. Some people do not like this fact; and no one can safely attempt to foresee all its consequences; but we can no more prevent it than we can return to hornbooks, or to trial by ordeal, or to the feudal tenure of land, or to any other bygone state of social affairs. 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?
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. But the great value of her life to us is as a splendid example of the moral qualities which we should carry into our widest sphere, and which we should display in our public exertions.
She cared for nothing before the truth; her efforts to discover it were earnest and sincere, for she spared no pains in study and no labor in thought in the attempt to form her opinions correctly. Having found what she must believe to be a right cause to uphold, or a true word to speak, no selfish consideration intruded between her and her duty. She could risk fame, and position, and means of livelihood, when necessary, to unselfishly support and promulgate what she believed it to be important for mankind to do and believe. She longed for the well-being of her kind; and so unaffectedly and honestly that men who came under her influence were stimulated and encouraged by her to share and avow similar high aims. Withal, those who lived with her loved her; she was a kind mistress, a good friend, and tender to little children; she was truly helpful to the poor at her gates, and her life was spotlessly pure.
Is not this what we should all strive to be? Shall we not love knowledge, and use it to find out truth; and place outspoken fidelity to conscience foremost amongst our duties; and care for the progress of our race rather than for our own fame; shall we not be truthful, and honest, and upright—and, to this end, brave—in public as in private life; and shall we not seek so to bear ourselves that men shall shrink from owning their ignobler thoughts and baser shifts to us, but shall never fear to avow high aims and pure deeds, while yet we retain our womanly kindness and all our domestic virtues unchanged? All this we may know that we can be and do, if we will; for we have seen it exemplified in the life of Harriet Martineau.