Little Journeys to the Homes of Famous Women — Harriet Martineau, Part 2

Today, out under the trees, I read this first book written by Miss Martineau.

How gently sweet and perfect are these prayers asking for a clean heart and a right spirit!

And yet at this time Harriet Martineau had gotten well beyond the idea that God was a great, big man who could be beseeched and moved to alter His plans because some creature on the planet Earth asked it.

Her religion was pure Theism, with no confounding dogmas about who was to be saved and who damned.

The state of infants who died unbaptized and of the heathen who passed away without ever having heard of Jesus did not trouble her at all.

She already accepted the truth of necessity, believing that every act of life was the result of a cause.

We do what we do, and are what we are, on account of impulses given us by previous training, previous acts or conditions under which we live and have lived.

If then, everything in this world happens because something else happened a thousand years ago or yesterday, and the result could not possibly be different from what it is, why besiege Heaven with prayers?

The answer is simple.

Prayer is an emotional exercise; an endeavor to bring the will into a state of harmony with the Divine Will; a rest and a composure that gives strength by putting us in position to partake of the strength of the Universal.

The man who prays today is as a result stronger tomorrow, and thus is prayer answered.

By right thinking does the race grow.

An act is only a crystallized thought; and this young girl's little book was designed as a help to right thinking.

The things it taught are so simple that no man need go to a theological seminary to learn them: the Silence will tell him all if he will but listen and incline his heart.

Love had indeed made Harriet's spirit free.

And to no woman can love mean so much as to one who is aware that she is physically deficient.

Homely women are apt to make the better wives, and in all my earth-pilgrimage I never saw a more devoted love--a diviner tenderness--than that which exists between a man of my acquaintance, sound in every sense and splendid in physique, and his wife, who has been blind from her birth.

For weeks after I first met this couple there rang in my ears that expression of Victor Hugo's, "To be blind and to be loved--what happier fate!"

But Harriet's lover was poor in purse and his family was likewise poor, and the thrifty Martineaus vigorously opposed the mating.

In fact, Harriet's mother hooted at it and spoke of it with scorn; and Harriet answered not back, but hid her love away in her heart--biding the time when her lover should make for himself a name and a place, and have money withal to command the respect of even mill-owners.

So the days passed, and the months went by, and three years counted themselves with the eternity that lies behind.

Harriet's lover had indeed proved himself worthy.

He had worked his way through college, had been graduated at the Divinity School, and his high reputation for character and his ability as a speaker won for him at once a position to which many older than he aspired.

He became the pastor of the Unitarian Church at Manchester--and this was no small matter!

Now Norwich, where the Martineaus lived, is a long way from Manchester, where Harriet's lover preached, or it was then, in stagecoach times.

It cost money, too, to send letters.

And there was quite an interval once when Harriet sent several letters, and anxiously looked for one; but none arrived.

Then word came that the brilliant young preacher was ill; he wished to see his betrothed.

She started to go to him, but her parents opposed such an unprecedented thing.

She hesitated, deferred her visit--intending soon to go at all hazards--hoping all the while to hear better news.

Word came that Harriet's lover was dead.

Soon after this the Martineau mills, through various foolish speculations, got into a bad way.

Harriet's father found himself with more debts than he could pay; his endeavors to buffet the storm broke his health--he gave up hope, languished and died.

Mrs. Martineau and the family were thus suddenly deprived of all means of support.

The boys were sent to work in the mills, and the two older girls, having five sound senses each, found places where they could do housework and put money in their purses.

Harriet Martineau stayed at home and kept house.

She also studied, read and wrote a little--there was no other way!

* * * * * Six years passed, and the name of Harriet Martineau was recognized as a power in the land.

Her "Illustrations of Political Economy" had sold well up into the hundred thousands.

The little stories were read by old and young, rich and poor, learned and unlearned.

Sir Robert Peel had written Harriet a personal letter of encouragement; Lord Brougham had paid for and given away a thousand copies of the booklets; Richard Cobden had publicly endorsed them; Coleridge had courted the author; Florence Nightingale had sung her praises, and the Czar of Russia had ordered that "all the books of Harriet Martineau's found in Russia shall be destroyed."

Besides, she had incurred the wrath of King Philippe of France, who after first lavishly praising her and ordering the "Illustrations" translated into French, to be used in the public schools, suddenly discovered a hot chapter entitled, "The Error Called the Divine Right of Kings," and although Philippe was only a "citizen-king" he made haste to recall his kind words.

And I wish here to remark in parentheses that the author who has not made warm friends and then lost them in an hour by writing things that did not agree with the preconceived idea of these friends, has either not written well or not been read.

Every preacher who preaches ably has two doors to his church--one where the people come in and another through which he preaches them out.

And I do not see how any man, even though he be divine, could expect or hope to have as many as twelve disciples and hold them for three years without being doubted, denied and betrayed.

If you have thoughts, and honestly speak your mind, Golgotha for you is not far away.

Harriet Martineau was essentially an agitator.

She entered into life in its fullest sense, and no phase of existence escaped her keen and penetrating investigation.

From writing books giving minute directions to housemaids, to lengthy advice to prime ministers, her work never lagged.

She was widely read, beloved, respected, feared and well hated.

When her political-economy tales were selling their best, the Government sent her word that on application she could have a pension of two hundred pounds a year for life.

A pension of this kind comes nominally as a reward for excellent work or heroic service.

But a pension may mean something else: it often implies that the receiver shall not offend nor affront the one that bestows it.

Could we trace the true inner history of pensions granted by monarchies, we would find that they are usually diplomatic moves.

Harriet made no response to the generous offer of a lifelong maintenance from the State, but continued to work away after her own methods.

Yet the offer of a pension did her good in one way: it suggested the wisdom of setting aside a sum that would support her when her earning powers were diminished.

From her two books written concerning her trip to America she received the sum of seven thousand five hundred dollars.

With this she purchased an insurance policy in the form of a deferred annuity, providing that from her fiftieth year to her death she should receive the annual sum of five hundred dollars.

Nowhere in all the realm of Grub Street do we find a man who set such an example of cool wisdom for this crippled woman.

At this time she was supporting her mother, who had become blind, and also a brother, who was a slave to drink.

Twenty-five years after the first offer of pension, the Government renewed the proposition.

But Harriet said that her needs were few and her wants simple; that she had enough anyway, and besides, she could not consent to the policy of pensioning one class of persons for well-doing and forgetting all the toilers who have worked just as conscientiously, but along lowly lines; if she ever did need aid, she would do as other old women were obliged to do, that is, apply to the parish.

Miss Martineau wrote for the "Daily London News" alone, sixteen hundred forty-two editorials.

She also wrote more than two hundred magazine articles, and published upwards of fifty books.

Her work was not classic, for it was written for the times.

That her influence for good on the thought of the times was wide and far-reaching, all thoughtful men agree.

And he who influences the thought of his times influences all the times that follow.

He has made his impress on eternity.

* * * * * Opinions may differ as to what constitutes Harriet Martineau's best work, but my view is that her translation and condensation of Auguste Comte's six volumes into two will live when all her other work is forgotten.

Comte's own writings were filled with many repetitions and rhetorical flounderings.

He was more of a philosopher than a writer.

He had an idea too big for him to express, but he expressed at it right bravely.

Miss Martineau, trained writer and thinker, did not translate verbally: she caught the idea, and translated the thought rather than the language.

And so it has come about that her work has been literally translated back into French and is accepted as a textbook of Positivism, while the original books of the philosopher are merely collected by museums and bibliophiles as curiosities.

Comte taught that man passes through three distinct mental stages in his development: First, man attributes all phenomena to a "Personal God," and to this God he servilely prays.

Second, he believes in a "Supreme Essence," a "Universal Principle" or a "First Cause," and seeks to discover its hiding-place.

Third, he ceases to hunt out the unknowable, and is content to live and work for a positive present good, fully believing that what is best today can not fail to bring the best results tomorrow.

Harriet had long considered that one reason for the very slow advancement of civilization was that men had ever busied themselves with supernatural concerns; and in fearsome endeavors to make themselves secure for another world had neglected this.

Man had tried to make peace with the skies instead of peace with his neighbor.

She also thought she saw clearly that right living was one thing, and a belief in theological dogma another.

That these things sometimes go together, she of course admitted, but a belief in a "vicarious atonement" and a "miraculous conception" she did not believe made a man a gentler husband, a better neighbor or a more patriotic citizen.

Man does what he does because he thinks at the moment it is the best thing to do.

And if you could make men believe that peace, truth, honesty and industry were the best standards to adopt--bringing the best results--all men would adopt them.

There are no such things as reward and punishment, as these terms are ordinarily used: there are only good results and bad results.

We sow, and reap what we have sown.

Miss Martineau had long believed these things, but Comte proved them--proved them in six ponderous tomes--and she set herself the task to simplify his philosophy.

There is one point of attraction that Comte's thought had for Harriet Martineau that I have never seen mentioned in print--that is, his mental attitude on the value of love in a well-ordered life.

In the springtime of his manhood, Auguste Comte, sensitive, confiding, generous, loved a beautiful girl.

She did not share his intellectual ambitions, his divine aspiration: she was only a beautiful animal.

Man proposes, but is not always accepted.

She married another, and Comte was disconsolate--for a day.

He pondered the subject, read the lives of various great men, talked with monks and sundry friars gray, and after five years wrote out at length the reasons why a man, in order to accomplish a far-reaching and splendid work, must live the life of a celibate.

"To achieve," said Comte, "you must be married to your work."

Comte lived for some time content in this philosophy, constantly strengthening it and buttressing it against attack; for we believe a thing first and skirmish for our proof afterward.

But when past forty, and his hair was turning to silver, and crow's-feet were showing themselves in his fine face, and when there was a halt in his step and his laughter had died away into a weary smile, he met a woman whose nature was as finely sensitive and as silkenly strong as his own.

She had intellect, aspiration, power.

She was gentle, and a womanly woman withal; his best mood was matched by hers, she sympathized with his highest ideal.

They loved and they married.

The crow's-feet disappeared from Comte's face, the halt in his step was gone, the laugh returned, and people said that the silver in his hair was becoming.

Shortly after, Comte set himself to work overhauling all the foolish things he had said about the necessity of celibacy.

He declared that a man without his mate only stumbled his way through life.

There was the male man and the female man, and only by working together could these two souls hope to progress.

It requires two to generate thought.

Comte felt sure that he was writing the final word.

He avowed that there was no more to say.

He declared that should his wife go hence the fountains of his soul would dry up, his mind would famish, and the light of his life would go out in darkness.

The gods were envious of such love as this.

Comte's mate passed away.

He was stricken dumb; the calamity was too great for speech or tears.

But five years after, he got down his books and went over his manuscripts and again revised his philosophy of what constitutes the true condition for the highest and purest thought.

To have known a great and exalted love and have it fade from your grasp and flee as shadow, living only in memory, is the highest good, he wrote.

A great sorrow at one stroke purchases a redemption from all petty troubles; it sinks all trivial annoyances into nothingness, and grants the man lifelong freedom from all petty, corroding cares.

His feelings have been sounded to their depths--the plummet has touched bottom.

Fate has done her worst: she has brought him face to face with the Supreme Calamity, and thereafter there is nothing that can inspire terror.

The memory of a great love can never die from out the heart.

It affords a ballast 'gainst all the storms that blow.

And although it lends an unutterable sadness, it imparts an unspeakable peace.

A great love, even when fully possessed, affords no complete gratification.

There is an essence in it that eludes all ownership.

Its highest use seems to be a purifying impulse for nobler endeavor.

It says at the last, "Arise, and get thee hence, for this is not thy rest."

Where there is this haunting memory of a great love lost there is always forgiveness, charity, and a sympathy that makes the man brother to all who endure and suffer.

The individual himself is nothing; he has nothing to hope for, nothing to gain, nothing to win, nothing to lose; for the first time and the last he has a selflessness that is wide as the world, and wherein there is no room for the recollection of a wrong.

In this memory of a great love, there is a nourishing source of strength by which the possessor lives and works; he is in communication with elemental conditions.

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.

For even in the last hour, when the coldness of death shall creep into the stiffening limbs, and the brain shall be stunned and the thoughts stifled, there shall come to the tongue a name, a name not mentioned aloud for years--there shall come a name; and as the last flickering rays of life flare up to go out on earth forever, the tongue will speak this name that was long, long ago burned into the soul by the passion of a love that fadeth not away.