Harriet Martineau
the discoverer. The original thinker, he who observes his facts from
nature at first hand, who compares them, and reasons about them, and
combines them, and generalizes a principle from them, is the one whom
posterity to all time must honor and reverence for his additions to
the store of human knowledge. But not far inferior in power, and equal
in immediate usefulness, is the disciple who can judge the
originator's work, and, finding it perfectly in accordance with facts
as known to him, can receive it into his mind, arrange it in order,
deck it with illustration, illuminate it with power of language, and
represent it in a form suitable for general comprehension. There is
originality of mind needed for such work; that which is done, the
adaptation of the truths to be received to the receptive powers of the
multitude, is an original work performed upon the truths, hardly
inferior in difficulty and utility to that of him who first discerns
them. This was the class of work which Harriet Martineau was beginning
to do, and to do well. But there was more than this in her purposes.
As these articles, though vastly inferior in execution to what she
afterwards did, nevertheless show the essential characteristics of her
work, this seems to be the most favorable opportunity to pause to
inquire what was the special feature of her writings. For, various
though her subjects appear to be, ranging from the humblest topics,
such as the duties of maids-of-all-work, up to the highest themes of
mental and political philosophy, yet I find one informing idea, one
and the same moving impulse to the pen of the writer, throughout the
whole series. Let us see what it was that she really, though half
unconsciously perhaps, kept before her as her aim.
It is obvious at once that her writings are all designed to _teach_.
A little closer consideration shows that what they seek to teach is
always _what is right conduct_. Abstract truth merely as such does not
content her. She seeks its practical concrete application to daily
life. Further, not merely has she the aim of teaching morals, but she
invariably makes _facts_ and _reasonings from facts the basis_ of her
moral teachings. In other words, she approaches morals from the
scientific instead of the intuitional side; and to thus influence
conduct is the invariable final object of her writings.
It would sound simpler to say that she wrote on the science of morals.
But the term "moral science" has already been appropriated to a class
of writing than which nothing could, very often, less deserve the name
of science. The work which Harriet Martineau spent her whole life in
doing, was, however, true work in moral science. What she was ever
seeking to do was to find out how men should live from what men and
their surroundings are. She must be recognized as one of the first
thinkers to uniformly consider practical morals as derived from
reasoned science.
Many of the articles contributed to the _Repository_ were naturally,
from the character of the publication, upon theology. Much that is
noticeable might be culled from amongst them; as, indeed, could be
inferred from the fact that an able leader of her religious body
allowed her to fill so very large a portion of the pages by which,
under his guidance, the Unitarian public were instructed. In all the
essays, a distinguishing feature is the earnestness of the effort put
forth to judge the questions at issue by reason, and not by prejudice.
It is true that the effort often fails. There comes the moment at
which faith in dogma intervenes, and submerges the pure argument; but
none the less do the spirit of justice and fairness, and the love of
truth, irradiate the whole of these compositions.
Mr. Fox soon asked her if she thought that any of her ideas could be
expressed through the medium of fiction. It so happened that the
suggestion precisely fell in with a thought that had already occurred
to her that "of all delightful tasks, the most delightful would be to
describe, with all possible fidelity, the aspect of the life and land
of the Hebrews, at the critical period of the full expectation of
the Messiah." She wrote a story which she called _The Hope of the
Hebrews_, in which a company of young people, relatives and friends,
were shown as undergoing the alternations of doubt and hope about
whether this teacher was indeed Messiah, on the first appearance
of Jesus in Palestine. The day after this story appeared in the
_Repository_ Mr. Fox was at an anniversary dinner of the sect, where
so many persons spoke to him about the tale, that he wrote and
generously advised Harriet not to publish any more such stories in his
magazine, but to make a book of them. She adopted the suggestion; the
little volume was issued with her name, and proved her first decisive
success. Not only was it well circulated and highly appreciated in
England, but it was translated into French, under high ecclesiastical
sanction, and was also immediately reproduced in the United States.
While this book was in the press, she went to stay for a short time in
London. Mr. Fox, hearing from her how anxious she was to earn her
livelihood by literature, succeeded in obtaining from a printer friend
of his an offer for her to do "proof correcting and other drudgery,"
if she liked to remain in London for the work. This would have given
her a small but certain income, and there could be little doubt that,
if she stayed in London, she would gradually get into some
journalistic employment which would enable her to support herself
tolerably well. There were no great hopes in the matter. Mr. Fox told
her that "one hundred or one hundred and fifty pounds a year is as
much as our most successful writers usually make"--success here
meaning, of course, full employment in hackwork. It had not yet
occurred, even to Mr. Fox, that she was to be really a successful
author. But to do even this drudgery, and to take the poor chance now
offered to her, implied that she must make her home in London; and she
wrote to inform her mother of this fact.
The same post which carried Harriet's letter to this effect, bore to
Mrs. Martineau a second missive, from the relative with whom her
daughter was staying, which strongly advised that Harriet should be
recalled home, there to pursue the needle-work by which she had proved
she could earn money. The good lady had been wont to ask Harriet day
by day "how much she would get" for the literary labor upon which she
had expended some hours; and the poor young author's reply not being
satisfactory or precise, her hostess looked upon the time spent at the
desk as so much wasted. She gave Harriet some pieces of silk, "lilac,
blue, and pink," and advised her to keep to making little bags and
baskets, which the kind friend generously promised to assist in
disposing of for good coin of the realm.
The mother who had stood between her full-grown daughter and the bed
of a dying betrothed, now thought herself justified in interposing
between the woman of twenty-seven and the work which she desired to
undertake for her independence. Mrs. Martineau sent Harriet a stern
letter, peremptorily ordering her to return home forthwith. Bitterly
disappointed at seeing this chance of independence in the vocation she
loved thus snatched away, Harriet's sense of filial duty led her to
obey her mother's commands. She went home with a heavy heart; and with
equal sadness, her little sister of eighteen turned out of home, at
the same despotic bidding, to go a-governessing. "My mother received
me very tenderly. She had no other idea at the moment than that she
had been doing her best for my good."
Harriet did not return to Norwich entirely discouraged. Resolution
such as hers was not easily broken down. The British and Foreign
Unitarian Association had advertised three prizes for the best essays
designed to convert Roman Catholics, Jews and Mohammedans respectively
to Unitarianism. The sum offered for each was but small: ten guineas
for the Catholic, fifteen for the Jewish, and twenty for the
Mohammedan essays. But it was less the money than interest in the
cause, and desire to see if she could succeed in competition with
others, that led Harriet to form the intention of trying for _all
three_ prizes.
She went to work immediately upon the Catholic essay, which was to be
adjudicated upon six months earlier than the other two. When it was
finished, she paid a schoolboy, who wrote a good hand, a sovereign
that she could ill spare, for copying the essay, which was about
two-thirds the length of this volume. The essays were to be
superscribed, as usual in such competitions, with a motto, and the
writer's name and address had to be forwarded in a sealed envelope,
with the same motto outside. In September, 1830, she received the
gratifying news that the committee of adjudication had unanimously
awarded this prize to her.
The other two essays were commenced with the spirit induced by this
success. One of them was copied out by a poor woman, the other by a
schoolmaster. Harriet was careful even to have the two essays written
upon different sorts of paper, to do them up in differently shaped
packages, and to use separate kinds of wax and seals.
The sequel may be told, with all the freshness of the moment, in a
quotation from the _Monthly Repository_ for May, 1831: "We were about
to review it [_i.e._ the Catholic essay] when the somewhat startling
fact transpired of her having carried off the other premiums offered
by the Association's committee for tracts addressed to the Mohammedans
and the Jews. We shall not now stop to inquire how it has happened
that our ministers would not or could not prevent the honor of
championing the cause of pure Christianity against the whole
theological world from developing upon a young lady. However that
may be, she has won the honor and well deserves to wear it."
The essays were published by the Unitarian Association. There can be
little doubt that, however many ministers may have competed, the
Committee did select the best papers offered to their choice. The
learning in all is remarkable; the freedom from sectarian bitterness,
from bigotry, and from the insolent assumption of moral and religious
superiority, is even more striking, in such proselytising
compositions.
While waiting the result of the prize competition, Harriet wrote a
long story for young people, which she called _Five Years of Youth_.
It is one of the prettiest and most attractive of all her writings of
this class. It has a moral object, of course--a somewhat similar one
to that of Jane Austen's _Sense and Sensibility_; but the warning
against allowing sensitiveness to pass into sentimentality is here
directed to girls just budding into womanhood; and the punishment for
the error is not a love disappointment, but the diminution of the
power of domestic and social helpfulness.
Harriet's work of this year, 1830, comprised the doing of much
fancy-work for sale, making and mending everything that she herself
wore, knitting stockings even while reading, studying a course of
German literature, and writing for the press the following quantity of
literary matter:--_Traditions of Palestine_, a duodecimo volume of 170
printed pages; _Five Years of Youth_, 264 small octavo pages; three
theological essays, making a closely printed crown octavo volume of
300 pages; and fifty-two articles of various lengths in the twelve
numbers of the _Monthly Repository_.
And now she had touched the highest point of sectarian fame. The
chosen expositor to the outer world of her form of religion, and the
writer of its favorite Sunday School story-book of the hour, she must
already have felt that her industrious, resolute labor through many
years had at last borne some fruit.