Harriet Martineau
But the moment for wider fame and a greater usefulness was now at
hand. In the autumn of 1827 she had read Mrs. Marcet's _Conversations
on Political Economy_, and had become aware that the subject which she
had thought out for herself, and treated in her little stories of _The
Rioters_, and _The Turn-Out_, was a recognized science. She followed
this up by a study of Adam Smith, and other economists, and the idea
then occurred to her that it might be possible to illustrate the whole
system of political economy by tales similar in style to those she had
already written. The thought had lain working in her mind for long,
and, in this autumn of 1831, the idea began to press upon her as a
duty.
There were many reasons why it was especially necessary just then that
the people should be brought to think about Social Science. The times
were bitter with the evils arising from unwise laws. None knew better
than she did how largely the well-being of mankind depends upon causes
which cannot be affected by laws. It is individual conduct which must
make or mar the prosperity of the nation. But, on the other hand, laws
are potent, both as direct causes of evil conditions (and in a less
degree of good conditions), and from their educational influence upon
the people. Harriet Martineau felt that she had come to see more
clearly than the masses of her fellow-countrymen exactly how far the
miseries under which English society groaned were caused directly or
indirectly by mischievous legislative acts. Moreover, the
circumstances of the moment made the imparting of such knowledge not
only possible, but specially opportune. The Bishops had just thrown
out the Reform Bill; but no person who watched the temper of the time
could doubt that their feeble opposition would be speedily swept
aside, and that self-government was about to be extended to a new
class of the people. Most suitable was the occasion, then, for
offering information to these upon the science and art of society.
Harriet was right in her judgment when she started her project of a
series of tales illustrative of Political Economy, under a "thorough,
well-considered, steady conviction that the work was wanted, was even
craved for by the popular mind."
She began to write the first of her stories. The next business was to
find a publisher to share her belief that the undertaking would be
acceptable to the public. She wrote to one after another of the great
London publishers, receiving instant refusal to undertake the series
from all but two; and even these two, after giving her a little of
that delusive hope which ends by plunging the mind into deeper
despair, joined with their brethren in declining to have anything to
do with the scheme.
Finally, she went to London to try if personal interviews would bring
her any better success. She stayed in a house attached to a brewery
(Whitbread's), belonging to a cousin of hers, and situated near the
City Road. Thence, she tramped about through the mud and sleet of
December to the publishers' offices day after day for nearly three
weeks. The result was always failure. But though she returned to the
house worn-out and dispirited, her determination that the work should
be done never wavered, and night after night she sat up till long
after the brewery clock struck twelve, the pen pushing on in her
trembling hand, preparing the first two numbers of the series, to be
ready for publication when the means should be found.
It was the kind friend who had helped her before who came to the
rescue at last at this crisis. Mr. W. J. Fox induced his brother
Charles to make her proposals for publishing her series.
Mr. Charles Fox took care to offer only such arrangement as should
indemnify him from all risk in the undertaking. He required, first,
that five hundred subscribers should be obtained for the work; and
second, that he, the publisher, should receive about seventy-five per
cent of the possible profits. Hopeless of anything better, she
accepted these hard terms, and it was arranged that the first number
should appear with February, 1832.
The original stipulation as to the time that this agreement should run
was that the engagement should be terminable by either party at the
end of every five numbers. But a few days afterwards, when Harriet
called upon Mr. W. J. Fox to show him her circular inviting
subscribers for the series, she found that Mr. Charles Fox had decided
to say that he would not publish more than two numbers, unless a
thousand copies of No. I were sold in the first fortnight! This
decision had been arrived at chiefly in consequence of a conversation
which W. J. Fox had held with James Mill, in which the distinguished
political economist had pronounced against the essential point of the
scheme--the narrative form--and had advised that, if the young lady
must try her hand at Political Economy, she should write it in the
orthodox didactic style.
Mr. Fox lived at Dalston. When Harriet left his house, after receiving
this unreasonable and discouraging ultimatum, she "set out to walk the
four miles and a half to the Brewery. I could not afford to ride more
or less; but, weary already, I now felt almost too ill to walk at all.
On the road, not far from Shoreditch, I became too giddy to stand
without some support; and I leaned over some dirty palings, pretending
to look at a cabbage-bed, but saying to myself as I stood with closed
eyes, 'My book will do yet.'"
That very night she wrote the long, thoughtful, and collected preface
to her work. After she had finished it she sat over the fire in her
bedroom, in the deepest depression; she cried, with her feet on the
fender, till four o'clock, and then she went to bed, and cried there
till six, when she fell asleep. But if any persons suppose that
because the feminine temperament finds a relief in tears, the fact
argues weakness, they will be instructed by hearing that she was up by
half-past eight, continuing her work as firmly resolved as ever that
it should be published.
CHAPTER V.
THE GREAT SUCCESS.
The work which had struggled into printed existence with such extreme
difficulty raised its author at a bound to fame. Ten days after the
publication of the first number, Charles Fox sent Harriet word that
not only were the fifteen hundred copies which formed the first
edition all sold off, but he had such orders in hand that he proposed
to print another five thousand at once. The people had taken up the
work instantly. The press followed, instead of leading the public in
this instance; but it, too, was enthusiastic in praise, both of the
scheme and the execution of the stories.
More than one publisher who had previously rejected the series made
overtures for it now. Its refusal, as they saw, had been one of those
striking blunders of which literary history has not a few to tell. But
there is no occasion to cry out about the stupidity of publishers.
They can judge well how far a work written on lines already popular
will meet the demand of the market; but an entirely original idea, or
the work of an original writer, is a mere lottery. There is no telling
how the public will take it until it has been tried. Publishers put
into a good many such lotteries, and often lose by them; then nothing
more is heard of the matter. But the cases where they decline a
speculation which afterwards turns out to have been a good one are
never forgotten. Still, the fact remains that it was Harriet Martineau
alone who saw that the people needed her work, and whose wonderful
courage and resolution brought it out for the public to accept.
Her success grew, as an avalanche gains in volume, by its own
momentum. Besides the publishers' communications she had letters, and
pamphlets, and blue-books, and magazines forwarded to her in piles, in
order that she might include the advocacy of the senders' hobbies in
her series. One day the postmaster sent her a message that she must
let a barrow be fetched for her share of the mail, as it was too bulky
to come in any other way. Lord Brougham declared, that it made him
tear his hair to think that the Society for the Diffusion of
Knowledge, which he had instituted for the very purpose of doing such
work as she was undertaking, seemed not to have a man in it with as
much sense of what was wanted as this little deaf girl at Norwich. The
public interest in the work was, perhaps, heightened by the fact that
so ignorant was everybody of her personality, that this description of
Brougham's passed muster. But she was not little, and she was now
twenty-nine years of age.
She stayed in Norwich, going on writing hard, until the November of
1832, by which time eight numbers of her series had appeared. Then she
went to London, taking lodgings with an old servant of Mrs.
Martineau's, who lived in Conduit street. In the course of a few
months, however, Mrs. Martineau settled herself in London, and her
daughter again resided with her, in a house in Fludyer street,
Westminster.
The purely literary success which she had hitherto enjoyed was now
turned into a social triumph. However she might strive against being
lionized she could not avoid the attentions and honors that were
poured upon her. It is little to say that all the distinguished people
in town hastened to know her; it was even considered to give
distinction to a party if she could be secured to attend it. Literary
celebrities, titled people, and members of Parliament, competed for
the small space of time that she could spare for society.
This was not very much, for the work she had undertaken was heavy
enough to absorb all her energies. She had engaged to produce one of
her stories every month. They were issued in small paper-covered
volumes of from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty pages
of print. She began publication with only two or three numbers ready
written. Thus, to keep on with her series, she had to write one whole
number every month. It would have been hard work had it been simple
story-telling, had she been merely imaginatively reproducing scenes
and characters from her past experience, or writing according to her
fancy. But it was, in fact, a much more difficult labor upon which she
was engaged. Her scheme required that she should embody every shade of
variety of the human character; that her scenes should be laid in
different parts of the world, with topography and surroundings
appropriate to the story; and that the governments and social state of
all these various places should be accurately represented. In addition
to all this she had to lay down for each tale the propositions which
had to be illustrated in it; to assure herself that she clearly saw
the truth and the bearings of every doctrine of political economy; and
then to work into a connected fiction in a concrete form the abstract
truths of the science--representing them as exemplified in the lives
of individuals.
Political economy treats of the production, distribution and
consumption, or use, of all the material objects of human desire,
which are called by the general name of wealth. Thus, it is a subject
which concerns every one of us in our daily lives, and not merely a
matter belonging (as its name unfortunately leads many to suppose)
entirely to the province of the legislator. The great mass of mankind
are producers of wealth. All are necessarily consumers--for the bare
maintenance of existence demands the consumption of wealth. The
well-being of the community depends upon the industry and skill with
which wealth is produced; upon the distribution of it in such a manner
as to encourage future production; and upon the consumption of it with
due regard to the claims of the future. It is individuals who, as the
business of common life, produce, exchange, divide and consume wealth;