Harriet Martineau
his sister--"... He said, 'He did not know how he should bear his
misfortune. When he thought of the long, long days, and months, and
years, to the end of his life, and that he should never run and play,
and never be like other people, and never able to do the commonest
things without labor and trouble, he wished he was dead. He would
rather have died!' Agnes thought he must be miserable indeed if he
would venture to say this to his mother." Such was the idea that these
children had of maternal sympathy and love! So little did they look
upon their mother as the one person above all others to whom their
secret troubles should be opened!
It is proper to observe that the mother came out of this test well.
There is no record that Mrs. Martineau was ever found wanting in due
care for her children when the pent-up agony of their bodies or spirits
became so violent as to burst the bonds of reserve that her general
demeanor and method of management imposed upon them. Her children's
misery (for Harriet was not the only one of the family whose childhood
was wretched) came not from any intentional neglect, or even from any
indifference on her part to their comfort and happiness, but solely,
let it be repeated, from her arbitrary manner and her quickness of
temper. It is worth repeating (if biography be of value for the lessons
which may be drawn from it for the conduct of other lives) that the
mother whose children were so spirit-tossed and desolate was,
nevertheless, one who gave herself up to their interests, and labored
incessantly and unselfishly for their welfare. It was not love that
really was wanting; far less was it faithfulness in the performance of
a mother's material duties to her children; all that was lacking was
the free play of the emotions on the surface, the kisses, the loving
phrases, the fond tones, which are assuredly neither weaknesses nor
works of supererogation in family life. By means of candid expression
alone can the emotions of one mind touch those of another; and from the
lack of such contact between a child and its mother there must come, in
so close a life relationship, misery to the younger and disappointment
to the elder of the two.
"I really think," says Harriet, "if I had once conceived that anybody
cared for me, nearly all the sins and sorrows of my anxious childhood
would have been spared me." Yet, not only was she well fed, well
clothed, well educated, and sent to amusements to give her pleasure
(magic lanterns, parties and seaside trips are all mentioned); but
besides all this, when she did burst forth, like Hugh Proctor in the
book, with the expression of her suffering, she was soothed and cared
for. But this last happened so rarely--of course entirely because it
was made so difficult for her to express herself--that the occasions
lived in her memory all her life.
The moral consequences of all this were naturally bad. Even with all
motherly sympathy and encouragement, so sickly a child would have been
likely to suffer from timidity, and to fall into occasional fits of
despondency and irritability; but, with fear continually excited in
her mind, and with an eternal storm of passionate opposition to
arbitrary authority raging in her soul, it is no wonder that the poor
child made for herself a character for willfulness and obstinacy,
while internally she suffered dreadfully from her conscience. "In my
childhood," she says, "I would assert or deny anything to my mother
that would bring me through most easily.... This was so exclusively
to one person that, though there was remonstrance and punishment, I
was never regarded as a liar in the family." Her strength of will
was very great; and when she had been placed in a false position by
her dread of rebuke, the powerful will came into play to maintain
a dogged, stubborn, indifferent appearance. Yet all the while her
conscientiousness--the strong convictions as to what was right, and
the ardent desire to do it, which marked her whole career--was at work
within her, causing a mental shame and distress which might have been
easily aided by gentle treatment to overcome the fear and the firmness
which were acting together to make her miserable and a sinner.
It is altogether a sad story, but I have not told it at length without
reason. The fact that other children are suffering similarly every day
makes the record worth repeating. But, besides this, her vivid
remembrance of her childish pangs tends to show how warm and strong
were her natural affections. If Harriet Martineau's mind had not been
sensitive and emotional, and if her love for those united to her by
family ties had not been ardent, she would not have felt as she did in
her childhood, and she would not have remembered, all through her life,
how she had suffered in her early years from unsatisfied affection.
Now, this soft, loving, emotional side of her character must be
recognized before her life and her work can be properly appreciated.
The intellectual influences of her home life were not more happy than
the moral ones. She was thought by her family anything but a clever
child. Indeed, Dr. James Martineau (whose recollections are peculiarly
valuable, both from his nearness to Harriet in age and from their great
attachment in early life) still thinks that she really was a dull
child. Her intelligence, he believes, awoke only in her later youth,
coincidentally with some improvement in health. It is hard to guess
what the impression of her childish intellectual powers might have been
under different conditions. She suggestively remarks[1]: "It should
never be forgotten that the happier a child is the cleverer he will be.
This is not only because in a state of happiness the mind is free, and
at liberty for the exercise of its faculties instead of spending its
thoughts and energy in brooding over troubles, but also because the
action of the brain is stronger when the frame is in a state of
hilarity; the ideas are more clear, impressions of outward objects are
more vivid, and the memory will not let them slip." Moreover, it is a
fact worthy of note that the recognition by her family of her mental
development followed upon her return home after she had been away for a
time, and had been learning at a boarding-school under "the first
person of whom she never felt afraid." Still, the fact remains that
Harriet was the ugly duckling of her family, and supposed to be the
most stupid of the group of Martineau children.
[1] _Household Education_, p. 202.
She was active-minded enough, however, to begin early that spontaneous
self-education which only intellects of real power undertake, either
in childhood or in later years.
Milton was her master. When she was seven years old she came by
accident upon a copy of _Paradise Lost_ lying open upon a table. Taking
it up, she saw the heading "Argument," and in the text her eye caught
the word "Satan." Instantly the mind which her relations thought so
sluggish was fired by the desire to know how Satan could be argued
about. She sought the passage which tells how the arch-fiend was--
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire.
For the ensuing seven years her thoughts dwelt daily in the midst of
the solemn scenes, and moved to the sound of the sonorous music of
Milton's poetry. "I wonder how much of it I knew by heart--enough to
be always repeating it to myself with every change of light and
darkness, and sound, and silence, the moods of the day and the seasons
of the year." The dull child, who neglected her multiplication table,
did so because her mind was pre-occupied with thoughts of this grander
order.
Her love of books increased, and her range of reading became wide.
Milton, although the favorite, was by no means her only beloved
author. She read rapidly, and, as clever children often do,
voraciously. Whole pages or scenes from Shakespeare, Goldsmith,
Thompson, and Milton she learned by heart, until she knew enough
poetry to have fitted her for the occupation of a wandering reciter.
In this way her self-education in the English classics, and in
literary style, went on at the same time with her daily education by
living teachers.
Harriet's formal education was somewhat desultory; but it is a
noteworthy fact that it was, so far as it went, what would have been
called a "boy's education." In this respect the history of her mental
development is the same as that of many other illustrious women of
the past. Girls' High Schools, and University examinations for
young women, are products of the present day, and are rapidly
rendering obsolete the old ideas about the necessary differences and
distinctions between the education of boys and girls. But up to the
first quarter of this century, the minds of boys and of girls were
commonly submitted to entirely different courses of training. While
the boys learned precision in reasoning from mathematics, the girls
were considered sufficiently equipped for their lot in life by a
knowledge of the first three rules of arithmetic. While any faculty of
language that a lad possessed was trained and exercised by the study
of the classics, his sister was thought to require no more teaching in
composition and grammar than would enable her to write a letter.
Elaborate samplers, specimens of fine stitching, of hemming done by a
thread on the most delicate cambric, of marking in tiny stitches and
wonderful designs, and of lace more noticeable for difficulty in the
doing than for beauty, have come down to us from our grandmothers'
days, to show us how the school-time of the girls was being disposed
of, while the boys were studying Euclid, Virgil, and Homer. If we have
changed all that, and are now beginning to give a considerable
proportion of our girls the same mental diet for the growth and
sustenance of their minds with that which is supplied to boys, it is
largely owing to the direct efforts in favor of such a course put
forth by women such as Harriet Martineau, who had themselves been, at
least partially, educated "like boys," and were conscious that to such
education they owed much of their mental superiority over average
women.
In her earlier years Harriet was taught at home by her elder brothers
and sisters, with the addition of lessons in some subjects from
masters. She was well grounded in this manner in Latin, French and the
ordinary elementary subjects. But her systematic education did not
begin until she was eleven, when she and her sister Rachel were sent
to a school kept by a good master, at which boys also were receiving
their education.
The school-life was delectable to Harriet. Mr. Perry, the master, was
gentle in his manner, and methodical in his style of teaching; and
under his tuition the shy, nervous child felt for the first time
encouraged to do her best, and aided not merely to learn her lessons,
but also to expand her mental faculties. The two years that she
remained at Mr. Perry's school gave her a fair insight into Latin and
French, and enabled her to discover that arithmetic was to her mind a
delightful pastime rather than a difficult study. English composition
was formally and carefully taught. This was Harriet's favorite lesson;
but she would spend her playtime in covering a slate with sums for the
mere pleasure of the exercise.
When Harriet had been at this school for about two years, Mr. Perry
left Norwich. The home system of education was then resumed. She had
visiting masters in Latin, French, and music. For the rest, Mrs.
Martineau selected a course of reading on history, biography, and
literature. One of the girls read aloud daily while the others did
needle-work.