Harriet Martineau
larks, with news how the glass stands, out-door and in. Out-door
(not on the ground) it is somewhere between 32 deg. and 40 deg. at
present; and in my room (before the fire has got up), from 50 deg. to
57 deg.. 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. Truebner,
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,