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diff --git a/25793.txt b/25793.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c9bf76e --- /dev/null +++ b/25793.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1336 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3), by John Morley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) + Essay 6: Harriet Martineau + +Author: John Morley + +Release Date: June 14, 2008 [EBook #25793] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Kit Ellis and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +CRITICAL +MISCELLANIES + +BY + +JOHN MORLEY + + + +VOL. III. + +ESSAY 6: HARRIET MARTINEAU + + + + +London + +MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + +NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + +1904 + + + + + + HARRIET MARTINEAU. + + + Introductory 175 + + Early days 178 + + Literary ordeal 180 + + Success of the Tales on Political Economy 181 + + Her feeling, not literary, but truly social 182 + + London Society (1832) 184 + + Character of her judgments on Men 187 + + The Whigs 188 + + Carlyle's influence 189 + + Interest in American slavery 192 + + Her first novel 194 + + The Atkinson Letters 196 + + Her new religious opinions 197 + + Eastern travels 199 + + Retirement to the Lakes 200 + + Her manner of life 202 + + Translation of Comte 204 + + Her right estimate of literary work 205 + + Her Biographic Sketches 208 + + Characteristics 210 + + + + +HARRIET MARTINEAU. + + +In 1850 Charlotte Bronte paid a visit to Harriet Martineau at Ambleside, +and she wrote to her friends various emphatic accounts of her hostess. +'Without adopting her theories,' Miss Bronte said, 'I yet find a worth +and greatness in herself, and a consistency, benevolence, perseverance +in her practice, such as wins the sincerest esteem and affection. She is +not a person to be judged by her writings alone, but rather by her own +deeds and life, than which nothing can be more exemplary or noble.' + +The division which Miss Bronte thus makes between opinions and +character, and again between literary production and character, is at +the root of any just criticism of the two volumes of autobiography which +have just been given to the public. Of the third volume, _The +Memorials_, by Mrs. Chapman, it is impossible to say anything serious. +Mrs. Chapman fought an admirable fight in the dark times of American +history for the abolition of slavery, but unhappily she is without +literary gifts; and this third volume is one more illustration of the +folly of entrusting the composition of biography to persons who have +only the wholly irrelevant claim of intimate friendship, or kinship, or +sympathy in public causes. The qualification for a biographer is not in +the least that he is a virtuous person, or a second cousin, or a dear +friend, or a trusty colleague; but that he knows how to write a book, +has tact, style, taste, considerateness, sense of proportion, and a good +eye for the beginnings and ends of things. The third volume, then, tells +us little about the person to whom they relate. The two volumes of +autobiography tell all that we can seek to know, and the reader who +judges them in an equitable spirit will be ready to allow that, when all +is said that can be said of her hardness, arbitrariness, and insularity, +Harriet Martineau is still a singular and worthy figure among the +conspicuous personages of a generation that has now almost vanished. +Some will wonder how it was that her literary performances acquired so +little of permanent value. Others will be pained by the distinct +repudiation of all theology, avowed by her with a simple and courageous +directness that can scarcely be counted other than honourable to her. +But everybody will admit, as Charlotte Bronte did, that though her books +are not of the first nor of the second rank, and though her +anti-theological opinions are to many so repugnant, yet behind books and +opinions was a remarkable personality, a sure eye for social realities, +a moral courage that never flinched; a strong judgment within its +limits; a vigorous self-reliance both in opinion and act, which yet did +not prevent a habit of the most neutral self-judgment; the commonplace +virtues of industry and energy devoted to aims too elevated, and too +large and generous, to be commonplace; a splendid sincerity, a +magnificent love of truth. And that all these fine qualities, which +would mostly be described as manly, should exist not in a man but a +woman, and in a woman who discharged admirably such feminine duties as +fell to her, fills up the measure of our interest in such a character. + + * * * * * + +Harriet Martineau was born at Norwich in 1802, and she died, as we all +remember, in the course of the summer of 1876. Few people have lived so +long as three-quarters of a century, and undergone so little substantial +change of character, amid some very important changes of opinion. Her +family was Unitarian, and family life was in her case marked by some of +that stiffness, that severity, that chilly rigour, with which Unitarians +are sometimes taxed by religionists of a more ecstatic doctrine. Her +childhood was very unhappy; the household seems to have been unamiable, +and she was treated with none of that tenderness and sympathy for which +firm and defiant natures are apt to yearn as strongly as others that get +the credit of greater sensibility. With that singular impulse to suicide +which is frequent among children, though rarer with girls than boys, she +went one day into the kitchen for the carving-knife, that she might cut +her throat; luckily the servants were at dinner, and the child +retreated. Deafness, which proved incurable, began to afflict her +before she was sixteen. A severe, harsh, and mournful kind of +religiosity seized her, and this 'abominable spiritual rigidity,' as she +calls it, confirmed all the gloomy predispositions of her mind. She +learned a good deal, mastering Latin, French, and Italian in good time; +and reading much in her own tongue, including constant attention to the +Bible, with all sorts of commentaries and explanations, such as those of +us who were brought up in a certain spiritual atmosphere have only too +good reasons never to forget. This expansion of intellectual interest, +however, did not make her less silent, less low in her spirits, less +full of vague and anxious presentiment. The reader is glad when these +ungracious years of youth are at an end, and the demands of active life +stirred Harriet Martineau's energies into vigorous work. + +In 1822 her father died, and seven years later his widow and his +daughters lost at a single blow nearly all that they had in the world. +Before this event, which really proved to be a blessing in the disguise +of a catastrophe, Harriet Martineau had written a number of slight +pieces. They had been printed, and received a certain amount of +recognition. They were of a religious cast, as was natural in one with +whom religious literature, and religious life and observance, had +hitherto taken in the whole sphere of her continual experience. +_Traditions of Palestine_ and _Devotional Exercises_ are titles that +tell their own tale, and we may be sure that their authoress was still +at the antipodean point of the positive philosophy in which she ended +her speculative journey. She still clung undoubtingly to what she had +been brought up to believe when she won three prizes for essays intended +to present Unitarianism to the notice of Jews, of Catholics, and of +Mahometans. Her success in these and similar efforts turned her mind +more decidedly towards literature as a profession. + +Miss Martineau is at some pains to assure us on several occasions that +it was the need of utterance now and always that drove her to write, and +that money, although welcome when it came, was never her motive. This +perhaps a little savours of affectation. Nobody would dream of +suspecting Miss Martineau of writing anything that she did not believe +to be true or useful merely for the sake of money. But there is plenty +of evidence that the prospect of payment stirred her to true and useful +work, as it does many other authors by profession, and as it does the +followers of all professions whatever. She puts the case fairly enough +in another place (i. 422):--'Every author is in a manner an adventurer; +and no one was ever more decidedly so than myself; but the difference +between one kind of adventurer and another is, I believe, simply +this--that the one has something to say which presses for utterance, and +is uttered at length without a view to future fortunes; while the other +has a sort of general inclination towards literature, without any +specific need of utterance, and a very definite desire for the honours +and rewards of the literary career.' Even in the latter case, however, +honest journeyman's work enough is done in literature by men and women +who seek nothing higher than a reputable source of income. Miss +Martineau did, no doubt, seek objects far higher and more generous than +income, but she lived on the income which literature brought to her; and +there seems a certain failure of her usually admirable common sense in +making any ado about so simple a matter. When doctors and counsel refuse +their guineas, and the parson declines a stipend, it will be quite soon +enough for the author to be especially anxious to show that he has a +right to regard money much as the rest of the human race regard it. + +Miss Martineau underwent the harsh ordeal which awaits most literary +aspirants. She had a scheme in her head for a long series of short tales +to illustrate some of the propositions of political economy. She trudged +about London day after day, through mud and fog, with weary limbs and +anxious heart, as many an author has done before and since. The times +were bad; cholera was abroad; people were full of apprehension and +concern about the Reform Bill; and the publishers looked coldly on a +doubtful venture. Miss Martineau talks none of the conventional nonsense +about the cruelty and stupidity of publishers. What she says is this: 'I +have always been anxious to extend to young or struggling authors the +sort of aid which would have been so precious to me in that winter of +1829-1830, and I know that, in above twenty years, I have never +succeeded but once.' One of the most distinguished editors in London, +who had charge of a periodical for many years, told us what comes to the +same thing, namely, that in no single case during all these years did a +volunteer contributor of real quality, or with any promise of eminence, +present himself or herself. So many hundreds think themselves called so +few are chosen. In Miss Martineau's case, however, the trade made a +mistake. When at length she found some one to go halves with her in the +enterprise, on terms extremely disadvantageous to herself, the first of +her tales was published (1832), and instantly had a prodigious success. +The sale ran up to more than ten thousand of each monthly volume. In +that singular autobiographical sketch of herself which Miss Martineau +prepared for a London paper, to be printed as her obituary notice, she +pronounced a judgment upon this work which more disinterested, though +not more impartial, critics will confirm. Her own unalterable view, she +says, of what the work could and could not effect, 'prevented her from +expecting too much from it, either in regard to its social operations or +its influence on her own fame. The original idea of exhibiting the great +natural laws of society by a series of pictures of selected social +action was a fortunate one; and her tales initiated a multitude of minds +into the conception of what political economy is, and how it concerns +everybody living in society. Beyond this there is no merit of a high +order in the work. It popularised in a fresh form some doctrines and +many truths long before made public by others.' James Mill, one of the +acutest economists of the day, and one of the most vigorous and original +characters of that or any other day, had foretold failure; but when the +time came, he very handsomely admitted that his prophecy had been rash. +In after years, when Miss Martineau had acquired from Comte a conception +of the growth and movement of societies as a whole, with their economic +conditions controlled and constantly modified by a multitude of other +conditions of various kinds, she rated the science of her earlier days +very low. Even in those days, however, she says: 'I believe I should not +have been greatly surprised or displeased to have perceived, even then, +that the pretended science is no science at all, strictly speaking; and +that so many of its parts must undergo essential change, that it may be +a question whether future generations will owe much more to it than the +benefit (inestimable, to be sure) of establishing the grand truth that +social affairs proceed according to general laws, no less than natural +phenomena of every kind' (_Autob._ ii. 245). + +Harriet Martineau was not of the class of writers, most of them terribly +unprofitable, who merely say literary things about social organisation, +its institutions, and their improvement. Her feeling about society was +less literary than scientific: it was not sentimental, but the +business-like quality of a good administrator. She was moved less by +pity or by any sense of the pathos and the hardness of the world, than +by a sensible and energetic interest in good government and in the +rational and convenient ordering of things. Her tales to illustrate the +truths of political economy are what might be expected from a writer of +this character. They are far from being wanting--many of them--in the +genuine interest of good story-telling. They are rapid, definite, and +without a trace of either slovenliness or fatigue. We are amazed as we +think of the speed and prompt regularity with which they were produced; +and the fertile ingenuity with which the pill of political economy is +wrapped up in the confectionery of a tale, may stand as a marvel of true +cleverness and inventive dexterity. Of course, of imagination or +invention in a high sense there is not a trace. Such a quality was not +in the gifts of the writer, nor could it in any case have worked within +such limitations as those set by the matter and the object of the +series. + +Literary success was followed in the usual order by social temptation. +Miss Martineau removed from Norwich to London, and she had good reasons +for making the change. Her work dealt with matters of a political kind, +and she could only secure a real knowledge of what was best worth saying +by intercourse with those who had a better point of view for a survey of +the social state of England than could be found in a provincial town +like Norwich. So far as evening parties went, Miss Martineau soon +perceived how little 'essential difference there is between the extreme +case of a cathedral city and that of literary London, or any other +place, where dissipation takes the turn of book-talk instead of dancing +or masquerading.' She went out to dinner every night except Sundays, and +saw all the most interesting people of the London of five-and-forty +years ago. While she was free from presumptuousness in her judgments, +she was just as free from a foolish willingness to take the reputations +of her hour on trust. Her attitude was friendly and sensible, but it was +at the same time critical and independent; and that is what every frank, +upright, and sterling character naturally becomes in face of an +unfamiliar society. Harriet Martineau was too keen-sighted, too aware of +the folly and incompetent pretension of half the world, too consciously +self-respecting and proud, to take society and its ways with any +diffidence or ingenuous simplicity. On the importance of the small +_litterateur_ who unreasonably thinks himself a great one, on the airs +and graces of the gushing blue-stockings who were in vogue in that day, +on the detestable vulgarity of literary lionising, she had no mercy. She +recounts with caustic relish the story about a certain pedantical lady, +of whom Tierney had said that there was not another head in England that +could encounter hers on the subject of Cause and Effect. The story was +that when in a country house one fine day she took her seat in a window, +saying in a business-like manner (to David Ricardo): 'Come now, let us +have a little discussion about Space.' We remember a story about a +certain Mademoiselle de Launay, afterwards well known to the Paris of +the eighteenth century, being introduced at Versailles by a silly great +lady who had an infatuation for her. 'This,' the great lady kept saying, +'is the young person whom I have told you about, who is so wonderfully +intelligent, who knows so much. Come, Mademoiselle, pray talk. Now, +Madame, you will see how she talks. Well, first of all, now talk a +little about religion; then you can tell us about something else.' + +We cannot wonder that Miss Martineau did not go a second time to the +house where Space might be the unprovoked theme of a casual chat. +Pretension in every shape she hated most heartily. Her judgments in most +cases were thoroughly just--at this period of her life at any rate--and +sometimes even unexpectedly kindly; and the reason is that she looked at +society through the medium of a strong and penetrating kind of common +sense, which is more often the gift of clever women than of clever men. +If she is masculine, she is, like Mrs. Colonel Poyntz, in one of +Bulwer's novels, 'masculine in a womanly way.' There is a real spirit of +ethical divination in some of her criticism of character. Take the +distinguished man whose name we have just written. 'There was Bulwer on +a sofa,' she says, 'sparkling and languishing among a set of female +votaries--he and they dizened out, perfumed, and presenting the nearest +picture to a seraglio to be seen on British ground--only the +indifference or hauteur of the lord of the harem being absent.' Yet this +disagreeable sight does not prevent her from feeling a cordial interest +in him, amidst any amount of vexation and pity for his weakness. 'He +seems to be a woman of genius inclosed by misadventure in a man's form. +He has insight, experience, sympathy, letters, power and grace of +expression, and an irrepressible impulse to utterance, and industry +which should have produced works of the noblest quality; and these have +been intercepted by mischiefs which may be called misfortune rather than +fault. His friendly temper, his generous heart, his excellent +conversation (at his best), and his simple manners (when he forgot +himself), have many a time 'left me mourning' that such a being should +allow himself to sport with perdition.' Those who knew most about Bulwer, +and who were most repelled by his terrible faults, will feel in this +page of Miss Martineau's the breath of social equity in which charity is +not allowed to blur judgment, nor moral disapproval to narrow, starve, +and discolour vision into lost possibilities of character. And we may +note in passing how even here, in the mere story of the men and women +whom she met in London drawing-rooms, Harriet Martineau does not lose +herself in gossip about individuals looked at merely in their individual +relations. It is not merely the 'blighting of promise nor the forfeiture +of a career' that she deplores in the case of a Bulwer or a Brougham; it +is 'the intercepting of national blessings.' If this view of natural +gifts as a source of blessing to society, and not merely of power or +fame to their privileged possessor, were more common than it is, the +impression which such a thought is calculated to make would be the +highest available protection against those blighted promises and +forfeited careers, of which Brougham and Bulwer were only two out of a +too vast host of examples. + +It is the very fulness with which she is possessed by this large way of +conceiving a life in its manifold relations to the service of the world, +that is the secret of Harriet Martineau's firm, clear, calm, and almost +neutral way of judging both her own work and character and those of +others. By calm we do not mean that she was incapable of strong and +direct censure. Many of her judgments, both here and in her _Biographic +Sketches_, are stern; and some--like that on Macaulay, for instance--may +even pass for harsh. But they are never the product of mere anger or +heatedness, and it is a great blunder to suppose that reasoned severity +is incompatible with perfect composure, or that calm is another name for +amiable vapidity. + + Thoericht ist's + In allen Stuecken billig sein; es heisst + Sein eigen Selbst zerstoeren. + +Her condemnation of the Whigs, for example, is as stringent and +outspoken as condemnation can be; yet it is a deliberate and reasoned +judgment, not a mere bitterness or prejudice. The Whigs were at that +moment, between 1832 and 1834, at the height of their authority, +political, literary, and social. After a generation of misgovernment +they had been borne to power on the tide of national enthusiasm for +parliamentary reform, and for all those improvements in our national +life to which parliamentary reform was no more than the first step. The +harshness and darkness of the past generation were the measure of the +hopes of the new time. These hopes, which were at least as strong in +Harriet Martineau as in anybody then living, the Whigs were soon felt to +have cheated. She cannot forgive them. Speaking of John and Edward +Romilly, 'they had virtuous projects,' she says, 'and had every hope of +achieving service worthy of their father's fame; but their aspirations +were speedily tamed down--as all high aspirations _are_ lowered by Whig +influences.' A certain peer is described as 'agreeable enough in society +to those who are not very particular in regard to sincerity; and was, as +Chancellor of the Exchequer or anything else, as good a representative +as could be found of the flippancy, conceit, and official helplessness +and ignorance of the Whig administration.' Charles Knight started a new +periodical for the people under the patronage of the official Whigs. +'But the poverty and perverseness of their ideas, and the insolence of +their feelings, were precisely what might be expected by all who really +knew that remarkably vulgar class of men. They purposed to lecture the +working classes, who were by far the wiser party of the two, in a +jejune, coaxing, dull, religious-tract sort of tone, and criticised and +deprecated everything like vigour, and a manly and genial tone of +address in the new publication, while trying to push in as contributors +effete and exhausted writers and friends of their own, who knew about +as much of the working classes of England as of those of Turkey.' This +energetic description, which belongs to the year 1848, gives us an +interesting measure of the distance that has been traversed during the +last thirty years. The workmen have acquired direct political power; +they have organised themselves into effective groups for industrial +purposes; they have produced leaders of ability and sound judgment; and +the Whig who seeks their support must stoop or rise to talk a Radicalism +that would have amply satisfied even Harriet Martineau herself. + +The source of this improvement in the society to which she bade +farewell, over that into which she had been born, is set down by Miss +Martineau to the most remarkable literary genius with whom, during her +residence in London, she was brought into contact. 'What Wordsworth did +for poetry,' she says, 'in bringing us out of a conventional idea and +method to a true and simple one, Carlyle has done for morality. He may +be himself the most curious opposition to himself--he may be the +greatest mannerist of his age while denouncing conventionalism--the +greatest talker while eulogising silence--the most woful complainer +while glorifying fortitude--the most uncertain and stormy in mood, while +holding forth serenity as the greatest good within the reach of man; but +he has nevertheless infused into the mind of the English nation a +sincerity, earnestness, healthfulness, and courage which can be +appreciated only by those who are old enough to tell what was our +morbid state when Byron was the representative of our temper, the +Clapham church of our religion, and the rotten-borough system of our +political morality.' We have no quarrel with this account of the +greatest man of letters of our generation. But Carlyle has only been one +influence among others. It is a far cry indeed from _Sartor Resartus_ to +the _Tracts for the Times_, yet they were both of them protests against +the same thing, both of them attempted answers to the same problem, and +the _Tracts_ perhaps did more than _Sartor_ to quicken spiritual life, +to shatter 'the Clapham church,' and to substitute a mystic faith and +not unlovely hope for the frigid, hard, and mechanical lines of official +orthodoxy on the one hand, and the egotism and sentimental despair of +Byronism on the other. There is a third school, too, and Harriet +Martineau herself was no insignificant member of it, to which both the +temper and the political morality of our time have owed a deep debt; the +school of those utilitarian political thinkers who gave light rather +than heat, and yet by the intellectual force with which they insisted on +the right direction of social reform, also stirred the very impulse +which made men desire social reform. The most illustrious of this body +was undoubtedly John Mill; because to accurate political science he +added a fervid and vibrating social sympathy, and a power of quickening +it in the best minds of a scientific turn. It is odd, by the way, that +Miss Martineau, while so lavish in deserved panegyric on Carlyle, +should be so grudging and disparaging in the case of Mill, with whom her +intellectual affinities must have been closer than with any other of her +contemporaries. The translator of Comte's _Positive Philosophy_ had +better reasons than most people for thinking well of the services of the +author of the _System of Logic_: it was certainly the latter book which +did more than any other to prepare the minds of the English philosophic +public for the former. + +It is creditable to Miss Martineau's breadth of sympathy that she should +have left on record the tribute of her admiration for Carlyle, for +nobody has written so harshly as Carlyle on the subject which interested +Harriet Martineau more passionately than any other events of her time. +In 1834 she had finished her series of illustrations of political +economy; her domestic life was fretted by the unreasonable exigences of +her mother; London society had perhaps begun to weary her, and she felt +the need of a change of scene. The United States, with the old European +institutions placed amid new conditions, were then as now a natural +object of interest to everybody with a keen feeling for social +improvement. So to the Western Republic Miss Martineau turned her face. +She had not been long in the States before she began to feel that the +Abolitionists, at that moment a despised and persecuted handful of men +and women, were the truly moral and regenerating party in the country. +Harriet Martineau no sooner felt this conviction driving out her former +prejudice against them as fanatical and impracticable, than she at once +bore public testimony, at serious risk of every kind to herself, in +favour of the extreme Anti-Slavery agitators. And for thirty years she +never slackened her sympathy nor her energetic action on English public +opinion, in this most vital matter of her time. She was guided not +merely by humanitarian disgust at the cruel and brutal abominations of +slavery,--though we know no reason why this alone should not be a +sufficient ground for turning Abolitionist,--but also on the more purely +political ground of the cowardice, silence, corruption, and hypocrisy +that were engendered in the Free States by purchased connivance at the +peculiar institution of the Slave States. Nobody has yet traced out the +full effect upon the national character of the Americans of all those +years of conscious complicity in slavery, after the moral iniquity of +slavery had become clear to the inner conscience of the very men who +ignobly sanctioned the mobbing of Abolitionists. + +In the summer of 1836 Miss Martineau returned to England, having added +this great question to the stock of her foremost objects of interest and +concern. Such additions, whether literary or social, are the best kind +of refreshment that travel supplies. She published two books on America: +one of them abstract and quasi-scientific, _Society in America_; the +other, _A Retrospect of Western Travel_, of a lighter and more purely +descriptive quality. Their success with the public was moderate, and in +after years she condemned them in very plain language, the first of them +especially as 'full of affectations and preachments.' Their only +service, and it was not inconsiderable, was the information which they +circulated as to the condition of slavery and of the country under it. +We do not suppose that they are worth reading at the present day, except +from a historical point of view. But they are really good specimens of a +kind of literature which is not abundant, and yet which is of the utmost +value--we mean the record of the sociological observation of a country +by a competent traveller, who stays long enough in the country, has +access to the right persons of all kinds, and will take pains enough to +mature his judgments. It was a happy idea of O'Connell's to suggest that +she should go over to Ireland, and write such an account of that country +as she had written of the United States. And we wish at this very hour +that some one as competent as Miss Martineau would do what O'Connell +wished her to do. A similar request came to her from Milan: why should +she not visit Lombardy, and then tell Europe the true tale of Austrian +rule? + +But after her American journey Miss Martineau felt a very easily +intelligible desire to change the literary field. For many years she had +been writing almost entirely about fact: and the constraint of the +effort to be always correct, and to bear without solicitude the +questioning of her correctness, had become burdensome. She felt the +danger of losing nerve and becoming morbidly fearful of criticism on +the one hand, and of growing narrow and mechanical about accuracy on the +other. 'I longed inexpressibly,' she says, 'for the liberty of fiction, +while occasionally doubting whether I had the power to use that freedom +as I could have done ten years before.' The product of this new mental +phase was _Deerbrook_, which was published in the spring of 1839. +_Deerbrook_ is a story of an English country village, its petty feuds, +its gentilities, its chances and changes of fortune. The influence of +Jane Austen's stories is seen in every chapter; but Harriet Martineau +had none of the easy flow, the pleasant humour, the light-handed irony +of her model, any more than she had the energetic and sustained +imaginative power of Charlotte or Emily Bronte. There is playfulness +enough in _Deerbrook_, but it is too deliberate to remind us of the +crooning involuntary playfulness of _Pride and Prejudice_ or _Sense and +Sensibility_. _Deerbrook_ is not in the least a story with a moral; it +is truly and purely a piece of art; yet we are conscious of the serious +spirit of the social reformer as haunting the background, and only +surrendering the scene for reasons of its own. On the other hand, there +is in _Deerbrook_ a gravity of moral reflection that Jane Austen, +whether wisely or unwisely, seldom or never attempts. In this respect +_Deerbrook_ is the distant forerunner of some of George Eliot's most +characteristic work. Distant, because George Eliot's moralising is +constantly suffused by the broad light of a highly poetic imagination, +and this was in no degree among Miss Martineau's gifts. Still there is +something above the flat touch of the common didactic in such a page as +that in which (chapter xix.) she describes the case of 'the +unamiable--the only order of evil ones who suffer hell without seeing +and knowing that it is hell: nay, they are under a heavier curse than +even this, they inflict torments second only to their own, with an +unconsciousness worthy of spirits of light.' However, when all is said, +we may agree that this is one of the books that give a rational person +pleasure once, but which we hardly look forward to reading again. + +Shortly after the publication of her first novel, Miss Martineau was +seized by a serious internal malady, from which recovery seemed +hopeless. According to her usual practice of taking her life +deliberately in her hands, and settling its conditions for herself, +instead of letting things drift as they might, she insisted on declining +the hospitable shelter pressed upon her by a near relative, on the +excellent ground that it is wrong for an invalid to impose restraints +upon a healthy household. She proceeded to establish herself in lodgings +at Tynemouth, on the coast of Northumberland. Here she lay on a couch +for nearly five years, seeing as few persons as might be, and working at +such literary matters as came into her head with steadfast industry and +fortitude. The ordeal was hard, but the little book that came of it, +_Life in a Sickroom_, remains to show the moods in which the ordeal was +borne. + +At length Miss Martineau was induced to try mesmerism as a possible cure +for her disease, and what is certain is, that after trying mesmeric +treatment, the invalid whom the doctors had declared incurable shortly +recovered as perfect health as she had ever known. A virulent +controversy arose upon the case, for, by some curious law, physicians +are apt to import into professional disputes a heat and bitterness at +least as marked as that of their old enemies, the theologians. It was +said that Miss Martineau had begun to improve before she was mesmerised, +and what was still more to the point, that she had been taking heavy +doses of iodine. 'It is beyond all question or dispute,' as Voltaire +said, 'that magic words and ceremonies are quite capable of most +effectually destroying a whole flock of sheep, if the words be +accompanied by a sufficient quantity of arsenic.' + +Mesmerism was indirectly the means of bringing Miss Martineau into an +intimate acquaintance with a gentleman, who soon began to exert a +decisive influence upon the most important of her opinions. Mr. Atkinson +is still alive, and we need not say much about him. He seems to have +been a grave and sincere person, using his mind with courageous +independence upon the great speculative problems which were not in 1844, +as they are in 1877, the common topics of every-day intercourse among +educated people. This is not the place for an examination of the +philosophy in which Miss Martineau was finally landed by Mr. Atkinson's +influence. That philosophy was given to the world in 1851, in a volume +called _Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development_. The +greater part of it was written by Mr. Atkinson in reply to short +letters, in which Miss Martineau stated objections and propounded +questions. The book points in the direction of that explanation of the +facts of the universe which is now so familiar under the name of +Evolution. But it points in this way only, as the once famous _Vestiges +of Creation_ pointed towards the scientific hypotheses of Darwin and +Wallace; or as Buckle's crude and superficial notions about the history +of civilisation pointed towards a true and complete conception of +sociology. That is to say, the Atkinson Letters state some of the +difficulties in the way of the explanations of life and motion hitherto +received as satisfactory; they insist upon approaching the facts +exclusively by the positive, Baconian, or inductive method; and then +they hurry to an explanation of their own, which may be as plausible as +that which they intend it to replace, but which they leave equally +without ordered proof and strict verification. + +The only point to which we are called upon to refer is that this way of +thinking about man and the rest of nature led to repudiation by Miss +Martineau of the whole structure of dogmatic theology. For one thing, +she ceased to hold the conception of a God with any human attributes +whatever; also of any principle or practice of Design; 'of an +administration of life according to human wishes, or of the affairs of +the world by the principles of human morals.' All these became to her +as mere visions; beliefs necessary in their day, but not philosophically +nor permanently true. Miss Martineau was not an Atheist in the +philosophic sense; she never denied a First Cause, but only that this +Cause is within the sphere of human attributes, or can be defined in +their terms. + +Then, for another thing, she ceased to believe in the probability of +there being a continuance of conscious individual life after the +dissolution of the body. With this, of course, fell all expectation of a +state of personal rewards and punishments. 'The real and justifiable and +honourable subject of interest,' she said, 'to human beings, living and +dying, is the welfare of their fellows surrounding them or surviving +them.' About that she cared supremely, and about nothing else did she +bring herself to care at all. It is painful to many people even to hear +of a person holding such beliefs as these. Yet it would plainly be the +worst kind of spiritual valetudinarianism to insist on the omission from +even the shortest account of this remarkable woman, of what became the +very basis and foundation of her life for those thirty years of it, +which she herself always counted the happiest part of the whole. + +Although it was Mr. Atkinson who finally provided her with a positive +substitute for her older beliefs, yet a journey which Miss Martineau +made in the East shortly after her restoration to health (1846) had done +much to build up in her mind a historic conception of the origin and +order of the great faiths of mankind--the Christian, the Hebrew, the +Mahometan, the old Egyptian. We need not say more on this subject. The +work in which she published the experiences of the journey which was +always so memorable to her, deserves a word. There are few more +delightful books of travel than _Eastern Life, Past and Present_. The +descriptions are admirably graphic, and they have the attraction of +making their effect by a few direct strokes, without any of the wordy +elaboration of our modern picturesque. The writer shows a true feeling +for nature, and she shows a vigorous sense, which is not merely pretty +sentiment, like Chateaubriand's, for the vast historic associations of +those old lands and dim cradles of the race. All is sterling and real; +we are aware that the elevated reflection and the meditative stroke are +not due to mere composition, but did actually pass through her mind as +the suggestive wonders passed before her eyes. And hence there is no jar +as we find a little homily on the advantage of being able to iron your +own linen on a Nile boat, followed by a lofty page on the mighty pair of +solemn figures that gaze as from eternity on time amid the sand at +Thebes. The whole, one may say again, is sterling and real, both the +elevation and the homeliness. The student of the history of opinion may +find some interest in comparing Miss Martineau's work with the famous +book, _Ruins; or, Meditations on the Revolutions of Empires_, in which +Volney, between fifty and sixty years before, had drawn equally +dissolvent conclusions with her own from the same panorama of the dead +ages. Perhaps Miss Martineau's history is not much better than Volney's, +but her brisk sense is preferable to Volney's high _a priori_ +declamation and artificial rhetoric. + +Before starting for the East, Miss Martineau had settled a new plan of +life for herself, and built a little house where she thought she could +best carry her plan out. To this little house she returned, and it +became her cherished home for the long remainder of her days. London, +during the years of her first success, had not been without its usual +attractions to the new-comer, but she had always been alive to the +essential incompleteness, the dispersion, the want of steadfast +self-collection, in a life much passed in London society. And we may +believe that the five austere and lonely years at Tynemouth, with their +evening outlook over the busy waters of the harbour-bar into the stern +far-off sea, may have slowly bred in her an unwillingness to plunge +again into the bustling triviality, the gossip, the distracting +lightness of the world of splendid fireflies. To have discerned the Pale +Horse so near and for so long a space awakens new moods, and strangely +alters the old perspectives of our life. Yet it would imply a +misunderstanding of Harriet Martineau's character to suppose that she +turned her back upon London, and built her pretty hermitage at +Ambleside, in anything like the temper of Jean Jacques Rousseau. She was +far too positive a spirit for that, and far too full of vivid and +concentrated interest in men and their doings. It would be unjust to +think of Harriet Martineau as having no ear for the inner voices, yet +her whole nature was objective; it turned to practice and not to +reverie. She had her imaginative visions, as we know, and as all truly +superior minds have them, even though their main superiority happens to +be in the practical order. But her visions were limited as a landscape +set in a rigid frame; they had not the wings that soar and poise in the +vague unbounded empyrean. And she was much too sensible to think that +these moods were strong, or constant, or absorbing enough in her case to +furnish material and companionship for a life from day to day and year +to year. Nor again was it for the sake of undisturbed acquisition of +knowledge, nor cultivation of her finer faculties that she sought a +hermitage. She was not moved by thought of the famous maxim which Goethe +puts into the mouth of Leonore-- + + Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, + Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt. + +Though an intense egotist, in the good and respectable sense of +insisting on her own way of doing things, of settling for herself what +it was that she was living for, and of treading the path with a firm and +self-reliant step, yet Harriet Martineau was as little of an egotist as +ever lived, in the poor and stifling sense of thinking of the perfecting +of her own culture as in the least degree worthy of ranking among +Ends-in-themselves. She settled in the Lake district, because she +thought that there she would be most favourably placed for satisfying +the various conditions which she had fixed as necessary to her scheme of +life. 'My own idea of an innocent and happy life,' she says, 'was a +house of my own among poor improvable neighbours, with young servants +whom I might train and attach to myself, with pure air, a garden, +leisure, solitude at command, and freedom to work in peace and +quietness.' + +'It is the wisest step in her life,' Wordsworth said, when he heard that +she had bought a piece of land and built a pretty house upon it; and +then he added the strangely unpoetic reason--'because the value of the +property will be doubled in ten years.' Her poetic neighbour gave her a +characteristic piece of advice in the same prudential vein. He warned +her that she would find visitors a great expense. 'When you have a +visitor,' he said, 'you must do as we did; you must say: "If you like to +have a cup of tea with us, you are very welcome; but if you want any +meat, you must pay for your board."' Miss Martineau declined to carry +thrift to this ungracious extremity. She constantly had guests in her +house, and, if they were all like Charlotte Bronte, they enjoyed their +visits in spite of the arbitrary ways of their energetic hostess. + +Her manner of life during these years is pleasant to contemplate; +cheerful, active, thoroughly wholesome. 'My habit,' she says, 'was to +rise at six and to take a walk, returning to my solitary breakfast at +half-past seven. My household orders were given for the day, and all +affairs settled out of doors and in by a quarter or half-past eight, +when I went to work, which I continued without interruption, except from +the post, till three o'clock or later, when alone. While my friend was +with me we dined at two, and that was of course the limit of my day's +work.' De Tocqueville, if we remember, never saw his guests until after +he had finished his morning's work, of which he had done six hours by +eleven o'clock. Schopenhauer was still more sensitive to the jar of +external interruption on that finely-tuned instrument, the brain, after +a night's repose, for it was as much as his housekeeper's place was +worth to allow either herself or any one else to appear to the +philosopher before midday. After the early dinner at Ambleside cottage +came little bits of neighbourly business, exercise, and so forth. 'It is +with singular alacrity that in winter evenings I light the lamp and +unroll my wool-work, and meditate or dream till the arrival of the +newspaper tells me that the tea has stood long enough. After tea, if +there was news from the seat of war, I called in my maids, who brought +down the great atlas and studied the chances of the campaign with me. +Then there was an hour or two for Montaigne, or Bacon, or Shakespeare, +or Tennyson, or some dear old biography.' + +The only productions of this time worth mentioning are the _History of +the Thirty Years' Peace_ (1849) and the condensed version of Comte's +_Positive Philosophy_ (1853), both of them meritorious and useful pieces +of work, and both of them undertaken, as nearly all Miss Martineau's +work was, not from merely literary motives, but because she thought that +they would be meritorious and useful, and because nothing more useful +came into her head or under her hand at the moment. The condensation of +Comte is easy and rapid, and it is said by those who have looked very +closely into it to be hardly free from some too hasty renderings. It +must, however, on the whole, be pronounced a singularly intelligent and +able performance. The pace at which Comte was able to compose is a +standing marvel to all who have pondered the great and difficult art of +composition. It must be admitted that the author of the English version +of him was in this respect no unworthy match for her original. Miss +Martineau tells us that she despatched the last three volumes, which +number over 1800 pages, in some five months. She thought the rendering +of thirty pages of Comte a fair morning's work. If we consider the +abstract and difficult nature of the matter, this must be pronounced +something of a feat. We have not space to describe her method, but any +reader who happens to be interested in the mechanism of literary +productions will find the passage in vol. ii. p. 391. _The History of +the Thirty Years' Peace_ is no less astonishing an example of rapid +industry. From the first opening of the books to study for the history +to the depositing of the MS. of the first volume at press, was exactly +six months. The second volume took six months to do, with an interval of +some weeks of holiday and other work! + +We think all this worth mentioning, because it is an illustration of +what is a highly important maxim; namely, that it is a great mistake to +expend more time and labour on a piece of composition than is enough to +make it serve the purpose in hand. The immeasurable moment and +far-reachingness of the very highest kinds of literature are apt to make +men who play at being students forget there are many other kinds of +literature which are not in the least immeasurably far-reaching, but +which, for all that, are extremely useful in their own day and +generation. Those highly fastidious and indolent people, who sometimes +live at Oxford and Cambridge, with whom, indeed, for the most part, +their high fastidiousness is only a fine name for impotence and lack of +will, forget that the less immortal kinds of literature are the only +kinds within their own reach. Literature is no doubt a fine art--the +finest of the arts--but it is also a practical art; and it is deplorable +to think how much stout, instructive work might and ought to be done by +people who, in dreaming of ideals in prose or verse beyond their +attainment, end, like the poor Casaubon of fiction, in a little pamphlet +on a particle, or else in mediocre poetry, or else in nothing. By +insisting on rearing nothing short of a great monument more durable than +brass, they are cutting themselves off from building the useful little +mud-hut, or some of the other modest performances by which only they are +capable of serving their age. It is only one volume in a million that is +not meant to perish, and to perish soon, as flowers, sunbeams, and all +the other brightnesses of the earth are meant to perish. There are some +forms of composition in which perfection is not only good but +indispensable. But the most are designed for the purpose of a day, and +if they have the degree of elaboration, accuracy, grasp, and +faithfulness that suffice for the given purpose, then we may say that it +is enough. There is literature proper, for which only two or three men +and women in a generation have the true gift. This cannot be too good. +But besides this there is a mass of honest and needful work to be done +with the pen, to which literary form is only accidental, and in which +consummate literary finish or depth is a sheer work of supererogation. +If Miss Martineau had given twice as many years as she gave months to +the condensation of Comte, the book would not have been a whit more +useful in any possible respect--indeed, over-elaboration might easily +have made it much less so--and the world would have lost many other +excellent, if not dazzling or stupendous services. + +'Her original power,' she wrote of herself in that manly and outspoken +obituary notice to which we have already referred, 'was nothing more +than was due to earnestness and intellectual clearness within a certain +range. With small imaginative and suggestive powers, and therefore +nothing approaching to genius, she could see clearly what she did see, +and give a clear expression to what she had to say. In short, she could +popularise, while she could neither discover nor invent.... She could +obtain and keep a firm grasp of her own views, and moreover she could +make them understood. The function of her life was to do this, and in as +far as it was done diligently and honestly, her life was of use.' All +this is precisely true, and her life was of great use; and that makes +what she says not only true, but an example worth much weighing by many +of those who meddle with literature. + +Miss Martineau was never tired of trying to be useful in directing and +improving opinion. She did not disdain the poor neighbours at her gates. +She got them to establish a Building Society, she set them an example of +thrifty and profitable management by her little farm of two acres, and +she gave them interesting and cheerful courses of lectures in the winter +evenings. All this time her eye was vigilant for the great affairs of +the world. In 1852 she began to write leading articles for the _Daily +News_, and in this department her industry and her aptitude were such +that at times she wrote as many as six leading articles in a week. When +she died, it was computed that she had written sixteen hundred. They are +now all dead enough, as they were meant to die, but they made an +impression that is still alive in its consequences upon some of the most +important social, political, and economical matters of five-and-twenty +important years. In what was by far the greatest of all the issues of +those years, the Civil War in the United States, Harriet Martineau's +influence was of the most inestimable value in keeping public opinion +right against the strong tide of ignorant Southern sympathies in this +country. If she may seem to some to have been less right in her views of +the Crimean War, we must admit that the issues were very complex, and +that complete assurance on that struggle is not easy to everybody even +at this distance of time. + +To this period belong the Biographic Sketches which she contributed to a +London newspaper. They have since been collected in a single volume, now +in its fourth edition. They are masterpieces in the style of the +vignette. Their conciseness, their clearness in fact, their definiteness +in judgment, and above all, the rightly graduated impression of the +writer's own personality in the background, make them perfect in their +kind. There is no fretting away of the portrait in over-multiplicity of +lines and strokes. Here more than anywhere else Miss Martineau shows the +true quality of the writer, the true mark of literature, the sense of +proportion, the modulated sentence, the compact and suggestive phrase. +There is a happy precision, a pithy brevity, a condensed +argumentativeness. And this literary skill is made more telling by the +writer's own evident interest and sincerity about the real lives and +characters of the various conspicuous people with whom she deals. It may +be said that she has no subtle insight into the complexities of human +nature, and that her philosophy of character is rather too little +analytical, too downright, too content with averages of motive, and too +external. This is so in a general way, but it does not spoil the charm +of these sketches, because the personages concerned, though all of them +conspicuous, were for the most part commonplace in motive, though more +than commonplace in strength of faculty. Subtle analysis is wholly +unreasonable in the case of Miss Martineau herself, and she would +probably have been unable to use that difficult instrument in +criticising characters less downright and objective than her own. + +The moment of the Crimean War marked an alarming event in her own life. +The doctors warned her that she had a heart disease which would end her +days suddenly and soon. Miss Martineau at once set her affairs in order, +and sat down to write her Autobiography. She had the manuscript put into +type, and the sheets finally printed off, just as we now possess them. +But the hour was not yet. The doctors had exaggerated the peril, and the +strong woman lived for twenty years after she had been given up. She +used up the stuff of her life to the very end, and left no dreary +remnant nor morbid waste of days. She was like herself to the +last--English, practical, positive. Yet she had thoughts and visions +which were more than this. We like to think of this faithful woman and +veteran worker in good causes, in the stroll which she always took on +her terrace before retiring to rest for the night:-- + +'On my terrace there were two worlds extended bright before me, even +when the midnight darkness hid from my bodily eyes all but the outlines +of the solemn mountains that surround our valley on three sides, and the +clear opening to the lake on the south. In the one of those worlds I saw +now the magnificent coast of Massachusetts in autumn, or the flowery +swamps of Louisiana, or the forests of Georgia in spring, or the +Illinois prairie in summer; or the blue Nile, or the brown Sinai, or the +gorgeous Petra, or the view of Damascus from the Salahiey; or the Grand +Canal under a Venetian sunset, or the Black Forest in twilight, or Malta +in the glare of noon, or the broad desert stretching away under the +stars, or the Red Sea tossing its superb shells on shore in the pale +dawn. That is one world, all comprehended within my terrace wall, and +coming up into the light at my call. The other and finer scenery is of +that world, only beginning to be explored, of Science.... It is truly an +exquisite pleasure to dream, after the toil of study, on the sublime +abstractions of mathematics; the transcendent scenery unrolled by +astronomy; the mysterious, invisible forces dimly hinted to us by +physics; the new conception of the constitution of matter originated by +chemistry; and then, the inestimable glimpses opened to us, in regard to +the nature and destiny of man, by the researches into vegetable and +animal organisation, which are at length perceived to be the right path +of inquiry into the highest subjects of thought.... Wondrous beyond the +comprehension of any one mind is the mass of glorious facts and the +series of mighty conceptions laid open; but the shadow of the +surrounding darkness rests upon it all. The unknown always engrosses the +greater part of the field of vision, and the awe of infinity sanctifies +both the study and the dream.' + +It would be a pity if difference of opinion upon subjects of profound +difficulty, remoteness, and manifold perplexity, were to prevent any one +from recognising in such words and such moods as these what was, in +spite of some infirmities, a character of many large thoughts and much +generous purpose. And with this feeling we may part from her. + + * * * * * + + Transcriber's Note: + The following changes have been made to the text. + + Sich ein Charakter im dem Strom der Welt. + has been changed to: + Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt. + + literature which are are not in the least immeasurably far-reaching, but + has been changed to: + literature which are not in the least immeasurably far-reaching, but + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3), by John Morley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITICAL MISCELLANIES *** + +***** This file should be named 25793.txt or 25793.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/7/9/25793/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, Kit Ellis and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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