PERSONAL

I believe she will do much good; her motives and principles are pure and high, and success, as I predicted, has improved, not spoiled her. Indeed, she has very extraordinary talent and merit, and a noble independence of mind.-AIKIN, LUCY, 1832, To Dr. Channing, Nov. 19; Correspondence of William Ellery Channing and Lucy Aikin, ed. Le Breton, p. 156.

Her dress is simple, unexpensive, and appropriate. Her voice is too low-toned, but agreeable, the suitable organ of a refined spirit. Her manners, without any elegance, are pleasing, natural, and kind. She seldom speaks unless addressed, but in reply to a single touch she pours out a rich

stream.

She is never brilliant, never says a thing that is engraven on, or cut in, to your memory, but she talks on a greater variety of topics than any one I ever heard -agreeably, most agreeably, and with sense and information. She is womanly, strictly, with sympathies fresh from the heart, enthusiasms not always manifestly supported by reason, now and then bordering on the dogmatical, but too thorough a lover of human rights ever, I think, to overstep the boundary, and she is, I think, not conceited-no, not in the least, but quite aware of her own superiority, and perhaps a little too frank on this point. But this may be from a deficiency instead of excess of vanity. SEDGWICK, CATHARINE M., 1835, Journal, Aug. 9; Life and Letters, ed. Dewey,

p. 241.

Miss

Martineau is a person of lively, agreeable conversation, kind and candid, but rather easily imposed upon, and somewhat spoiled, perhaps, by the praises she has received, and the importance allowed

LEN, 1836, Letter to his Wife, April 27; ·

A

affected, has great vivacity, talks well upon all subjects, and is fond of laughing; with these qualifications she is, of course, an engaging companion. The only difficulty in conversing with her arises from her great deafness.

HONE, PHILIP, 1836, Diary, April 5, ed. Tuckerman, vol. 1, p. 206.

She

Two or three days ago there came to call on us a Miss Martineau, whom you have perhaps often heard of in the "Examiner." A hideous portrait was given of her in the "Fraser" one month. She is a notable literary woman of her day, has been traveling in America these two years, and is now come home to write a book about it. pleased us far beyond expectation. She is very intelligent-looking, really of pleasant countenance, was full of talk, though unhappily deaf almost as a post, so that you have to speak to her through an ear-trumpet. She must be some five-and-thirty. As she possesses very "favourable sentiments" towards this side of the street, I mean to cultivate the acquaintance a little.--CARLYLE, THOMAS, 1836, Letter to His Mother, Nov.; Thomas Carlyle, A History of His Life in London, ed. Froude, vol. 1, p. 83.

She is a woman of one idea,-takes one view, that is, and knows nothing of qualification, and hence is opinionated and confident to a degree that I think I never saw equalled.-DEWEY, ORVILLE, 1837, To Rev. William Ware, July 10; Autobiography and Letters, ed. Dewey, p. 163.

She is a heroine, or to speak more truly, her fine sense and her lofty principles, with the sincerest religion, give her a fortitude that is noble to the best height of heroism.

MACREADY, WILLIAM C., 1841, Diary, March 28; Reminiscences, ed. Pollock, p. 497.

She is a very admirable woman—and the most logical intellect of the age, for a woman. On this account it is that the men

own sex throw dirt; but if I begin on this

1

A righteous indignation fastens on me. had a note from her the other day, written in a noble spirit, and saying, in reference to

the insults lavished on her, that she was prepared from the first for publicity, and ventured it all for the sake of what she considered the truth-she was sustained, she said, by the recollection of Godiva.BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT, 1844, To H. S. Boyd, Dec. 24; Letters, ed., Kenyon, vol. I, p. 225.

Miss Martineau makes herself an object of envy by the success of her domestic arrangements. She has built a cottage near her house, placed in it a Norfolk dairy-maid, and has her poultry-yard, and her piggery, and her cow-shed; and Mrs. Wordsworth declares she is a model in her household economy, making her servants happy, and setting an example of activity to her neighbors.-ROBINSON, HENRY CRABB, 1849, To Miss Fenwick, Jan. 15; Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence, ed. Sadler, vol. II, p. 386.

I trust to have derived benefit from my visit to Miss Martineau. A visit more interesting I certainly never paid. If selfsustaining strength can be acquired from example, I ought to have got good. But my nature is not hers; I could not make it so though I were to submit it seventy times seven to the furnace of affliction, and discipline it for an age under the hammer and anvil of toil and self-sacrifice. Perhaps if I was like her I should not admire her so much

as I do. She is somewhat absolute, though quite unconsciously so; but she is likewise kind, with an affection at once abrupt and constant, whose sincerity you cannot doubt. It was delightful to sit near her in the evenings and hear her converse, myself mute. She speaks with what seems to me a wonderful fluency and eloquence. Her animal spirits are as unflagging as her intellectual powers. I was glad to find her health excellent. I believe neither solitude or loss of friends would break her down. I saw some faults in her, but somehow I like them for the sake of her good points. It gave me no pain to feel insignificant, mentally and corporeally, in comparison with her.-BRONTE, CHARLOTTE, 1850; To W. S. Williams, Jan. 1; Charlotte Brontë and her Circle, ed. Shorter, p. 5.

I think I neglected to record that I saw Miss Martineau a few weeks since. She is a large, robust, elderly woman, and plainly dressed; but withal she has so kind, cheer

ful, and intelligent a face that she is pleas. anter to look at than most beauties. Her hair is of a decided gray, and she does not shrink from calling herself old. She is the most continual talker I ever heard; it is really like the babbling of a brook, and very lively and sensible too; and all the while she talks, she moves the bowl of her eartrumpet from one auditor to another, so that it becomes quite an organ of intelligence and sympathy between her and yourself. The ear-trumpet seems a sensible part of her, like the antennæ of some insects. If you have any little remark to make, you drop it in; and she helps you to make remarks by this delicate little appeal of the trumpet, as she slightly directs it towards you; and if you have nothing to say, the appeal is not strong enough to embarrass you. All her talk was about herself and her affairs; but it did not seem like egotism, because it was so cheerful and free from morbidness. And this woman is an Atheist, and thinks that the principles of life will become extinct when her body is laid in the grave! I will not think so, were it only for her sake. What! only a few weeds to spring out of her mortality, instead of her intellect and sympathies flowering and fruiting forever.-HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL, 1854, English Note-Books, vol. 1, p. 110.

We Unitarians have reason to be proud that this remarkable woman was born and

developed in our communion, and that Unitarian publishing-houses first printed and circulated her works, when other houses refused her books on political economy as dull and unmarketable. Thus the modest Unitarian publisher in Paternoster Row really brought her to the notice of the world. We, as Unitarian Christians, it may be said, have reason also to be sad, that the woman who began her successful literary career by writings that illustrated and defended our views of Christianity, should in later life have renounced her faith in historic Christianity, and the divine assurance of immortality contained in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.-LOWE, MARTHA PERRY, 1876, Editor's Note-Book, Unitarian Review, vol. 6, p. 336.

How well I remember the first sight of her, so long ago! We first saw her at churchDr. Channing's. It was a presence one did not speedily tire of looking on-most attractive and impressive; yet the features