PEN-PORTRAITS OF
LITERARY WOMEN
BY THEMSELVES AND OTHERS
EDITED BY
HELEN GRAY CONE
AND
JEANNETTE L. GILDER
_WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES BY THE FORMER_.
VOL. II.
CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, 739 & 741 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
COPYRIGHT, 1887, By O. M. DUNHAM.
Press W. L. Mershon & Co., Rahway, N. J.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
HARRIET MARTINEAU, 11
AURORE DUDEVANT (GEORGE SANDS), 59
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 93
MARGARET FULLER (OSSOLI), 131
CHARLOTTE BRONTË, } EMILY BRONTË, } 179
MARIAN EVANS CROSS (GEORGE ELIOT), 245
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
1802-1876.
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
Harriet Martineau was born at Norwich, on the 12th of June, 1802. The Martineau family were descendants of Huguenot refugees. Harriet’s father, Thomas Martineau, was a Norwich manufacturer; Elizabeth Rankin was the maiden name of her mother, who is described as “a true Northumbrian woman.” Harriet was the sixth child in a family of eight. Her childhood was sickly, repressed, and unhappy. “My life has had no spring,” she wrote long afterwards. At eleven years of age she was sent to the school of a Mr. Perry, who laid a solid foundation for her education. About two years later Mr. Perry left Norwich, and Harriet’s education was then carried on at home under visiting masters. At fourteen she was sent to a Bristol boarding school, where she stayed fifteen months. After this, her keen appetite for knowledge led her to carry on her studies at home, despite much discouragement. Like other young women of that day, she was expected to “spend a frightful amount of time in sewing,” and at one period could only steal the hours for intellectual work from her sleep.
She had begun to be deaf at eight years old, and at eighteen had almost entirely lost the sense of hearing. This was a bitter trial to her. In 1822, when she was twenty, an attachment arose between herself and a Mr. Worthington, a student for the Unitarian ministry, and the friend of her brother (afterward Dr. James Martineau). Worthington was poor, and her family refused to sanction a formal engagement. Three years of waiting and suspense followed. In June, 1826, Thomas Martineau died. The financial crisis of the winter of 1825 had left him comparatively poor, and he could only provide in his will “a bare maintenance” for his wife and daughters. By this time Mr. Worthington had completed his studies, and obtained a position; and the Martineau family, under these altered conditions, permitted Harriet to enter into an engagement with him. The unfortunate young man, however, was seized with a brain fever, which left him mentally shattered, and toward the close of the year 1826 he died.
Harriet’s literary career had already begun with certain contributions to the Monthly Repository, a Unitarian magazine. In 1823 she had published, anonymously, a small volume of _Devotional Exercises_, and in 1826 a book of _Addresses, Prayers, and Hymns_. In the comparative poverty to which she was now reduced, she took up her pen with a will, but for some time with little result. She supplied anonymous short stories to a publisher named Houlston, and wrote for him a tale called _Principle and Practice_, and a sequel thereto. She contributed, without payment, to the Repository and wrote, on commission, a _Life of Howard_, for which she never received the remuneration promised.
In June, 1829, the old Norwich house, in which, after their father’s death, her brother Henry had remained a partner, became bankrupt. As Mrs. Martineau and her daughters had been dependent on the profits of the factory for the payment of their small income, they were now left utterly without support. The other sisters became teachers; Harriet worked with her needle by day, and wrote by night. She continued her contributions to the Repository, for a compensation of £15 a year; and wrote for this periodical a story called _The Hope of the Hebrews_, which was so highly praised among the Unitarians that Mr. W. J. Fox, the editor, advised her to publish a volume of such stories. She did so, and it was moderately successful. She took part in a competition for three prizes offered by a Unitarian association “for the best essays designed to convert Roman Catholics, Jews, and Mohammedans, respectively, to Unitarianism.” She won all three of the prizes, thus gaining twenty-five guineas, and much honor in the sect. In the same year, 1830, she wrote the long story, _Five Years of Youth_, and a volume called _Traditions of Palestine_.
All this work, done with wonderful perseverance, under great disadvantages, was presented to a limited public only, and has long since been forgotten. But in the autumn of the year 1831 she conceived the idea of presenting, in the shape of popular tales, the principles of political economy. She persisted in this idea, notwithstanding the steady refusal of the London publishers to have anything to do with the scheme; she went to London to push the matter personally; and at last succeeded in making an arrangement, on iron terms, with Mr. Charles Fox, the brother of the editor of the Repository. To the great surprise of this gentleman, and the calm satisfaction of the author, the first numbers of ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY met with immediate and immense success. The first tale was published in February, 1832, and Harriet Martineau became famous at once.
In November she came to live in London. She was received as a lion in society, but abated no jot of her labor, producing every month a number of from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty pages. On the completion of her _Illustrations_, two years after her coming to London, she travelled for two years in America, where she displayed, by her affiliation with the Abolitionists, no little moral courage. She returned to England in August, 1836, and turned her recent experiences to account in writing, during the next six months, a three-volume work called _Society in America_, for the first edition of which she received £900. This was followed by her _Retrospect of Western Travel_, which was sold for £600. She contributed to various magazines; produced in 1838 a work called _How to Observe in Morals and Manners_, and also some little books ordered by the Poor-Law Commissioners for a series of ‘Guides to Service.’
She began her novel, _Deerbrook_, in June, 1838, and visited Scotland in August and September. _Deerbrook_ appeared in the spring. It is generally considered her weakest work.
At this time Mrs. Martineau, who was becoming blind, Harriet’s brother, Henry, and an invalid aunt, were all dependent upon Harriet for support. Her anxiety and over-work led to a serious illness. She started for a tour of the Continent after publishing _Deerbrook_, but on reaching Venice, became so ill that she was obliged to return to England. She was taken, in the autumn of 1839, to Tynemouth, where she remained for the next five years under the care of her brother-in-law, a physician named Greenhow. This was a period of great suffering, but her intellectual activity was not suspended. _The Hour and the Man_, a historical romance, appeared in November, 1840; and early in 1841, _The Playfellow_, a series of children’s stories, containing the famous _Crofton Boys_; in 1843, _Life in the Sick-Room_, published anonymously, but generally recognized at once; and numerous stories and articles in aid of various causes. In 1841 she refused, on principle, Lord Melbourne’s offer of a pension of £150 per annum. In 1843 her friends presented her with a testimonial of £1,400.
In June of the following year she consented to try mesmeric treatment. In December she was so much better as to be enabled to leave Tynemouth. For the next ten years she enjoyed perfect health. With characteristic enthusiasm, she published the Athenæum, and subsequently in pamphlet form, six _Letters on Mesmerism_, detailing this wonderful cure. This open declaration of her faith in mesmerism led to a breach with Mr. Greenhow.
Miss Martineau now purchased land near Ambleside, and took lodgings in the village, during the winter of 1845-6, to superintend the building of a house according to her own plans. Here she wrote her _Forest and Game Law Tales_. In the spring she took possession of her home, called “The Knoll.” After writing a story for the young, _The Billow and the Rock_, she started with some friends for the East, in the autumn of 1846, returning in October, 1847. Her life at “The Knoll” was beneficent and busy. She engaged in farming, on a very small scale, and wrote on the subject a book called _Health, Husbandry and Handicraft_.