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SARAH MARTIN.
Sarah Martin (1791-1843): English prison visitor and philanthropist.
AMONG the distinguished women in the humble ranks of society, who
have pursued a loving, hopeful, benevolent, and beautiful way
through life, the name of Sarah Martin will long be remembered. Not
many of such women come into the full light of the world's eye. Quiet and silence befit their lot. The best of their labours are
done in secret, and are never noised abroad. Often the most
beautiful traits of a woman's character are confided but to one dear
breast, and lie treasured there. There are comparatively few women
who display the sparkling brilliancy of a
Margaret Fuller, and whose
names are noised abroad like hers on the wings of fame. But the
number of women is very great who silently pursue their duty in
thankfulness, who labour on,—each in their little home-circle,—training the minds of growing youth for active life, moulding future
men and women for society and for each other, imbuing them with
right principles, impenetrating their hearts with the spirit of
love, and thus actively helping to carry forward the whole world
towards good. But we hear comparatively little of the labours of
true-hearted women in this quiet sphere. The genuine mother, wife,
or daughter is good, but not famous. And she can dispense with the
fame, for the doing of the good is its own exceeding great reward.
Very few women step beyond the boundaries of home and seek a larger
sphere of usefulness. Indeed, the home is a sufficient sphere for
the woman who would do her work nobly and truly there. Still, there
are the helpless to be helped, and when generous women have been
found among the helpers, why should we not rejoice in their good
works, and cherish their memory? Sarah Martin was one of such,—a
kind of Elizabeth Fry, in a humbler sphere. She was born at Caister,
a village about three miles from Yarmouth, in the year 1791. Both
her parents, who were very poor people, died when she was but a
child; and the little orphan was left to be brought up under the
care of her poor grandmother. The girl obtained such education as
the village school could afford,—which was not much,—and then she
was sent to Yarmouth for a year, to learn sewing and dressmaking in
a very small way. She afterwards used to walk from Caister to
Yarmouth and back again daily, which she continued for many years,
earning a slender livelihood by going out to families as an
assistant dressmaker at a shilling a day.
It happened that, in the year 1819, a woman was committed to the
Yarmouth jail for the unnatural crime of cruelly beating and
ill-using her own child. Sarah Martin was at this time eight and
twenty years of age, and the report of the above crime, which was
the subject of talk about the town, made a strong impression on her
mind. She had often, before this, on passing the gloomy walls of the
borough jail, felt an urgent desire to visit the inmates pent up
there, without sympathy, and often without hope. She wished to read
the Scriptures to them, and bring them back lovingly—were it yet
possible—to the society against whose laws they had offended. Think
of this gentle, unlovely, ungifted, poor young woman taking up with
such an idea! Yet it took root in her and grew within her. At length
she could not resist the impulse to visit the wretched inmates of
the Yarmouth jail. So one day she passed into the dark porch with a
throbbing heart, and knocked for admission. The keeper of the jail
appeared. In her gentle, low voice, she mentioned the cruel mother's
name, and asked permission to see her. The jailer refused. There was
"a lion in the way,"—some excuse or other, as is usual in such
cases. But Sarah Martin persisted. She returned; and at the second
application she was admitted.
Sarah Martin afterwards related the manner of her reception in the
jail. The culprit mother stood before her. She was surprised at the
sight of a stranger. "When I told her," says Sarah Martin, "the
motive of my visit, her guilt, her need of God's mercy, &c., she
burst into tears, and thanked me!" Those tears and thanks shaped the
whole course of Sarah Martin's subsequent life.
A year or two before this time Mrs. Fry had visited the prisoners in
Newgate, and possibly the rumour of her labours in this field may
have in some measure influenced Sarah Martin's mind; but of this we
are not certain. Sarah Martin herself stated that, as early as the
year 1810 (several years before Mrs. Fry's visits to Newgate), her
mind had been turned to the subject of prison visitation, and she
had then felt a strong desire to visit the poor prisoners in
Yarmouth jail, to read the Scriptures to them. These two
tender-hearted women may, therefore, have been working at the same
time, in the same sphere of Christian work, entirely unconscious of
each other's labours. However this may be, the merit of Sarah Martin
cannot be detracted from. She laboured alone, without any aid from
influential quarters; she had no persuasive eloquence, and had
scarcely received any education; she was a poor seamstress,
maintaining herself by her needle, and she carried on her visitation
of the prisoners in secret, without any one vaunting her praises:
indeed, this was the last thing she dreamt of. Is there not, in this
simple picture of a humble woman thus devoting her leisure hours to
the comfort and improvement of outcasts, much that is truly noble
and heroic?
Sarah Martin continued her visits to the Yarmouth jail. From one she
went to another prisoner, reading to them and conversing with them,
from which she went on to instructing them in reading and writing. She constituted herself a schoolmistress for the criminals, giving
up a day in the week for this purpose, and thus trenching on her
slender means of living. "I thought it right," she says
"to give up
a day in the week from dressmaking to serve the prisoners. This,
regularly given, with many an additional one, was not felt as a
pecuniary loss, but was ever followed with abundant satisfaction,
for the blessing of God was upon me."
She next formed a Sunday service in the jail, for reading of the
Scriptures, joining in the worship as a hearer. For three years she
went on in this quiet course of visitation, until, as her views
enlarged, she introduced other ameliorative plans for the benefit of
the prisoners. One week, in 1823, she received from two gentlemen
donations of ten shillings each, for prison charity. With this she
bought materials for baby-clothes, cut them out, and set the females
to work. The work, when sold, enabled her to buy other materials,
and thus the industrial education of the prisoners was secured;
Sarah Martin teaching those to sew and knit who had not before
learnt to do so. The profits derived from the sale of the articles
were placed together in a fund, and divided amongst the prisoners on
their leaving the jail to commence life again in the outer world. She, in the same way, taught the men to make straw hats, men's and
boys' caps, gray cotton shirts, and even patchwork,—anything to keep
them out of idleness, and from preying upon their own thoughts. Some, also, she taught to copy little pictures, with the same
object, in which several of the prisoners took great delight. A
little later on, she formed a fund out of the prisoners' earnings,
which she applied to the furnishing of work to prisoners upon their
discharge; "affording me," she says, "the advantage of observing
their conduct at the same time."
Thus did humble Sarah Martin, long before the attention of public
men had been directed to the subject of prison discipline, bring a
complete system to maturity in the jail of Yarmouth. It will be
observed that she had thus included visitation, moral and religious
instruction, intellectual culture, industrial training, employment
during prison hours, and employment after discharge. While learnèd
men, at a distance, were philosophically discussing these knotty
points, here was a poor seamstress at Yarmouth, who, in a quiet,
simple, and unostentatious manner, had practically settled them all!
In 1826 Sarah Martin's grandmother died, and left her an annual
income of ten or twelve pounds. She now removed from Caister to
Yarmouth, where she occupied two rooms in an obscure part of the
town; and from that time devoted herself with increased energy to
her philanthropic labours in the jail. A benevolent lady in
Yarmouth, in order to allow her some rest from her sewing, gave her
one day in the week to herself, by paying her the same on that day
as if she had been engaged in dressmaking. With that assistance, and
a few quarterly subscriptions of two shilling and sixpence each, for
Bibles, Testaments, tracts, and books for distribution, she went on,
devoting every available moment of her life to her great purpose. But her dressmaking business—always a very fickle trade, and at best
a very poor one—now began to fall off, and at length almost entirely
disappeared. The question arose, Was she to suspend her benevolent
labours, in order to devote herself singly to the recovery of her
business? She never wavered for a moment in her decision. In her own
words,
"I had counted the cost, and my mind was made up. If, whilst
imparting truth to others, I became exposed to temporal want, the
privation so momentary to an individual would not admit of
comparison with following the Lord, in thus administering to
others."
Therefore did this noble, self-sacrificing woman go
straightforward on her road of persevering usefulness.
She now devoted six or seven hours in every day to her
superintendence over the prisoners, converting what would otherwise
have been a scene of dissolute idleness into a hive of industry and
order. Newly-admitted prisoners were sometimes refractory and
unmanageable, and refused to take advantage of Sarah Martin's
instructions. But her persistent gentleness invariably won their
acquiescence, and they would come to her and beg to be allowed to
take their part in the general course. Men old in years and in
crime, pert London pickpockets, depraved boys, and dissolute
sailors, profligate women, smugglers, poachers, the promiscuous
horde of criminals which usually fill the jail of a seaport and
county town, all bent themselves before the benign influence of this
good woman; and under her eyes they might be seen striving, for the
first time in their lives, to hold a pen, or master the characters
in a penny primer. She entered into their confidences, watched,
wept, prayed, and felt for all by turns; she strengthened their good
resolutions, encouraged the hopeless, and sedulously endeavoured to
put all, and hold all, in the right road of amendment.
What was the nature of the religious instruction given by her to the
prisoners may be gathered from Captain Williams's account of it, as
given in the "Second Report of the Inspector of Prisons" for the
year 1836:
"Sunday, November 29, 1835.—Attended divine service in the
morning at the prison. The male prisoners only were assembled. A
female resident in the town officiated; her voice was exceedingly
melodious, her delivery emphatic, and her enunciation extremely
distinct. The service was the Liturgy of the Church of England; two
psalms were sung by the whole of the prisoners, and extremely
well,—much better than I have frequently heard in our best-appointed
churches. A written discourse, of her own composition, was read by
her; it was of a purely moral tendency, involving no doctrinal
points, and admirably suited to the hearers. During the performance
of the service, the prisoners paid the profoundest attention and the
most marked respect; and, as far as it was possible to judge,
appeared to take a devout interest. Evening service was read by her,
afterwards, to the female prisoners."
Afterwards, in 1837, she gave up the labour of writing out her
addresses, and addressed the prisoners extemporaneously, in a
simple, feeling manner, on the duties of life, on the connection
between sin and sorrow on the one hand, and between goodness and
happiness on the other, and inviting her fallen auditors to enter
the great door of mercy which was ever wide opened to receive them. These simple but earnest addresses were attended, it is said, by
very beneficial results; and many of the prisoners were wont to
thank her, with tears, for the new views of life, its duties and
responsibilities, which she had opened up to them. As a writer in
the Edinburgh Review has observed, in commenting on Sarah Martin's
jail sermons:
"The cold, laboured eloquence which boy-bachelors are
authorized by custom and constituted authority to inflict upon us;
the dry husks and chips of divinity which they bring forth from the
dark recesses of the theology (as it is called) of the fathers, or
of the Middle Ages, sink into utter worthlessness by the side of the
jail addresses of this poor, uneducated seamstress."
But Sarah Martin was not satisfied merely with labouring among the
prisoners in the jail at Yarmouth. She also attended in the evenings
at the workhouse, where she formed and superintended a large school;
and afterwards, when that school had been handed over to proper
teachers, she devoted the hours so released to the formation and
superintendence of a school for factory-girls, which was held in the
capacious chancel of the old Church of St. Nicholas. And after the
labours connected with the class were over, she would remain among
the girls for the purpose of friendly intercourse with them, which
was often worth more than all the class lessons. There were personal
communications with this one and with that; private advice to one,
some kindly inquiry to make of another, some domestic history to be
imparted by a third; for she was looked up to by these girls as a
counsellor and friend, as well as schoolmistress. She had often
visits also to pay to their homes; in one there would be sickness,
in another misfortune or bereavement; and everywhere was the good,
benevolent creature made welcome. Then, lastly, she would return to
her own poor, solitary apartments, late at night, after her long
day's labour of love. There was no cheerful, ready-lit fire to greet
her there, but only an empty, locked-up house, to which she merely
returned to sleep. She did all her own work, kindled her own fires,
made her own bed, cooked her own meals. For she went on living upon
her miserable pittance in a state of almost absolute poverty, and
yet of total unconcern as to her temporal support. Friends supplied
her occasionally with the necessaries of life, but she usually gave
away a considerable portion of these to people more destitute than
herself.
Picture Internet Text Archive.
She was now growing old; and the borough authorities at Yarmouth,
who knew very well that her self-imposed labours saved them the
expense of a schoolmaster and chaplain, (which they were now bound
by law to appoint,) made a proposal of an annual salary of £12 a
year! This miserable remuneration was, moreover, made in a manner
coarsely offensive to the shrinkingly sensitive woman; for she had
preserved a delicacy and pure-mindedness throughout her life-long
labours which, very probably, these Yarmouth bloaters could not
comprehend. She shrank from becoming the salaried official of the
corporation, and bartering for money those labours which had,
throughout, been labours of love.
"Here lies the objection," she said,
"which oppresses me: I have
found voluntary instruction, on my part, to have been attended with
great advantage; and I am apprehensive that, in receiving payment,
my labours may be less acceptable. I fear, also, that my mind would
be fettered by pecuniary payment, and the whole work upset. To try
the experiment, which might injure the thing I live and breathe for,
seems like applying a knife to your child's throat to know if it
will cut . . . . Were you so angry,"
—she is writing in answer to the
wife of one of the magistrates, who said she and her husband would
"feel angry and hurt" if Sarah Martin did not accept the
proposal,—
"were were you so angry as that I could not meet you, a
merciful God and a good conscience would preserve my peace; when, if
I ventured on what I believed would be prejudicial to the prisoners,
God would frown upon me, and my conscience too, and these would
follow me everywhere. As for my circumstances, I have not a wish
ungratified, and am more than content."
But the jail committee savagely intimated to the high-souled woman:
"If we permit you to visit the prison, you must submit to our
terms;" so she had no alternative but to give up her noble
labours altogether, which she would not do, or receive the miserable
pittance of a "salary" which they proffered her. And for two more
years she lived on, in the receipt of her official salary of £12 per
annum,—the acknowledgment of the Yarmouth Corporation for her
services as jail chaplain and schoolmaster!
In the winter of 1842, when she had reached her fifty-second year,
her health began seriously to fail, but she nevertheless continued
her daily visits to the jail,—"the home," she says, "of my first
interest and pleasure,"—until the 17th of April, 1843, when she
ceased her visits. She was now thoroughly disabled; but her mind
beamed out with unusual brilliancy, like the flickering taper before
it finally expires. She resumed the exercise of a talent which she
had occasionally practised during her few moments of leisure,—that
of writing sacred poetry. In one of these, speaking of herself on
her sick-bed, she says:
|
I seem to lie
So near the heavenly portals bright,
I catch the streaming rays that fly
From eternity's own light. |
Her song was always full of praise and gratitude. As artistic
creations, they may not excite admiration in this highly critical
age; but never were verses written truer in spirit, or fuller of
Christian love. Her whole life was a noble poem,—full also of true
practical wisdom. Her life was a glorious comment upon her own
words:—
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The high desire that others may be blest
Savours of heaven. |
She struggled against fatal disease for many months, suffering great
agony, which was partially relieved by opiates. Her end drew nigh.
She asked her nurse for an opiate to still her racking torture. The
nurse told her that she thought the time of her departure had come. Clasping her hands, the dying Sister of Mercy exclaimed, "Thank God!
thank God!" And these were her last words. She died on the 15th of
October, 1843, and was buried at Caister, by the side of her
grandmother. A small tombstone, bearing a simple inscription,
written by herself, marks her resting-place; and, though the tablet
is silent as to her virtues, they will not be forgotten:—
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Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust. |
――――♦――――
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
Harriet Martineau (1802–1876): English
auther
and journalist.
Picture Internet Text Archive.
HARRIET
MARTINEAU is one of
the ablest and most vigorous of our living prose-writers. We cannot
call to mind any woman of modern or of past times, who has produced
a larger number and variety of solid, instructive, and interesting
books. She has written well on political economy, on history, on
foreign travel, on psychology, and on education; she has produced
many clever tales and novels; her books for children and for men are
alike good. She has been a copious contributor to the monthly and
quarterly reviews, and she is at present understood to be a regular
writer of leading articles for one of the best-conducted of our
morning daily papers. Her life has been one of hard work, and she
seems to work for the love of it, as well as for love of her kind. Even when laid on her bed by sickness, she went on writing, as if it
had become habitual to her, and then produced one of her most
delightful books, her "Life in the Sick-room."
Miss Martineau is a woman with a manly heart and head. In saying
this, we neither desire to cast a reflection on the sex to which she
belongs, nor upon herself. It would be well for women generally, did
they cultivate as she has done the spirit of self-help and
self-reliance. We believe it would tend to their greater usefulness
as well as happiness, and render them more efficient co-operators
with men in all the relations of life. In ordinary cases, unmarried
daughters are a burden in a "genteel" family of slender means; but
in Miss Martineau's case, she has throughout been a mainstay of
support to herself and family. Her father was a manufacturer at
Norwich, descended from a French refugee family,—French Protestants
having settled down there in considerable numbers after the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Commercial embarrassments having
overtaken the Martineaus, the sons and daughters were under the
necessity of bestirring themselves in aid of their family, which
they did, honourably and successfully. Miss Martineau, who had first
taken to writing as a recreation, afterwards followed it as a
pursuit and a profession; and in so doing she realized a competency. What was more, she carefully cherished her independence as a writer;
and when, overtaken by illness, her political friends, then in
power, bestirred themselves to help her, and, in 1840, obtained for
her the offer of a considerable government pension,—with a
conscientious and high-minded feeling, which in these modern times
finds few if any imitators, she declined to receive it,—holding it
to be wrong that she, a political writer, should receive a pension
which was not offered by the people, but by a government which, in
her opinion, did not represent the people. She sincerely preferred
retaining her independence and entire freedom of speech with respect
to government and all its affairs,—a decision which, however much it
may be at variance with our ideas of worldly prudence, we cannot but
respect and admire. More recently, also, she has displayed her force
of character in another direction; we mean by the publication, in
conjunction with Mr. Atkinson, of the "Letters on Man's
Development," &c. [p.500] With her views, as set forth in that book, we have
no sympathy; and we cannot but deplore, in common with her numerous
friends, that she was so ill-advised as to publish it. Nevertheless,
it was a thoroughly honest act on her part: done at the risk of her
popularity, reputation, and good name. She had arrived at
conclusions opposed to those generally entertained on certain
points; and as a writer, she conceived that the "cause of truth"
required that she should make a clean breast of it. Here, we think,
she committed a grievous mistake; for it can form no part of the
duty of any public writer to publish whatever crude notions may get
uppermost in her head. The error has, however, been committed; and
we merely allude to it here as furnishing a striking illustration of
Miss Martineau's character; somewhat similar to her defence of
Mesmerism in the Athenæum, when scarcely a voice, except that of
Dr. Elliotson, had been raised in its favour.
Miss Martineau displayed reflective powers at an early age. Possibly
her deafness, to which she was subject as a child, by shutting her
out to some extent from conversational intercourse with those about
her, encouraged habits of reflectiveness. She was a timid child, but
a quick and accurate observer. Her excellent work on "Household
Education" contains some autobiographical revelations of her
childhood, of a most curious and interesting character. One of
these—describing the feelings of wonder, and almost awe, with which
she contemplated a newly-born sister, when she herself was about
nine years of age—lets us into a remarkable phase of an observant
and thoughtful child's mind. Here is an account of her early
reading, from the same interesting book:—
"One Sunday afternoon, when I was seven years old, I was prevented
by illness from going to chapel,—a circumstance so rare, that I felt
very strange and listless. I did not go to the maid who was left in
the house, but lounged about the drawing-room, where, among other
books which the family had been reading, was one turned down upon
its face. It was a dull-looking octavo volume, thick, and bound in
calf, as untempting a book to the eyes of a child as could well be
seen: but, because it happened to be open, I took it up. The paper
was like skim-milk,—thin and blue, and the printing very ordinary. Moreover, I saw the word 'Argument,'—a very repulsive word to a
child. But my eye caught the word 'Satan;' and I instantly wanted
to know how anybody could argue about Satan. I saw that he fell
through Chaos; found the place in the poetry; and lived heart, mind,
and soul in Milton from that day till I was fourteen. I remember
nothing more of that Sunday, vivid as is my recollection of the
moment of plunging into Chaos: but I remember that from that time
till a young friend gave me a pocket edition of Milton, the
calf-bound volume was never to be found, because I had got it
somewhere: and that, for all those years, to me the universe moved
to Milton's music. I wonder how much of it I knew by heart,—enough
to be always repeating some of 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. It was not my love of Milton which required
the forbearance of my parents,—except for my hiding the book, and
being often in an absent fit. It was because this luxury had made me
ravenous for more. I had a book in my pocket,—a book under my
pillow; and in my lap as I sat at meals; or rather on this last
occasion it was a newspaper. I used to purloin the daily paper
before dinner, and keep possession of it, with a painful sense of
the selfishness of the act; and with a daily pang of shame and
self-reproach, I slipped away from the table when the dessert was
set on, to read in another room. I devoured all Shakespeare, sitting
on a footstool, and reading by firelight, while the rest of the
family were still at table. I was incessantly wondering that this
was permitted; and intensely, though silently, grateful I was for
the impunity and the indulgence. It never extended to the omission
of any of my proper business. I learned my lessons; but it was with
the prospect of reading while I was brushing my hair at bedtime; and
many a time have I stood reading, with the brush suspended, till I
was far too cold to sleep. I made shirts with due diligence, being
fond of sewing; but it was with Goldsmith, or Thomson, or Milton
open on my lap, under my work, or bidden by the table, that I might
learn pages and cantos by heart. The event justified my parents in
their indulgence. I read more and more slowly, fewer and fewer
authors, and with ever-increasing seriousness and reflection, till I
became one of the slowest of readers, and a comparatively sparing
one."
Miss Martineau was born in June, 1802, and was already an author at
twenty years of age, in 1822, when she published her first little
volume, entitled "Devotional Exercises," for the use of young
persons. This book was soon followed by another of the same
description, entitled "Addresses, with Prayers and Hymns, for the
Use of Families and Schools." These works were of the "Orthodox
Unitarian" school, to which class of religionists the Martineau
family belonged. A number of minor publications followed, chiefly
little tales,—some of them intended for children; but the writer's
powers were growing apace, and when, in March, 1830, the Monthly
Repository published an advertisement by the Committee of the
British and Foreign Unitarian Association, offering premiums for the
production of three tracts, the object of which should be the
introduction and promotion of Christian Unitarianism amongst the
Roman Catholics, the Mahometans, and the Jews respectively, she
determined to compete for the prizes. Three distinct sets of judges
were appointed to adjudicate upon the essays sent in; and when their
decision had been come to, much to their own surprise, they found
that the same writer had won all the three prizes! Miss Martineau
was the successful essayist. It is not our business to enter upon
the subject of these essays, which were, perhaps, such as Miss
Martineau herself would not now write. They were, however, much
praised at the time they appeared, and exhibit a vigour of thought
and a finish of style remarkable in so young a writer. But, previous
to the production of these essays, Miss Martineau had been
practising her hand extensively in the pages of the Monthly
Repository, where we find her publishing "Essays on the Art of
Thinking," in 1829, with numerous criticisms on books, articles on
education, morals, and politics,—tales, chiefly religious, poems,
and parables.
|
 |
|
The house in which Harriet Martineau
was born at Norwich, England.
Picture Internet Text Archive. |
But Miss Martineau's name did not come prominently before the public
as an author until the appearance of her "Illustrations of Political
Economy," which originated in the following way. A country
bookseller asked her to write for him some little work of fiction,
leaving the choice of subject to herself. About that time
machine-breaking riots were frequent in the manufacturing districts;
and as the subject would doubtless be a good deal discussed in the
Martineaus' home, the head of which was a manufacturer, an
interesting plot was at once suggested. "The Rioters," a story, was
the result; and it was followed by another in the following year,
entitled "The Turn Out." In these tales the author afterwards
confessed that she wrote Political Economy for the first time
without knowing it. Some time after, on reading Miss Marcet's
"Conversations on Political Economy," the idea occurred to her of
illustrating the principles of this science in a narrative form. She
repeatedly discussed the subject with her mother and brother, now
the Rev. James Martineau. She had neither authors nor booksellers to
consult; nevertheless she began her series, and wrote her "Life in
the Wilds," with which the series of proposed "Illustrations"
commenced. But the great difficulty was to find a publisher. No
bookseller would take the thing in hand; and many dissuaded her from
the project, prophesying that it was sure to fail. She endeavoured
to raise a subscription amongst her friends for the purpose of
publishing the first tale; but the subscription broke down. She
offered the tale to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, but they rejected it at once. The work went "the round of
the trade," but no bookseller of any standing would entertain the
idea of publishing it. At last, after great difficulty, Miss
Martineau succeeded in inducing a comparatively unknown publisher to
usher the first "Illustration" into the world; but not before she
had surrendered to him those advantages which, in virtue of the
authorship, she ought to have been able to retain for herself. The
book appeared, and its extraordinary success surprised
everybody,—none more than the numerous publishers who had refused
it. Other and better tales followed, which sold in large editions;
and their merit was extensively recognized abroad, where they were
translated into French and German, and soon became almost as popular
as they were at home. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge afterwards applied to Miss Martineau to write a series of
tales illustrative of the Poor Laws; but they were not so successful
as her earlier tales, perhaps on account of the nature of the
subject. Nor had she afterwards any difficulty in finding publishers
for her numerous future works.
The list of successful books rejected by publishers would be a
curious one. Milton could with difficulty find a publisher for his
"Paradise Lost;" Crabbe's "Library," and other poems, were refused
by Dodsley, Beckett, and other London publishers, though Mr. Murray
many years after purchased the copyright of them for £3,000. Keats
could only get a publisher by the help of his friends. That
ever-wonderful book by De Foe, which is the charm of boyhood in all
lands, "Robinson Crusoe," was refused by one publisher after
another, and was at last sold to an obscure bookseller for a mere
trifle; whereas if De Foe could have published it at his own risk,
it would have made his fortune. Bulwer's "Pelham" was at first
rejected by Mr. Bentley's reader; but fortunately Mr. Bentley
himself read it and approved, by mere accident. The "Vestiges of
Creation," which has passed through ten large editions within a few
years, was repeatedly refused. Thackeray's "Vanity Fair" was
rejected by a magazine. "Mary Burton" and "Jane Eyre" went the
round of the trade. Howitt offered his "Book of the Seasons" to
successive publishers, and was at length so disgusted with their
repeated refusals, that he was on the point of pitching the
manuscript over London Bridge to sink or swim. Even "Uncle Tom's
Cabin" could scarcely find a publisher in London; but at last a
respectable printer got hold of a copy, and was so riveted by it
that he sat up half the night reading it, then woke up his wife, and
made her read it too; after which he determined to reprint it, and
his steam-engine and printing-presses were kept going by Uncle Tom
for many months after. It would thus appear that "the fathers," as
Southey calls the publishers, are not always a wise and far-sighted
race,—though the many failures of books accepted render them
sometimes preternaturally cautious, as in the case of Miss
Martineau's oft-rejected, but eventually highly successful
"Illustrations of Political Economy."
Harriet Martineau, by Daniel Maclise from Fraser's
Magazine's Gallery of
Illustrious Literary Characters. Picture the
Library of Congress.
The number of excellent works which Miss Martineau has since
produced has been very great, all of them indicating careful
preparation and study, close observation, and conscientious
thinking. The two able works, in three volumes each, on "Society in
America" and "Western Travel," contained the results of an
extensive tour made by her in the United States, with a view to the
improvement of her health, in the year 1834. These works are still
amongst the best of their kind, and have not been surpassed by later
writers in description of scenery, manners, and incidents of travel,
or in searching analyses of the social and domestic institutions of
the United States. A later work, of a somewhat similar character,
published by Miss Martineau in 1848, on "Eastern Life," contained
the results of her travels in the East; but it was nothing like so
well received as her previous books, jarring strongly upon the
religious sympathies and convictions of the majority of her readers;
and also, as we cannot but think, perverting and misrepresenting
many important events in Egyptian and Hebrew history. The
descriptive part of the work was, however, admirably executed; and
there are many passages in it which will bear comparison with even
the most graphic descriptions in the marvellous "Eothen."
Between the appearance of these works, numerous other books from her
pen were turned off, almost too numerous to mention. Among her minor
works we would particularly mention one comparatively little known,
entitled "How to Observe—Morals and Manners." In a small compass, it
exhibits a prodigious amount of observation, as well as of reading
and reflection. It is a model of composition, full of wisdom,
beauty, and quiet power. We recommend those who have not yet seen it
to read the book, and they will rise from its perusal with a better
idea of the moral and intellectual powers of Miss Martineau than we
can convey by any description of our own.
To Knights series of Guide-books she contributed "The Maid of All
Work," "The Lady's Maid," and "The Housemaid" (guides to service),
and "The Dressmaker" (guide to trade). She also found time to write
several good novels,—"Deerbrook," "The Hour and the Man," and four
volumes of "The Playfellow," a series of tales for children;
besides numerous able articles in Tait's Magazine and the
Westminster Review. When the People's Journal was
started, she became a copious contributor to it, and there published
the principal portion of her excellent work on "Household
Education." Long illness confined her to her bed and her room,
during which she wrote her "Life in the Sick-Room." She then lived
at Tynemouth, overlooking the sea, the coast, and the river, near
Shields, the scenery about which, as viewed from her chamber window,
she vividly describes in that book. Take, for instance, the
following charming passage:—
"Between my window and the sea is a green down, as green as any
field in Ireland; and on the nearer half of this down, hay-making
goes forward in its season. It slopes down to a hollow, where the
prior of old preserved his fish, there being sluices formerly at
either end, the one opening upon the river, and the other upon the
little haven below the Priory, whose ruins still crown the rock. From the prior's fish-pond the green down slopes upwards again to a
ridge; and on the slope are cows grazing all summer, and half-way
into the winter. Over the ridge I survey the harbour and all its
traffic, the view extending from the light-houses far to the right,
to a horizon of sea to the left. Beyond the harbour lies another
country, with, first, its sandy beach, where there are frequent
wrecks,—too interesting to an invalid,—and a fine stretch of rocky
shore to the left; and above the rocks a spreading heath, where I
watch troops of boys flying their kites: lovers and friends taking
their breezy walks on Sundays; the sportsman with his gun and dog;
and the washerwomen converging from the farm-houses on Saturday
evenings to carry their loads, in company, to the village on the yet
farther height. I see them, now talking in a cluster, as they walk
each with her white burden on her head, and now in file, as they
pass through the narrow lane; and finally, they part off on the
village green, each to some neighbouring house of the gentry. Behind
the village and the heath stretches the railroad, and I watch the
train triumphantly careering along the level road and puffing forth
its steam above hedges and groups of trees, and then labouring and
panting up the ascent till it is at last lost between two heights,
which at last bound my view. But on these heights are more
objects;—a windmill, now in motion and now at rest; a lime-kiln, in
a picturesque rocky field; an ancient church-tower, barely visible
in the morning, but conspicuous when the setting sun shines upon it;
a colliery, with its lofty wagon-way, and the self-moving wagons
running hither and thither, as if in pure wilfulness; and three or
four farms, at various degrees of ascent, whose yards, paddocks, and
dairies I am better acquainted with than their inhabitants would
believe possible. I know every stack of the one on the heights. Against the sky I see the stacking of corn and hay in the season,
and can detect the slicing away of the provender, with an accurate
eye, at the distance of several miles. I can follow the sociable
farmer in his summer-evening ride, pricking on in the lanes where he
is alone, in order to have more time for the unconscionable gossip
at the gate of the next farm-house, and for the second talk over the
paddock-fence of the next, or for the third or fourth before the
porch or over the wall where the resident farmer comes out, pipe in
mouth, and puffs away amidst his chat, till the wife appears, with a
shawl over her cap, to see what can detain him so long, and the
daughter follows, with her gown turned over her head (for it is now
chill evening), and at last the sociable horseman finds he must be
going, looks at his watch, and, with a gesture of surprise, turns
his steed down a steep, broken way to the beach, and canters home
over the sands, left hard and wet by the ebbing tide, the white
horse making his progress visible to me through the dusk."
While Miss Martineau was thus confined to her sick-room, gazing upon
such pictures as these, she heard at a distance of the wonders of
Mesmerism, how it had raised the palsied from their couch, cured the
epileptic, and soothed the nerves of the distracted. Having tried
every imaginable remedy, she determined to try this; and whether
from the potency of the remedy or the force of the patient's
imagination, certain it was that she was shortly after restored to
health. The cure has been variously accounted for, some avowing that
Nature had accomplished a crisis, and worked out a remedy for
herself; others, with Miss Martineau, insisting on the curative
power of the mesmeric passes. The subject was well discussed in the
Athenæum a few years since, by Miss Martineau on the one side, and
by the editor on the other; nor would it be an easy matter to sum up
the net results of the controversy. With all Miss Martineau's amount
of unbelief on some points, we cannot but regard her as extremely
credulous on others; and though she is liberal to the full on
general questions, there are topics on which she seems to us
(particularly in her book on "Man's Development") to be a
considerable bigot. It is quite possible to be bigoted against
bigotry, and to be superstitious in the very avoidance of
superstition. There was a good deal of force in the rough saying of
Luther, that the human mind is like a drunken peasant on horseback:
set him up on one side and he falls down on the other.
Miss Martineau's best book is the "History of England during the
Peace," published by Charles Knight. It is an extremely able,
painstaking, and, we think, impartial history of England since 1815. It exhibits the results of great reading and research, as well as of
accurate observation of life and manners. It is, unquestionably, the
best work of the kind; indeed, it may be said to stand by itself as
a history of our own times. Its execution does the author much
credit, and we trust she will long be spared to produce books of
equally unexceptionable quality and character.
――――♦――――
MRS. CHISHOLM.
Caroline Chisholm [née Jones], (1808–77):
English philanthropist and immigration administrator.
Picture internet Text Archive.
HOW innumerable
are the ways in which men and women can benefit their
fellow-creatures! There is not a human being, howsoever humble, but
can dispense help to others. It needs but the willing heart and the
ready hand. There is no want of opportunity for good works to those
who will desire to perform them. Where will you begin? With your
next-door neighbour? This is what John Pounds did. But if you wish
for a larger theatre for your philanthropy, you need have no
difficulty in finding it out. Most of the genuine philanthropic
workers have, however, been directed by no particular effort of
choice. The field of labour has lain in their way, and they have set
to work forthwith. It was the duty which lay nearest to them, and
they set about doing it. Many others had passed it by, and saw no
field for exertion there; but the discerning eye of the true lover
of men saw the work at a glance, and without the slightest hope or
desire for fame, without any expectation of public recognition or
eulogium, at once entered diligently and earnestly upon the
performance of the duty.
Such was the field of labour to which Mrs. Chisholm devoted herself. She was residing in Sydney, New South Wales, when she was distressed
by the sight of many young women arriving at that place without
guide or protector, without any idea of the wants of the colony, or
how to set about obtaining proper situations there; and often these
poor girls, on landing at Sydney, thousands of miles from home,
wandered about in the streets, homeless and destitute, for days
together. The heart of this good woman was moved by the sight,
and she could not fail to see the moral evils that might arise from
such a state of things. She forthwith resolved to place
herself in loco parentis to these helpless female emigrants,
and to shelter and protect them until they could be comfortably
provided for in the colony. She applied to the Governor for
the use of a government building, which was conceded to her, with
the cautious red-tape proviso, that Mrs. Chisholm "would guarantee
the government against any expense." This she did, and the
first "Female Emigrants' Home" was opened. She then appealed
to the public for support, and her appeal was liberally responded
to. She freely devoted her own time gratuitously to the
protection of her humbler sisters.
Great success attended the establishment of the Female
Emigrants' Home. It soon became crowded; and then she had to
devote herself to obtaining situations for them, to make room for
the fresh arrivals. As many of the female emigrants (a
considerable proportion of whom were Irish) were found unsuitable
for service in Sydney, but were well adapted for the rough country
work of the interior, Mrs. Chisholm proceeded to form branch
establishments in the principal towns throughout the colony, and
travelled into the interior with this view, taking a large number of
the young women with her. The great demand for female labour
which everywhere existed enabled her to effect their settlement
without much difficulty; and by forming committees of ladies, and
opening many country depots, or homes, she provided for the
settlement of many others who were to follow. Mrs. Chisholm's
exertions were cheerfully aided by the inhabitants of the country
districts; for she was doing them a great service, at the same time
that she was providing for the comfortable settlement of her young
protégées. In the first instance, she had to defray
their travelling expenses, but these were afterwards refunded; the
inhabitants of the districts providing supplies of the requisite
food. Where a District Emigrants' Home was established,
handbills were distributed throughout the neighbourhood, announcing
that "Persons requiring Servants are provided with them on applying
at this Institution." The young women were supported at the
Emigrants' Home until places were found for them. Shortly
after, Emigrants' Homes for men were in like manner established, and
Mrs. Chisholm's operations at length assumed a colonial importance;
and when the success of her labours began to be apparent, she had no
want of ardent co-operators and fellow-labourers. The
following is the account which she herself gave of the progress of
her work, before the Lords' Committee on Colonization, in the year
1848.
"I met with great assistance from
the country committees. The squatters and settlers were always
willing to give me conveyance for the people. I never wanted
for provisions of any kind; the country people always supplied them.
A gentleman who was examined before your Lordships the other day—Mr.
William Bradley, a native of the colony—called upon me, and told me
that he approved of my views, and that, if I required anything in
carrying my country plan into operation, I might draw upon him for
money, provisions, horses, or indeed anything that I required.
I had no necessity to draw upon him for a sixpence, the people met
my efforts so readily; but it was a great comfort for me at the time
to be thus supported. I was never put to any expense in
removing the people, except what was unavoidable. At public
inns the females were sheltered, and I was provisioned myself,
without any charge: my personal expenses at inns during my seven
years' service amounted only to £1 18s. 6d. My efforts,
however, were in various ways attended with considerable loss to
myself: absence from home increased my family expenditure, and the
clerical expense fell heavy upon me; in fact, in carrying on this
work, the pecuniary anxiety and risk were very great. I will
mention one impediment in the way of forwarding emigrants as engaged
servants into the interior: numbers of the masters were afraid, if
they advanced the money for their conveyance by the steamers, &c.,
they would never reach their stations. I met this
difficulty,—advanced the money; confiding in the good feeling of the
man that he would keep to his agreement, and in the principle of the
master that he would repay me. It is most gratifying to me to
state, that although in hundreds of cases the masters were then
strangers to me, I only lost throughout £16 by casualties.
Sometimes I have paid as much as £40 for steamers and land
conveyance.
"My object was always to get one placed. I never
attempted more than one at first. Having succeeded in getting
one female servant in a neighbourhood, I used to leave the feeling
to spread. The first thing that gave me the idea that I could
work in this manner was this: with some persuasion I induced a man
to take a servant, who said that it would be making a fine lady of
his wife. However, I spoke to him and told him the years his
wife had been labouring for him; this had the desired effect.
The following morning I was told by a neighbouring settler: 'You are
quite upsetting the settlement, Mrs. Chisholm; my wife is uncommonly
cross this morning; she says she is as good as her neighbour, and
she must have a servant; and I think she has as much right to one.'
It was amongst that class that the girls eventually married best.
If they married one of the sons, the father and mother would be
thankful; if not, they would be protected as members of the family.
They slept in the same room with their own daughters.
"One of the most serious impediments I met with in
transacting business in the country, was the application made for
wives. Men came to me and said, 'Do make it known in Sidney
what miserable men we are; do send wives to us.' The shepherds
would leave their sheep, and would come for miles with the greatest
earnestness for the purpose.
"I never did make a match, and I told them that I could not
do anything of the kind; but the men used to say, 'I know that, Mrs.
Chisholm, but it is quite right that you should know how very
thankful we shall be;' and they would offer to pay the expense of
conveyance, &c. I merely mention this to show the demand made
for wives in the interior.
"Even up to this date they are writing to me, and begging
that I will get their friends and relations to go. I am
constantly receiving letters from them; they say that, 'If my sister
was here, she would do so well.' Certainly I should not feel
the interest I do in female emigration, if I did not look beyond
providing families with female servants; if I did not know how much
they are required as wives, and how much moral good may be done in
this way."
For six years Mrs. Chisholm was engaged in this admirable
work, travelling many hundred miles to form branch committees and
depots, sometimes convoying with her out of Sydney as many as one
hundred and fifty females at one time. During that period she
succeeded in settling, throughout the colony, not fewer than eleven
thousand immigrants of both sexes, and doing the work which ought
properly to have been done by the colonial government. She
endeavoured to induce the government to take upon itself the
management and superintendence of the office for the settlement of
emigrants which she established in Sydney, but without effect.
The governor and the government emigration agent gave her great
praise, and sent home reports glowing with gratitude for her
philanthropic exertions in aid of the friendless emigrants; but they
provided her with no substantial aid, confining themselves to empty
words. The noble woman persevered with her work, not at all
disheartened by the result of her repeated applications.
At length Mrs. Chisholm returned to England,—not to suspend
her operations, but to extend them. Having planted her Local
Committees and Emigrants' Homes all over the colony, where they are
carefully superintended by the inhabitants of the several districts,
she could venture to leave them and visit England with another noble
purpose in view. Having provided the machinery for locating
and settling emigrants on their arrival in New South Wales, she
desired to rouse the mother country to send out its surplus
labourers, its unemployed or half-employed, or greatly-underpaid
women, to a country where they would be made welcome, and experience
no difficulty in securing at least the means of comfort and physical
well-being.
The most recent scheme which Mrs. Chisholm has originated, in
connection with the same movement, is the Family Colonization Loan
Society, whose object it is to aid poor and struggling families to
emigrate, by advancing small loans for the purpose, to be afterwards
repaid by them after reaching the colony; and also to effect the
reunion of the separated members of families—parents and children,
brothers and sisters, wives and husbands—in the Australian colonies,
by the same means. For instance, by means of this society,
servant-girls in Australia may remit through its agents their weekly
contributions of two shillings towards the emigration of their
parents, or for their support at home. Assistance is also
given by the society in enabling parties to trace out and
communicate with their relatives who have emigrated, and in other
ways to keep up family relationships and restore domestic ties.
And it is matter of gratification to know that the emigrants sent
out by Mrs. Chisholm are more eagerly sought after and better liked
in the colony than any that enter it. One of the notable
features of these detachments of emigrants is this, that they are
arranged into groups, each member of which is, to a certain extent,
responsible for every other, no one being admitted except after due
inquiry. Thus all immoral contamination is avoided, and a high
standard of character is maintained, while a kind of family
relationship is established among the members of the several groups.
The practical good which Mrs. Chisholm is effecting, by her
unwearied exertions in this cause, can scarcely be computed.
She is the happy means of introducing many worthy and industrious
individuals to positions of competency and independence; and is
engaged, in the most effective way, in extending the influence of
civilization and Christian liberty to the remote ends of the earth.
What reward she may meet with among men maybe of small moment to
her, but of her greatest reward she is certain.
At one of the public meetings of emigrants in London, the
Earl of Shaftesbury expressed his cordial admiration of the
intelligent zeal and indefatigable exertions of Mrs. Chisholm.
The audience, said he, had probably heard something of Bloomerism,
the highest order of which Mrs. Chisholm had attained; for she had
the heart of a woman, and the understanding of a man. He
wished her "God speed," and prayed that she might be made more and
more instrumental in carrying out her great and beneficent purposes.
To which we add a hearty Amen! [p.517]
THE END.
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