England! I grant that thou dost justly boast
Of splendid geniuses beyond compare;
Men great and gallant,—women good and fair,—
Skilled in all arts, and filling every post
Of learning, science, fame,—a mighty host!
Poets divine, and benefactors rare,—
Statesmen,—philosophers,—and they who dare
Boldly to explore heaven's vast and boundless coast,
To one alone I dedicate this rhyme,
Whose virtues with a starry lustre glow,
Whose heart is large, whose spirit is sublime,
The friend of liberty, of wrong the Foe:
Long be inscribed upon the roll of time
The name, the worth, the works of Harriet Martineau.
Miss Martineau wrote on a variety of subjects, and generally held a view contrary to the accepted one. She wrote upon mesmerism, positivism, atheism, which she professed, and after each book warriors armed with pens sprang up to assail the author. But she had many friends, even among those who were most bitter against her doctrines. One wrote of her, "There is the fine, honest, solid, North-country element in her." R. Brimley Johnson in English Prose, edited by Craik in 1896, said of her writings:
"Her gift to literature was for her own generation. She is the exponent of the infant century in many branches of thought:—its eager and sanguine philanthropy, its awakening interest in history and science, its rigid and prosaic philosophy. But her genuine humanity and real moral earnestness give a value to her more personal utterances, which do not lose their charm with the lapse of time."
Harriet Martineau's name and personality will be remembered in history after her books have been forgotten.
CHAPTER XV
The Brontës
During the middle of the nineteenth century, English fiction largely depicted manners and customs of different classes and different parts of England. While Dickens, Thackeray, Disraeli, and Mrs. Gaskell were writing realistic novels, romantic fiction found noble exponents in the Brontë sisters.
The quiet life lived by the Brontës in the vicarage on the edge of the village of Haworth in the West Riding of Yorkshire seems prosaic to the casual observer, but it had many weird elements of romanticism. The purple moors stretching away behind the grey stone vicarage, the grey sky, and the sun always half-frowning, and never sporting with nature here as it does over the mountains in Westmoreland, make thought earnest and deep, and suggest the mystery which surrounds human life. It is a serious country, that of the Wharf valley; the people are a serious people, silent and observant. The Brontës were a direct outcome of this country and people, only in them their severity and silence were kindled into life by a Celtic imagination.