[100] “Third Report,” p. 34, etc.
[101] “Life,” i. 325-327.
[102] “Life,” i. 325-327.
[103] Father to a later Postmaster-General.
[104] “Life,” i. 328.
[105] “Life,” i. 329.
[106] Ibid. i. 330.
[107] The Times was now a hearty champion of the reform, and wrote frequently and ably in support of it.
[108] “Life,” i. 337. During the writing of this Report my father had frequent occasion to call upon its author in order to check elaborate calculations and to put important questions in the clearest light—on the principle, apparently, that two heads, when each is mathematical, are better than one. “Philosopher Warburton,” as he was sometimes called, was one of the best friends the postal reform had. He was a man of wide influence, and an indefatigable worker. Originally a timber merchant, he abandoned commerce for science his favourite pursuits being mathematics and astronomy. He was a member of the Political Economy Club from its foundation in 1821 till his death in 1858; he was one of the founders of the London University, and served on its first council; and he represented Bridport, Dorset, in successive Parliaments from 1825 to 1841. It is often asserted that a recluse, bookworm, or scientist cares for nothing outside his own four walls or lower than the starry heavens. In this case never was saying more completely falsified. Mr Warburton was unusually public-spirited, a prominent Parliamentarian, and a lucid writer. When my father visited him, he was always received in his friend's sanctum, the dining-room, whose appearance never altered. Dining there would have been impossible, although the table was always set out at full length. It was entirely covered with piles of volumes, most of them Blue Books. The sideboard, save for one small space reserved for astronomical instruments, was similarly loaded, as were also all the chairs but one in addition to that reserved for Mr Warburton's use. The floor was likewise piled with books, very narrow passages only being left to enable people to move about; and the whole place bore a look upon it as of “the repose of years.” When, after talking a while, Mr Warburton resumed his pen, my father had time, during his several visits, to read the whole of one of Macaulay's brilliant and then newly-published Essays in a volume which always occupied a particular spot on a table.
[109] Many years after the establishment of the postal reform, on the occasion of a tour to the English Lakes, our parents took my younger sister and me to visit Miss Martineau at her prettily-situated Ambleside house. We two girls were charmed with her bright, sensible talk, and her kindly, winning personality. We found her also much better-looking than from her portraits we had expected to see her. They missed the wonderful lighting up of the clever face which, when animated, looked far younger than when in repose. Among other interesting items of information, she told us of her, I fear, useless efforts to rescue the local rural population, then mostly illiterates, from the curse of intemperance. She contemplated giving a lecture on the subject, and showed us some horrifying coloured drawings representing the ravages effected by alcohol on the human system which she had prepared for it; but, as she knew that no one would come if the lecture were announced as about Drink, she said she should call it a “Discourse on Our Digestive Organs,” or something of the sort. We never heard the fate of that proposed lecture.