Harriet Martineau

by Florence Fenwick Miller

Her father and mother looked not unkindly upon the dawning of this affection. The brother, however, who knew the two so well, felt quite certain that they were not suited for each other. Harriet was of a strong, decided temper, even somewhat arbitrary and hasty, quick in her judgments, and firm in her opinions. The temperament of Worthington, on the other hand, was, I am told, gentle, impressionable and sensitive in the extreme. He was highly conscientious, and ultra-tender in his treatment of the characters and opinions of others. The two seemed in many respects the antipodes of each other. He who knew them both best was convinced that they would not be happy together, and that opinion he has never changed.

It is above all things difficult to predict beforehand whether two apparently antagonistic characters will really clash and jar in the close union of married life, or whether, on the contrary, the deficiencies of the one will be supplemented by those opposite tendencies which are rather in excess in the other. It is notorious that marriages are seldom perfect matches in the view of outsiders; the incongruities in the temperaments and the habits of life and thought, are more easily discerned than the fusing influence of ardent love can be measured. Nor, indeed, can the changes which will be worked in the disposition by a surrender to the free play of emotion be accurately foreseen. Considerations such as these, however, do not have much weight in the mind of a young man whose experience of the mysteries of the human heart is yet to come; and James Martineau was strongly averse to the engagement of his sister and his friend. Their attachment was not then permitted to become an engagement. Worthington was poor—was still only a student—Harriet was supposed, at that time, to be well portioned; the sensitive temperament of the young lover felt the variety of discouragements placed in the path of his affection, and so that affection which should have brought only joy became, in fact, to Harriet the cause of sorrow, suspense and anxiety. Yet its vivifying influence was felt, and the true happiness which is inseparable from mutual love, however the emotion be checked and denied its full expression, was not lacking. For some insight into what Harriet Martineau knew and felt of love, we must look elsewhere than in the formal record of the Autobiography.[ [3] But this, like all the other chief events of her life, has found a place in her works under a thin veiling of her personality. Let us see from one of her early essays how Harriet Martineau learned to regard love. The essay is called "In a Hermit's Cave."

"The place was not ill-chosen by the holy man, if the circumstances could but have been adapted to that highest worship—the service of the life.... But there is yet wanting the altar of the human heart, on which alone a fire is kindled from above to shine in the faces of all true worshippers for ever. Where this flame, the glow of human love, is burning, there is the temple of worship, be it only beside the humblest village hearth: where it has not been kindled there is no sanctuary; and the loftiest amphitheatre of mountains, lighted up by the ever-burning stars, is no more the dwelling-place of Jehovah than the Temple of Solomon before it was filled with the glory of the Presence....

"Yes, Love is worship, authorized and approved.... Many are the gradations through which this service rises until it has reached that on which God has bestowed His most manifest benediction, on which Jesus smiled at Cana, but which the devotee presumed to decline. Not more express were the ordinances of Sinai than the Divine provisions for wedded love; never was it more certain that Jehovah benignantly regarded the festivals of His people than it is daily that He has appointed those mutual rejoicings of the affections, which need but to be referred to Him to become a holy homage. Yet there have been many who pronounce common that which God has purified, and reject or disdain that which He has proffered and blest. How ignorant must such be of the growth of that within! How unobservant of what passes without! Would that all could know how from the first flow of the affections, until they are shed abroad in their plentitude, the purposes of creation become fulfilled. Would that all could know how, by this mighty impulse, new strength is given to every power; how the intellect is vivified and enlarged; how the spirit becomes bold to explore the path of life, and clear-sighted to discern its issues.... For that piety which has humanity for its object—must not that heart feel most of which tenderness has become the element? Must not the spirit which is most exercised in hope and fear be most familiar with hope and fear wherever found?

"How distinctly I saw all this in those who are now sanctifying their first Sabbath of wedded love.... The one was at peace with all that world which had appeared so long at war with him. He feared nothing, he possessed all; and of the overflowings of his love he could spare to every living thing. The other thought of no world but the bright one above, and the quiet one before her, in each of which dwelt one in whom she had perfect trust.... In her the progression has been so regular, and the work so perfect, that any return to the former perturbations of her spirit seems impossible. She entered upon a new life when her love began; and it is as easy to conceive that there is one Life Giver to the body, and another to the spirit, as that this progression is not the highest work of God on earth, and its results abounding to His praise.... To those who know them as I know them, they appear already possessed of an experience in comparison with which it would appear little to have looked abroad from the Andes, or explored the treasure-caves of the deep, or to have conversed with every nation under the sun. If they could see all that the eyes of the firmament look upon, and hear all the whispered secrets that the roving winds bear in their bosoms, they could learn but little new; for the deepest mysteries are those of human love, and the vastest knowledge is that of the human heart."

Even more vividly, at a later period, she told something of her experiences in one of her fictions, under the guise of a conversation between a young husband and wife:—

"Do you really think there are any people that have passed through life without knowing what that moment was, that stir in one's heart on being first sure that one is beloved? It is most like the soul getting free of the body and rushing into Paradise, I should think. Do you suppose anybody ever lived a life without having felt this?"

Walter feared it might be so; but, if so, a man missed the moment that made a man of one that was but an unthinking creature before; and a woman the moment best worth living for....

"It seems to me," said Effie, "that though God has kindly given this token of blessedness to all—or to so many that we may nearly say all—without distinction of great or humble, rich or poor, the great and the lowly use themselves to the opposite faults. The great do not seem to think it the most natural thing to marry where they first love; and the lowly are too ready to love."

"That is because the great have too many things to look to besides love; and the lowly have too few. The rich have their lighted palaces to bask in, as well as the sunshine; and they must have a host of admirers, as well as one bosom friend. And when the poor man finds that there is one bliss that no power on earth can shut him out from, and one that drives out all evils for the time—one that makes him forget the noon-day heats, and one that tempers the keen north wind, and makes him walk at his full height when his superiors lounge past him in the street—no wonder he is eager to meet it, and jogs the time-glass to make it come at the soonest. If such a man is imprudent, I had rather be he than one that first lets it slip through cowardice, and would then bring it back to gratify his low ambition!"