November 19, 1872.
Dear Friend:
… You will feel at once how earnestly I must be longing for death—I who never loved life, and who would any day of my life have rather departed than stayed. Well! it can hardly go on very much longer now. But I do wish it was permitted to us to judge for ourselves a little how long we ought to carry on the task which we never desired and could not refuse, and how soon we may fairly relieve our comrades from the burden of taking care of us. I wonder whether the chapter I wrote about this for the "Sick-Room" book will ever see the light. I rather wish it may, because I believe it utters what many people think and feel. I let it be omitted from that book because it might perhaps injure the impression of the rest of the volume; but, so far as I remember it, it is worth considering, and therefore publishing.
I have made such inquiries as I could (of one of Miss Martineau's executors and others), but can get no tidings of this missing chapter on Euthanasia. It was just such a subject—needing for its discussion, courage, calmness, common sense, and logic, combined with sympathy, and a high standard of moral beauty and goodness—as she would have been sure to treat rarely well. There is one passage in Life in the Sick-Room, bearing upon the question; she observes that the great reason why hopeless invalids so commonly endure on when they are longing for the rest of insensibility, is the uncertainty as to whether they may not find themselves still conscious in another state. Her own history was to supply a stronger reason still against the irrevocable action being taken upon our rash assumptions that our work and our usefulness in life are ended. As she truly observed: "No one knows when the spirits of men begin to work, or when they leave off, or whether they work best when their bodies are weak, or when they are strong. Every human creature that has a spirit in him must therefore be taken care of, and kept alive as long as possible, that his spirit may do all it can in the world." So she wrote at that very time—showing how her mind was pondering every view of the subject.
The sentence just quoted is from Dawn Island, a little one-hundred paged story which she wrote in the midst of her suffering, as her contribution to the funds of the Anti-Corn Law League. It was printed and sold for the benefit of that league, at the great bazaar of 1845.
After the publication of the "Sick-Room" book, she commenced the writing of her autobiography—not as it was published afterwards, be it understood—for she was too ill to make much progress with it, and soon stopped writing. But she never became too ill to feel and to show a vivid interest in every cause that had the happiness and progress of mankind for its object. She kept up an extensive correspondence with those engaged in the world's work, and such personal efforts for public objects as those above mentioned she frequently exerted—sometimes over-exerted—herself to make. Her body was chained to two small rooms; but her mind, with all its powers and affections, yet swept freely through the universe. No one would have been more impatient than she herself of any pretence that she lived incessantly on a high plane of lofty emotions, where pain ceased to be felt, or that her care for others was so extraordinary that self-regard was swallowed up in the depths of altruism. I have quoted her candid revelations about her sufferings and her opiates, to avoid the possibility of conveying an impression that she was thus guilty of hypocrisy or affectation. But the wide interests and the sympathies with mankind that were the solace of her sick life, and the inspiration of the work which she did so heavily, and yet so continuously, amidst her pain, assuredly shall be marked with the reverence that they merit.
In 1844 the long illness came to an end. Harriet Martineau was restored to perfect health by means of mesmerism. Such a cure of such a person could not fail to make a great sensation. Not only had she a wide circle of personal acquaintances, but she had deeply impressed the public at large with a sense of her perfect sanity, her calm common-sense, and her practical wisdom, as well as with a conviction of her truthfulness and accuracy. Accordingly, as the Zoist (Dr. Elliotson's mesmeric periodical) declared at the time:—
The subject which the critic, a few months since, would not condescend to notice, has been elevated to a commanding position. It is the topic with which the daily papers and the weekly periodicals are filled; in fact, all classes are moved by one common consent, and mesmerism, from the palace to the smallest town in the United Kingdom, is the scientific question absorbing public attention.... The immediate cause of all this activity, is the publication of the case of Miss Martineau, who, after five years' incessant suffering and confinement to her couch, is now well.
I have thought that what needs to be said here of the medical aspect and course of this period of suffering, and of the final cure, will best be said consecutively; and, therefore, we will look back briefly over the five busy but suffering years, the work of which has now been recorded, and see what were the physical conditions under which that work was executed.
Her health had been declining gradually from 1834 to 1839; there was a slow but a marked deterioration in strength, and her spirits became depressed. In April of the latter year, when she undertook a continental journey the fatigue of travelling suddenly aggravated her condition; and in Venice, early in June, she was compelled to consult a physician, Dr. Nardo. She was found to be suffering from a tumor, with enlargement and displacement of an important organ, all this causing great internal pain, accompanied by frequent weakening hemorrhages. She was carried back to England by easy stages, and lying on a couch, and reached Newcastle-on-Tyne at the end of July, 1839. She stayed for some time at the house in that town of her eldest sister, and then was removed only nine miles off, in order that her brother-in-law, Mr. T. M. Greenhow, F.R.C.S., might undertake the medical care of her case. Until October, she persevered in taking walking exercise; but the pain, sickness and breathlessness which accompanied this were so distressing, that soon after her removal to Tynemouth she ceased to go out of doors, or even to descend the stairs.