Harriet Martineau

by Florence Fenwick Miller

In her latest years she commonly wrote in the drawing-room, as the sunniest and most cheerful apartment, and where, too, she could sit by the fire, and yet get plenty of daylight. Her proper study, however, was the room on the opposite side of the hall. This is a long room with a bay window at the other end of the fire-place, and the door in the centre. Book-cases lined the whole of these walls; but her library was an extensive one, and there were books all over the house. This room served as dining-room and study, both; the writing table was near the window, the dining-table further towards the fire.

The only other room on the ground floor is the kitchen, which runs parallel with the drawing-room. Her principles and her practice went hand-in-hand in her domestic arrangements as in her life generally; and her kitchen was as airy, light and comfortable for her maids as her drawing-room was for herself. The kitchen, too, was provided with a book-case for a servants' library. A scullery, dairy, etc., are annexed to the kitchen, and the entrance to the cellars below is also found through the green baize door which shuts off the cooking region from the front of the house.

Up-stairs, that which was her own room is large and cheerful, and provided with two windows, a big hanging cupboard, and a good sized dressing-room—the latter indeed, fully large enough for a maid to sleep in. The next was the spare-room; and there lingers no small interest about the guest-chamber, where Harriet Martineau received such guests as Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Emerson, and Douglas Jerrold. A small servants' room is next to this, and a larger one is over the kitchen, so that it comes just at the head of the stairs. Such is the size and arrangement of Harriet Martineau's home.

Climbing plants soon covered "The Knoll" on every side. The ivy kept it green through all the year; the porch was embowered in honeysuckle, clematis, passion-flower, and Virginia creeper. Wordsworth, Macready, and other friends of note, planted trees for Harriet below the terrace. The making of all these arrangements was a source of satisfaction and delight to her such as can only be imagined by those who have felt what it is to come abroad after a long and painful confinement from illness, and to find life and usefulness freely open again under agreeable conditions and prospects.

While her house was being built, she lodged in Ambleside; and in that time, during the autumn and winter of 1845-6, she wrote her Forest and Game Law Tales, with the object of showing how mischievous the game laws were in their operation upon society at large, and more particularly upon the fortunes of individual farmers, and upon the laborers who were led into poaching. These tales occupy three volumes of the ordinary novel size. They had a sale which would have been very good for a novel; two thousand copies were disposed of, and doubtless did some service for the cause for which she had worked. So far as her own pecuniary interests were concerned, however, these tales made her first failure. It was the only work which never returned her any remuneration. The publisher had reckoned on a very large circulation, and so had put out too much capital in stock, stereotypes, and the like, to leave any profit on the sale that actually took place; and the publication unfortunately coincided with the agitation of the political world about the repeal of the corn laws. But one pleasing incident arose out of them for her personally. She had been in difficulties as to how to obtain turf to lay down upon the land under her terrace. One fine morning, soon after her entrance on her home, her maid found a great heap of sods under the window, when she opened the shutters in the morning. A dirty note, closed with a wafer, was stuck upon the pile, and this was found to state that the sods were "a token of gratitude for the Game Law Tales, from a Poacher." Harriet never discovered from whom this tribute came.

She took possession of her home on April 7th, 1846. During the summer she wrote another story for young people—one of her most interesting tales, and instructive in its moral bearing—The Billow and the Rock. It must here be noted, in passing, that this is the last of her works in which the theism that she had, up to this time, held for religious truth, makes itself visible. A new experience was about to lead her to think afresh upon the theological subjects, and to revise her opinions about the genesis of faiths, and their influence upon morals.

In the autumn of 1846, she accepted an invitation from her friends, Mr. and Mrs. R. V. Yates, of Liverpool, to join them in a journey to the East, they bearing the expense. The party left England in October, and were met at Malta by Mr. J. C. Ewart, afterwards M.P. for Liverpool. Together, these four travellers sailed up the Nile to the second cataract, studied Thebes and Philæ, went up and into the Great Pyramid, visited bazaars, mosques and (the ladies) harems, in Cairo. Then they travelled in the track of Moses in the desert, passing Sinai and reaching Petra. Next, they completely traversed Palestine; and finally, passed through Syria to Beyrout, where they took ship again for home. This journey occupied eight months.

In October, 1847, Harriet reached "The Knoll" again, and settled herself in her permanent course of home life. As the same habits were continued, with only the interruptions of occasional visits to other parts of the country, day by day, for many years, I may as well mention what was the course of that daily home life.

She rose very early: not infrequently, in the winter, before daylight; and immediately set out for a good, long walk. Sometimes, I am told, she would appear at a farm-house, four miles off, before the cows were milked. The old post-mistress recollects how, when she was making up her early letter-bags, in the gray of the morning mists, Miss Martineau would come down with her large bundle of correspondence, and never failed to have a pleasant nod and smile, or a few kindly inquiries, for her humble friend. "I always go out before it is quite light," writes Miss Martineau to Mr. Atkinson, in November, 1847; "and in the fine mornings I go up the hill behind the church—the Kirkstone road—where I reach a great height, and see from half way along Windermere to Rydal. When the little shred of moon that is left and the morning star hang over Wansfell, among the amber clouds of the approaching sunrise, it is delicious. On the positively rainy mornings, my walk is to Pelter Bridge and back. Sometimes it is round the south end of the valley. These early walks (I sit down to my breakfast at half-past seven) are good, among other things, in preparing me in mind for my work."

Returning home, she breakfasted at half-past seven; filled her lamp ready for the evening, and arranged all household matters; and by half-past eight was at her desk, where she worked undisturbed till two, the early dinner-time. These business hours were sacred, whether there were visitors in the house or not. After dinner, however, she devoted herself to guests, if there were any; if not, she took another walk, or in bad weather, did wool-work—"many a square yard of which," she says, she "all invisibly embossed with thoughts and feelings worked in." Tea and the newspaper came together, after which she either read, wrote letters, or conversed for the rest of the evening, ending her day always, whatever the weather, by a few moments of silent meditation in the porch or on the terrace without.