[ [5] Harriet Martineau's History of the Peace, book ii, p. 8.
[ [6] "I should think there never was such an industrious lady," said the maid who was with her for the last eleven years of her life; "when I caught sight of her, just once, leaning back in her chair, with her arms hanging down, and looking as though she wasn't even thinking about anything, it gave me quite a turn. I felt she must be ill to sit like that!"
[ [7] In the same number, by the way, appeared the notorious biting and sarcastic notice of Tennyson's second volume. It is a distinction, indeed, for a critical review, that one number should have devoted half its space to violently unfavorable criticisms of Alfred Tennyson's poetry and Harriet Martineau's political economy.
[ [8] How to Observe, p. 204.
[ [9] Life in the Sick-Room.
[10] Diary and Letters of H. C. Robinson, vol. iii., p. 235.
[11] This and the succeeding quotations are from her "Letters on Mesmerism," published in the Athenæum, 1845.
[12] As this friendship had a profound influence upon Harriet's after thought and work, some description of Mr. Atkinson seems in place; and I need offer that gentleman no apology for merely quoting what has appeared in print before about him. Margaret Fuller wrote thus of him in a private letter, in 1846:—
"Mr. Atkinson is a man about thirty, in the fullness of his powers, tall and finely formed, with a head for Leonardo to paint; mild and composed, but powerful and sagacious; he does not think, but perceives and acts. He is intimate with artists, having studied architecture himself as a profession; but has some fortune on which he lives. Sometimes stationary and acting in the affairs of other men; sometimes wandering about the world and learning; he seems bound by no tie, yet looks as if he had relatives in every place."—Memoirs of Margaret Fuller, by Emerson.
[13] I find there is a widespread impression that she eventually died of the same tumor that she supposed to have been cured at this time. It should be distinctly stated, however, that if this were the case, Mr. Greenhow and Sir C. Clarke were both utterly wrong in their diagnosis in 1840. I have read Mr. Greenhow's Report of the Case of Miss H. M., and the notes of the post-mortem lie before me—kindly lent me by the surgeon, Mr. King, now of Bedford Park, who made the autopsy. I find that the organ which Mr. Greenhow and his consultant both stated to be the seat of the disease, enlargement and tumor, in 1840, is described as being found "particularly small and unaffected" after death.