Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Harriet Martineau

This gentleman patronises Mrs. Somerville's scientific reputation. He told me one morning, in the presence of several persons whom he wished to impress with the highest respect for Mrs. Somerville, the particulars of a call he once made upon her during a visit to England. It was a long story; but the substance of it was, that he found her a most extraordinary person, for that she knew more than he did. He had always thought himself a pretty good mathematician, but she had actually gone further. He had prided himself upon being a tolerable chymist, but he found she could teach him something there. He had reason to think himself a good mineralogist; but, when he saw her cabinet, he found that it was possible to get beyond him. On entering her drawing-room he was struck by some paintings which he ascertained to be done by her hand, while he could not pretend to be able to paint at all. He acknowledged that he had, for once, met his superior. Two days after, among a yet larger party, he told me the whole story over again. I fell into an absent fit in planning how I could escape from the rest of his string of stories, to talk with some one on the opposite side of the room. When he finally declared, "In short, I actually found that Mrs. Somerville knows more than I do," I mechanically answered, "I have no doubt of it." A burst of laughter from the whole party roused me to a sense of what I had done in taking the professor at his word. His look of mortification was pitiable.

It was amusing to see him with the greatest statesman in the country, holding him by the button for an hour together, while lecturing in the style of a master to a hopeful schoolboy. The pompous air of the professor and the patient snufftaking of the statesman under instruction made a capital caricature subject. One of the professor's most serious declarations to me was, that the time had long been past when he believed he might be mistaken. He had once thought that he might be in the wrong like other people, but experience had taught him that he never erred. As, therefore, he and I did not agree on the point we were conversing about, I must be mistaken. I might rely upon him that it was so.

It is not to be expected that women should resist dangers of position which men, with their wider intercourses, cannot withstand. The really learned and able women of the United States are as modest and simple as people of sound learning and ability are; but the pedantry of a few bookish women in retired country situations exceeds anything I ever saw out of novels and farces.

In a certain region of the United States there are two sisters, living at a considerable distance from each other, but united (in addition to their undoubted sisterly regard) by their common belief that they are conspicuous ornaments of their country. It became necessary for me to make a call on one of these ladies. She knew when I was going, and had made preparation for my reception. I was accompanied by three ladies, one of whom was an avowed authoress; a second was a deep and thoroughly-exercised scholar, and happened to have published, which the pedantic lady did not know. The third was also a stranger to her, but a very clever woman. We were treated with ludicrous precision, according to our supposed merits; the third-mentioned lady being just honoured with a passing notice, and the fourth totally neglected. There was such an unblushing insolence in the manner in which the blue-stocking set people who had written books above all the rest of the world, that I could not let it pass unrebuked; and I treated her to my opinion that they are not usually the cleverest women who write; and that far more general power and wisdom are required to conduct life, and especially to educate a family of children well, than to write any book or number of books. As soon as there was a pause in the conversation, I rose to go. Some weeks afterward, when I was on a journey, a lady drove up from a distance of two miles to make an afternoon call upon me. It was the sister. She told me that she came to carry me home with her for the night, "in order," said she, "that you may see how we who scribble can keep house." As I had never had any doubt of the compatibility of the two things, it was of little consequence that I could not go. She informed me that she lectured on Mental and Moral Philosophy to young ladies. She talked with much admiration of Mr. Brown as a metaphysician. I concluded this gentleman to be some American worthy with whom I had to become acquainted; but it came out to be Dr. Thomas Brown whom she was praising. She appeared not to know even the names of metaphysicians out of the Scotch school; and if the ghosts of the Scotch schoolmen were present, they might well question whether she understood much of them. She told me that she had a great favour to ask of me: she wanted permission to print, in a note to the second edition of her Lectures on Mental and Moral Philosophy, a striking observation of mine made to her sister, which her sister had transmitted to her by the next post. I immediately assured her that she might print anything that I had said to her sister. She then explained that the observation was that they are not usually the cleverest women who write. I recommended her to make sure of the novelty of the remark before she printed it; for I was afraid that Shakspeare or somebody had had it first. What was the fate of the opinion I do not know; but it may be of use to the sisters themselves if it suggests that they may be mistaken in looking down upon all their sex who do not "scribble."

I think it must have been a pupil of theirs who wrote me a letter which I threw into the fire in a fit of disgust the moment I had read it. A young lady, who described herself as "an ambitious girl," sent me some poetry in a magazine, and an explanation in writing of her own powers and aspirations. No one likes aspiration better than I, if only there be any degree of rational self-estimate connected with it. This young lady aspired to enter the hallowed precincts of the temple where Edgeworth, More, and others were immortalized. As for how she was to do it, her case seemed to be similar to that of a West Indian lady, who once complained to me that, while she was destined by her innate love of the sublime and the beautiful to be distinguished, Providence would not let her. The American young lady, however, hoped that a friendship with me might persuade the world to recognise her powers; and she informed me that she had come to town from a distance, and procured an invitation to a house where I was to spend the evening, that we might begin our friendship. The rooms happened to be so tremendously crowded that I was not obliged to see any more persons than those immediately about me. I was told that the "ambitious girl" was making herself very conspicuous by standing on tiptoe, beaming and fluttering; but I did not look that way, and never saw her. I hope she may yet read her own poetry again with new eyes, and learn that the best "ambition" does not write about itself, and that the strongest "powers" are the least conscious of their own operation.

In two of the eastern cities I met with two ladies who had got a twist in opposite directions. It has been represented in England that a jealousy of English superiority, even in natural advantages, is very prevalent in the United States. I do not think so; and I am by no means sure that it is not nearly as rare as the opposite extreme. One instance of each kind of prejudice came under my notice, and I am not aware of more. At a party at Philadelphia, a lady asked me if I had not crossed the Alleghanies, and whether I did not think them stupendous mountains. I admired the views they presented, and said all I could for the Alleghanies; but it was impossible to agree that they were stupendous mountains. The lady was so evidently mortified, that I began to call the rivers stupendous, which I could honestly do; but this was not the same thing. She said, in a complaining tone,

"Well, I cannot think how you can say there are no high mountains in the United States."

"You mistake me," I said. "I have not seen the White Mountains yet; and I hear they are very grand."

"You English boast so of the things you have got at home!" said she. "Why, I have seen your river Avon, that you make so much of. I stood by the Avon, under Warwick Castle, and I said to my husband that it was a mighty small thing to be talked of at such a distance. Why, if I had been ten years younger, I could almost have jumped over it."

I told her that I believed the Avon was not so celebrated for the quantity of water in it as on some other accounts.