When he was so ill that all his friends were full of anxiety about him, M—— having called to see him, and affectionately asking what sort of night he had passed, Sydney Smith replied, “Oh, horrid, horrid, my dear fellow! I dreamt I was chained to a rock and being talked to death by Harriet Martineau and Macaulay.”
Frances Ann Kemble: ‘Records of Later Life.’ New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1882.
Mr. Payn’s account of her conversation and character.
The author of the ‘Vestiges of Creation’ said to me once, in his dry, humorous way, “Your friend, Miss Martineau, has been giving me the address in town where she gets all her ear-trumpets. Why, good heavens! what does she want of them? Does she mean to say that she ever wore one ear-trumpet out in all her life in listening to what anybody had to say?”
She was, no doubt, masterful in argument (which is probably all that he meant to imply), but I always found her very ready to listen, and especially to any tale of woe or hardship which it lay in her power to remedy. Her conversation, indeed, was by no means monologue, and rarely have I known a social companion more bright and cheery; but her talk, when not engaged in argument, was, which is unusual in a woman, very anecdotal. She had known more interesting and eminent persons than most men, and certainly than any woman, of her time; the immense range of her writings—political, religious, and social—had caused her to make acquaintances with people of the most different opinions, and of all ranks, while among the large circle of her personal acquaintance her motherly qualities, her gentleness, and (on delicate domestic questions), her good judgment, made her the confidante of many persons, especially young people; which enlarged her knowledge of human life to an extraordinary degree. I never knew a woman whose nature was more essentially womanly than that of Harriet Martineau, or one who was more misunderstood in that respect by the world at large.
James Payn: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’
Recollections of her long illness at Tynemouth.
On the sofa where I stretched myself, after my drive to Tynemouth, on the sixteenth of March, 1840, I lay for nearly five years, till obedience to a newly-discovered law of nature raised me up and sent me forth into the world again, for another ten years of strenuous work, and almost undisturbed peace and enjoyment of mind and heart.... During the whole of my illness, comforts and pleasures were lavishly supplied to me. Sydney Smith said that everybody who sent me game, fruit, and flowers, was sure of heaven, provided always that they punctually paid the dues of the Church of England. If so, many of my friends are safe. Among other memorials of that time, which are still preserved and prized, are drawings sent me by the Miss Nightingales, and an envelope-case (in daily use), from the hands of the immortal Florence. I was one of the sick to whom she first ministered, and it happened through my friendship with some of her family.... I did not think I could have wished so much for anything as I wished to see foliage. I had not seen a tree for above five years, except a scrubby little affair that stood above the haven at Tynemouth. An old friend sent me charming colored sketches of old trees in Sherwood Forest, and an artist who was an entire stranger to me, Mr. McIan, stayed away from a day’s excursion, at a friend’s house in the country, to paint me a breezy tree. For months the breezy tree was pinned up on the wall before me, sending many a breeze through my mind.... During many a summer evening, while I lay on my window-couch, and my guest of the day sat beside me, overlooking the purple sea, or watching for the moon to rise up from it, like a planet growing into a sun, things were said, high and deep, which are fixed into my memory now, like stars in a dark firmament. Now a philosopher, now a poet, now a moralist, opened to me speculation, vision or conviction.