Harriet Martineau: ‘Autobiography.’
Correspondence with Elizabeth Barrett.
I have had a great pleasure, lately, in some correspondence with Miss Martineau, the noblest female intelligence between the seas,—“as sweet as spring, as ocean deep.” She is in a hopeless anguish of body, and serene triumph of spirit, with at once no hope and all hope.
Elizabeth Barrett: Letter to R. H. Horne. ‘Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, addressed to Richard Hengist Horne.’ New York: James Miller, 1877.
Prompt relief by mesmerism.
Within one minute, the twilight and phosphoric lights appeared; and, in two or three more, a delicious sensation of ease spread through me—a cool comfort, before which all pain and distress gave way, oozing out, as it were, at the soles of my feet. During that hour, and almost the whole evening, I could no more help exclaiming with pleasure than a person in torture crying out with pain. I became hungry, and ate with relish for the first time for five years. There was no heat, oppression or sickness during the seance, nor any disorder afterwards. During the whole evening, instead of the lazy, hot ease of opiates, under which pain is felt to lie in wait, I experienced something of the indescribable sensations of health, which I had quite lost and forgotten.
Harriet Martineau: Letters on Mesmerism, quoted by Mrs. Fenwick Miller in her ‘Harriet Martineau.’