The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-07-08 00:00:00

MISS MARTINEAU.

It may be said that it was her good fortune to be
exactly suited to the times in which she lived. The
work she c iuld do was a kind of work which her genera-
tion needed. There is so little bitterness now in politics
that it is hard to realize the jealousy and rancour, the
social divisions, the asperities of manner and thought
which marked the perit d that began with the agita-
tion of the first Reform Bill. An Ilnp.rtlal Bastory
of England was then something ecpally new and
valuable. Now the principles of p. leical economy
are accepted, and it is principally with the limitations
of those principles that we are c n ez-neil. But when
political economy first appeared as a practical power in
E iglish politics, it was regarded as something at once
eminently subversive and odiously dry ; and it was
a real help to it when a woman strewed roses in
is arid path by embod) in.; its doctrines in a
series of instructive and entertaining fictions. At
present we are so accustomed to eve ry one telling us in
print every fact about their souls and bodies that It
seems almost incredible that a woman should be
attacked in the way Miss Martineau was for saying
that mesmerism had cured hes. But some one must
first bell the cat, and Miss Martineau belltd it; aid
she and some others like her b-lied it so effectuadly
that, if any one now told us that he had got a little
demon in his pocket which, when he was faint, pinched
him till he got well, we should merely adc in whic'i
pocket he had got it. Except in small provincial circles
religious toleration is now so complete that a
man may, in proclaiming himself an agnostic or a
mystic, count on the complete indiffereuce of his
friends, it he has the qualities of heart and mind to
attract them, and of his acquaintance, if he has the
means befitting his position. When Miss Martineau
wrote, things were different, and she helped -to
create the eiff rence. That the rich should not
merely give to the poor, but think about them, is now
an axiom of English society; but it is not very long
since the notion that a person who employed a maid-
of-all-work should study the lot of maids of-all-work
generally seemed a wild arid visionary extravagance.
Miss Martineau did all these things, and it is, pet haps,
owing to the success sbe achieved that she his been in
recent years somewhat forgotten. Possibly, however,
the value of her life has not yet passed away, and some
of the lessons she practically taught need to he learnt
by her sisters. She had the merits of strong-minded
women, without a trace of their faults. No woman
Was ever less desirous to parade herself before the
public. She buried herself in the country in order
that she might have a house of her own, with home
duties and tiny local interests. She was not the
patroness. but the friend, of the lowest of her neieh-
hours. She did little things well, almost too well,
perhaps, to permit the hope that many will follow
her example. There are not many e'ds,rly single
women with heart disease who can be eapected
to try little experiments in farming. But if she
was superior to most of those who in some degree re-
semble her, she always kept the right path. The
happiest life of a woman is perhaps attained when she
adopts the opinions of a reasonably intelligent husband.
and conscientiously thinks they are her own. But all
women cannot be happy in this way; and women who
from isolation or the impulses of their nature are
driven to think and feel for themselves are at their
best when, to the courage and clearness and industry
of Miss Martineau, they unite her love of private use-
fulness and her ardour for the well-being of a small,
well-known circle.—Saturday Review.