The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-05-05

conSpicuously absent After reading
her graphic autobiography Thackeray
expressed the whimsical regret that
Harriet Martineau should not have
chosen her parents more wisely. This
autobiography teens with tales of IN
accountable fright, induced by her dull
ness Of vision and mental perception:
absence of the sense of smell, and an
( incurable defect in her hearing. This
very dizziness, however, which shut her
/ off from the world of the senses. forced
her to concentrate her powers upon in
/ teliectual pursuits, so that her mind
became more far-reaching because of
its singularly imperfect dwelling.
At the age of 20 Harriet Nartineau
became entirely deaf. She met this
affection with the same cheerful
strength which characterized every
trial of her life, and Immediately re-
solved never to ask her friends to re-
peat an observation lest she should
thus make them sharers in the irx-
SOmeness of her misfortune.
Harriet Martineau made three liter
airy ventures before she was well
launched upon the stream Of literary
popularity, down which She afterwaTd
sailed so swiftly and so smoothly. When
her brother James, afterward the Gel
ebrated DR.. Martineau, went away to
comrade, to beguile his absence with
authorship. She was then but 10 and
with her usual timOrousness, told no
one of her trial article, Female Writ
ers in Practical Divinity" which she
sent anonymously to the Monthly Re
positOry, a unitarian magazine When
the oldest son dropped in the following
Sunday to read to the family the best
thing that the paper had printed for a
L. -. 4
confusion to recognize her article as
the subject of her brothers praise. The
reader was so irritated that Harriet
did not join in the family chorus Of
approval that she was obliged to con-
fess having written the essay, where
upon her kindly brother, laying his
hand upon her shoulder said gravely:
Now, dear, leave it TO other women to
make shirts and darn stockings, and
do you devote yourself to this"
few years later the father died,
worn out with business cares, and each
of the family was thrown on his own
resources. AS Harriet was too deaf to
teach she became an expert needle
woman stitching far into the night and
occasionally stretching her wings as an
author She enjoyed surrounding OBJ
stacles, and frequently referred to this
period of prodigious work as delight
full, in that it revealed to her her ca
pacity for work and her powers of en-
durance. She frequently supplemented
her needleWOrk by writing until or
in the morning, receiving but els
year for her contributions OF essays,
book reviews. poems and devotional ex-
ercises to the Monthly Repository.
Her second important literary ven
ture was her submission of three es-
says TO the Central Unitarian associa-
ton. This body had offered three
prizes Of TO- Is and 20 guineas each for
the best essays on the presentation y
Unitarianism to Jews, Catholics and
Mohammedans. Always fond of the
ology Harriet determined to try for all
the prizes and accordingly took every
precautiOn to prevent the discovery
that the three essays were by the
same hand, even going so far as to
have the first treatise to which she
devoted a months time, copied by a
poor school boy. Although there were
many learned competitors, Harriet, to
her great ast0nishment. gained every
prize.
Her third notable experiment does not
read so much like a fairy tale, for there
were too many refusals. snubbings and
hard bargainings such as assail more
ordinary mortals to make the effort a
delight. These obstacles once sur
mounted, however. Harriet MartineaU
found herself securely seated on the
front benches of fame, from which she
could successfully survey the literary
turmoil Of the less successful. Thence
forth she had only to choose the most
congenial Of the numberless literary Of
fers which constantly assailed her. The
work which thus assured her literary
reputation was a series of tales illus
trative of the principles of political
economy. They were generally re-
fused BY cautious publishers, fearful
Of the experiment of diffusing knowl-
edge in the garb of fiction. Many
ayerring that the public was too much