placed over the remains of the American prophet and poet in the sweet valley of tombs in Concord.

One of these texts was from Sirach xlvii. 14, 17:

"How wise wast thou in thy youth, and as a flood filled with understanding!

Thy soul covered the whole earth, and thou filledst it with dark parables.

Thy name went far unto the islands, and for thy peace thou wast beloved.

The countries marvelled at thee for thy songs and proverbs and parables and interpretations."

And equally appropriate would be this Horatian line, also on Niebuhr's monument:

"Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus tam cari capitis."

From a lifelong friend of Emerson I have just received a letter containing these words, which, better than most descriptions, give the character of his soul:

"And so the white wings have spread, and the great soul has left us.

"'Tis death is dead; not he.'

He had no vanity, no selfishness; no greed, no hate; none of the weights that drag on common mortals. His life was an illumination; a large, fair light; the Pharos of New England, as in other days our dear brother called him. And this light shone further and wider the longer it burned."

HARRIET MARTINEAU1

THE whole work 2 is very interesting. How could it be otherwise, in giving the history of so remarkable a life? The amount of literary work which Miss Martineau performed is amazing. She began to write for the press when she was nineteen, and continued until she could no longer hold her pen. The pen was her sword, which she wielded with a warrior's joy, in the conflict of truth with error, of right with wrong. She wrote many books; but her articles in reviews and newspapers were innumerable. We find no attempt in either part of this biography to give a complete list of her writings. Perhaps it would be impossible. She never seems to have thought of keeping such a record herself, any more than a hero records the number of the blows he strikes in battle. No sooner had she dismissed one task than another came; and sometimes several were going on together. Like other voluminous writers, she enjoyed the exercise of her productive powers; and, as she somewhere tells us, her happiest hours were those in which she was seated at her desk with her pen.

1 The North American Review, May, 1877.

2 Harriet Martineau's Autobiography. Edited by Maria Weston Chapman. 2 vols.

Her principal works cover a large range of thought and study. One of her first books, "The Traditions of Palestine," she continued to regard long after with more affection than any other of her writings, except "Eastern Life." But her authorship began when she was nineteen, in an article contributed to a Unitarian monthly. Afterwards she obtained three separate prizes offered by the Central Unitarian Association for three essays on different topics. About the same time she wrote "Five Years of Youth," a tale which she never looked at afterward. But her first great step in authorship, and that which at once made her a power in politics and in literature, was taken when she commenced her series of tales on "Political Economy." She began, however, to write these stories, not knowing that she was treating questions of Political Economy, "the very name of which," she 66 says, was then either unknown to me, or conveyed no meaning.' She was then about twentyfive years old. She had the usual difficulties with various publishers which unknown authors are sure to experience, and these tales, which became so popular, were rejected by one firm after another. Oue of them was refused by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, as being too dull. The president of that Society, Lord Brougham, afterward vented his rage on the sub-committee which rejected the offered story, and so had permitted their Society, "instituted for that very pur

pose, to be driven out of the field by a little deaf woman at Norwich." At last a publisher was found who agreed to take the books on very unsatisfactory terms. As soon as the first number appeared, the success of the series was established. A second edition of five thousand copies was immediately called for, the entire periodical press

came out in favor of the tales,

hour Miss Martineau had only to

and from that

choose what to

She was

write, sure that it would at once find a publisher. She was at this time thirty years old. already deaf, her health poor; but she then began a career of intellectual labor seldom equaled by the strongest man through the longest life. She began to write every morning after breakfast; and, unless when traveling, seldom passed a morning during the rest of her life without writing, working from eight o'clock until two. Her method was, after selecting her subject, to procure all the standard works upon it, and study them. She then proceeded to make the plan of her work, and to draw the outline of her story. If the scene was laid abroad, she procured books of travels and topography. Then she drew up the contents of each chapter in detail, and, after this preliminary labor, the story was written easily and with joy.

Of these stories she wrote thirty-four in two years and a half. She was then thirty-two. She received £2,000 for the whole series, a sufficiently small compensation, but she established

her position and her fame. Her principal books published afterward were her two works on America, the novels" Deerbrook" and "The Hour and the Man; " nine volumes of tales on the Forest and Game Laws; four stories in the "Playfellow; " "Life in the Sick-Room; ""Letters on Mesmerism;""Eastern Life, Past and Present;""History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace ;” "Letters on the Laws of Man's Social Nature and Development;" "Translation and Condensation of Comte's Positive Philosophy;" besides many smaller works, making fifty-two titles in Allibone. In addition to this, she wrote many articles in reviews and magazines; and Mrs. Chapman mentions that she sent to a single London journal, the "Daily News," sixteen hundred articles, at the rate sometimes of six a week. Surely Harriet Martineau was one who worked faithfully while her day endured.

66

But, if we would do her justice, we must consider also the motive and spirit in which she worked. Each thing she did had for its purpose nothing merely personal, but some good to mankind. Though there was nothing in her character of the sentimentalism of philanthropy, she was filled with the spirit of philanthropy. A born reformer, she inherited from her Huguenot and her Unitarian ancestors the love of truth and the hatred of error, with the courage which was ready to avow her opinions, however unpopular. Thus, her work