XXXVIII. HARRIET MARTINEAU. " TTOW I detest benevolent people!" Sydney Smith . 1 I is reported to have said, on looking up from a book he had been reading. " Why ? " asked his daughter. "Because they are so cruel," was his reply. I was reminded of this anecdote upon looking over a book lately published, entitled "Harriet Martineau's Auto- biography," which is full of the personal gossip that amuses readers, but gives extreme pain to large numbers of worthy persons who cannot possibly set themselves right with the public by correcting the misconceptions of a writer no longer among the living. Miss Martineau was, doubt- less, a lady who strongly desired the happiness of man- kind, and who had some correct ideas of the manner in which human happiness is to be promoted. She ren- dered much good service in her day and generation, but she left this book to be published after her death, which is unjust to almost every individual named in it, and, most of all, unjust to herself. And the worst of it is, no effective answer can be made to it. The gifted family of the Kembles, for example, and particularly Mrs. Kemble,a lady still living, with children and other relations, are held up to the contempt of man- kind as vain, vulgar, and false. Perhaps the Kembles thought Miss Martineau vain, vulgar, and false ; but they have not had the indecency to tell the public so. Macaulay, Miss Martineau tells us, had "no heart," and (483)
