492 HARRIET MARTINEAU. For twenty years after she had written her autobiography in momentary expectation of death, she continued to live and work for the welfare of her fellows. In her own words, "Literature, though a precious luxury, was not, and never had been, the daily bread of her life. She felt that she could not be happy, or in the best way useful, if the declin- ing years of her life were spent in lodgings in the morning and drawing-rooms in the evening. A quiet home of her own, and some few dependent on her for their domestic welfare, she believed to be essential to every true woman's peace of mind ; and she chose her plan of life accordingly." She lived in the country, built a house, and tried her hand successfully on a farm of two acres. She exerted herself for the good of her neighbors, and devised schemes to remedy local mischiefs. Her servants found in her a friend as well as a mistress. Her long and busy life bears the constant impress of two leading characteristics — industry and sincerity. In the brief autobiographical sketch, left to be published in the London Daily News, to which she had contributed alto- gether sixteen hundred important articles, she gives this curiously candid judgment of herself, which is more correct than, many of her judgments of others: "Her original power was nothing more than was due to earnestness and intellectual clearness within a certain range. With small imaginative and suggestive pow r ers, and therefore nothing approaching to genius, she could see clearly what she did see, and give a clear expression to what she had to say. In short, she could popularize while she could neither discover nor invent." Her infirmity of deafness probably enabled her to accom- plish the immense amount of literary work which she did, since it withdrew her from many distractions. The cheerful and unobtrusive spirit with which she bore her infirmity remains an example and encouragement to her fellow- sufferers.
