Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/173

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HARRIET MARTINEAU
165

cation, and on health, husbandry, and handicraft. Even the needs of the little ones have not been forgotten or overlooked by this woman, whom no baby-lips have ever called “mother,” but who bears within her bosom as warm a heart as even maternity could bestow; and her series of stories for children, entitled "The Playfellow,” attests how rarely sympathetic is the nature of the translator of such works as "Comte's Positive Philosophy,” and author of “The History of the Thirty Years’ Peace.”

As early as 1834, she had by her unremitting literary labor won for herself a reputation which extended to America, and her profits were such as to enable her in the autumn of that year to make a visit to the young republic with whose boasted freedom of thought and liberty of action she had long wished to acquaint herself from personal observation and experience. She remained in America for two years, and traveled during that time over nearly all sections of the country, acquainting herself