t, which really proved to be a blessing in the disguise
of a catastrophe, Harriet Martineau had written a number of slight
pieces. They had been printed, and received a certain amount of
recognition. They were of a religious cast, as was natural in one with
whom religious literature, and religious life and observance, had
hitherto taken in the whole sphere of her continual experience.
_Traditions of Palestine_ and _Devotional Exercises_ are titles that
tell their own tale, and we may be sure that their authoress was still
at the antipodean point of the positive philosophy in which she ended
her speculative journey. She still clung undoubtingly to what she had
been brought up to believe when she won three prizes for essays intended
to present Unitarianism to the notice of Jews, of Catholics, and of
Mahometans. Her success in these and similar efforts turned her mind
more decidedly towards literature as a profession.

Miss Martineau is at some pains to assure us on several occasions that
it was the need of utterance now and always that drove her to write, and
that money, although welcome when it came, was never her motive. This
perhaps a little savours of affectation. Nobody would dream of
suspecting Miss Martineau of writing anything that she did not believe
to be true or useful merely for the sake of money. But there is plenty
of evidence that the prospect of payment stirred her to true and useful
work, as it does many other authors by profession, and as it does the
followers of all professions whatever. She puts the case fairly enough
in another place (i. 422):--'Every author is in a manner an adventurer;
and no one was ever more decidedly so than myself; but the difference
between one kind of adventurer and another is, I believe, simply
this--that the one has something to say which presses for utterance, and
is uttered at length without a view to future fortunes; while the other
has a sort of general inclination towards literature, without any
specific need of utterance, and a very definite desire for the honours
and rewards of the literary career.' Even in the latter case, however,
honest journeyman's work enough is done in literature by men and women
who seek nothing higher than a reputable source of income. Miss
Martineau did, no doubt, seek objects far higher and more generous than
income, but she lived on the income which literature brought to her; and
there seems a certain failure of her usually admirable common