Page:Daughters of Genius.djvu/499

 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 487 the end of Napoleon's career, a kind of savageness seems to have pervaded human life. All Europe was fighting ; school-boys were encouraged and expected to fight, and the softer feelings of our nature were undervalued or despised. Bonaparte made life harder for almost every one in the civilized world ; and this may partly explain how an intelligent, virtuous, and even benevolent family could have lived together in a manner which seems to us heartless and savage. Her parents gave her an excellent education. She could make shirts and puddings ; she could iron and mend ; she acquired all household arts, as girls did in those days ; but at the same time she became a considera- ble proficient in languages and science, and very early began to show an inclination to composition. The circum- stance which made her a professional writer was interest- ing. She had secretly sent an article to a monthly magazine, and a few days after, as she was sitting after tea in her brother's parlor, he said : " Come now, we have had plenty of talk ; I will read you something." He took the very magazine that contained her contri- bution, and opening it at her article he glanced at it, and said : " They have got a new hand here. Listen." He read a few lines, and then exclaimed : " Ah ! This is a new hand ; they have had nothing as good as this for a long while." He kept bursting out with exclamations of approval as he continued to read, until, at length, observing her silence, he said : " Harriet, what is the matter with you ? I never knew you so slow to praise anything before." She replied in utter confusion : " I never could baffle anybody. The truth is, that paper is mine."