Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/182

174 she translated what was said; when Language, she replied to it.”

During Miss Martineau's illness, in 1840, she was tendered the compliment of a pension from the English Government, as an acknowledgment of her services as a political writer, and the good she had accomplished by disseminating among the masses true views of political economy. But she was too sensitively just to be willing to accept this alluring offer, averring as her reason for declining it that she "considered herself a political writer, and the offer did not proceed from the people, but from the Government, which did not represent the people.”

The spirit which dictated a reply like this to so tempting an offer may be considered quixotic, but it is a quixotism which is, in these days, alas! too rare for the good of the public, among our male politicians, both writers and haranguers.

Her health being in a good measure restored, in 1846 she started with a com-