sense in
making any ado about so simple a matter. When doctors and counsel refuse
their guineas, and the parson declines a stipend, it will be quite soon
enough for the author to be especially anxious to show that he has a
right to regard money much as the rest of the human race regard it.

Miss Martineau underwent the harsh ordeal which awaits most literary
aspirants. She had a scheme in her head for a long series of short tales
to illustrate some of the propositions of political economy. She trudged
about London day after day, through mud and fog, with weary limbs and
anxious heart, as many an author has done before and since. The times
were bad; cholera was abroad; people were full of apprehension and
concern about the Reform Bill; and the publishers looked coldly on a
doubtful venture. Miss Martineau talks none of the conventional nonsense
about the cruelty and stupidity of publishers. What she says is this: 'I
have always been anxious to extend to young or struggling authors the
sort of aid which would have been so precious to me in that winter of
1829-1830, and I know that, in above twenty years, I have never
succeeded but once.' One of the most distinguished editors in London,
who had charge of a periodical for many years, told us what comes to the
same thing, namely, that in no single case during all these years did a
volunteer contributor of real quality, or with any promise of eminence,
present himself or herself. So many hundreds think themselves called so
few are chosen. In Miss Martineau's case, however, the trade made a
mistake. When at length she found some one to go halves with her in the
enterprise, on terms extremely disadvantageous to herself, the first of
her tales was published (1832), and instantly had a prodigious success.
The sale ran up to more than ten thousand of each monthly volume. In
that singular autobiographical sketch of herself which Miss Martineau
prepared for a London paper, to be printed as her obituary notice, she
pronounced a judgment upon this work which more disinterested, though
not more impartial, critics will confirm. Her own unalterable view, she
says, of what the work could and could not effect, 'prevented her from
expecting too much from it, either in regard to its social operations or
its influence on her own fame. The original idea of exhibiting the great
natural laws of society by a series of pictures of selected social
action was a fortunate one; and her tales initiated