le than
brass, they are cutting themselves off from building the useful little
mud-hut, or some of the other modest performances by which only they are
capable of serving their age. It is only one volume in a million that is
not meant to perish, and to perish soon, as flowers, sunbeams, and all
the other brightnesses of the earth are meant to perish. There are some
forms of composition in which perfection is not only good but
indispensable. But the most are designed for the purpose of a day, and
if they have the degree of elaboration, accuracy, grasp, and
faithfulness that suffice for the given purpose, then we may say that it
is enough. There is literature proper, for which only two or three men
and women in a generation have the true gift. This cannot be too good.
But besides this there is a mass of honest and needful work to be done
with the pen, to which literary form is only accidental, and in which
consummate literary finish or depth is a sheer work of supererogation.
If Miss Martineau had given twice as many years as she gave months to
the condensation of Comte, the book would not have been a whit more
useful in any possible respect--indeed, over-elaboration might easily
have made it much less so--and the world would have lost many other
excellent, if not dazzling or stupendous services.

'Her original power,' she wrote of herself in that manly and outspoken
obituary notice to which we have already referred, 'was nothing more
than was due to earnestness and intellectual clearness within a certain
range. With small imaginative and suggestive powers, and therefore
nothing approaching to genius, she could see clearly what she did see,
and give a clear expression to what she had to say. In short, she could
popularise, while she could neither discover nor invent.... She could
obtain and keep a firm grasp of her own views, and moreover she could
make them understood. The function of her life was to do this, and in as
far as it was done diligently and honestly, her life was of use.' All
this is precisely true, and her life was of great use; and that makes
what she says not only true, but an example worth much weighing by many
of those who meddle with literature.

Miss Martineau was never tired of trying to be useful in directing and
improving opinion. She did not disdain the poor neighbours at her gates.
She got them to establish a Building Society, she set them an example of
thrifty and profitable management by her li