PEN-PORTRAITS OF LITERARY WOMEN BY THEMSELVES AND OTHERS EDITED BY HELEN GRAY CONE AND JEANNETTE L. GILDER _WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES BY THE FORMER_. VOL. II. CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, 739 & 741 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. COPYRIGHT, 1887, By O. M. DUNHAM. Press W. L. Mershon & Co., Rahway, N. J. CONTENTS. PAGE. HARRIET MARTINEAU, 11 AURORE DUDEVANT (GEORGE SANDS), 59 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, 93 MARGARET FULLER (OSSOLI), 131 CHARLOTTE BRONTË, } EMILY BRONTË, } 179 MARIAN EVANS CROSS (GEORGE ELIOT), 245 HARRIET MARTINEAU. 1802-1876. HARRIET MARTINEAU. Harriet Martineau was born at Norwich, on the 12th of June, 1802. The Martineau family were descendants of Huguenot refugees. Harriet’s father, Thomas Martineau, was a Norwich manufacturer; Elizabeth Rankin was the maiden name of her mother, who is described as “a true Northumbrian woman.” Harriet was the sixth child in a family of eight. Her childhood was sickly, repressed, and unhappy. “My life has had no spring,” she wrote long afterwards. At eleven years of age she was sent to the school of a Mr. Perry, who laid a solid foundation for her education. About two years later Mr. Perry left Norwich, and Harriet’s education was then carried on at home under visiting masters. At fourteen she was sent to a Bristol boarding school, where she stayed fifteen months. After this, her keen appetite for knowledge led her to carry on her studies at home, despite much discouragement. Like other young women of that day, she was expected to “spend a frightful amount of time in sewing,” and at one period could only steal the hours for intellectual work from her sleep.