You cannot fancy what way he (Carlyle), is making with the fair intellects here! There is Harriet Martineau presents him with her ear-trumpet, with a pretty, blushing air of coquetry, which would almost convince me out of belief in her identity! JANE W. CARLYLE: _Letter to John Sterling_. ‘Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh,’ edited by James Anthony Froude. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883. * * * * * [Sidenote: Her conversation.] She is the most continual talker I ever heard; it is really like the babbling of a brook, and very lively and sensible, too; and all the while she talks she moves the bowl of her ear-trumpet from one auditor to another, so that it becomes quite an organ of intelligence and sympathy between her and yourself. The ear-trumpet seems a sensible part of her, like the antennæ of some insects. If you have any little remark to make, you drop it in; and she helps you to make remarks by this delicate little appeal of the trumpet, as she slightly directs it towards you; and if you have nothing to say, the appeal is not strong enough to embarrass you. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: ‘Passages from the English Note-Books.’ Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1873. * * * * * He [Southey] was speaking of Miss Martineau patiently, but without respect, describing her as “talking more glibly than any woman he had ever seen, and with such a notion of her own infallibility.” HENRY F. CHORLEY: ‘Autobiography, Memoir, and Letters.’ London: 1873. * * * * * [Sidenote: Pertinent anecdote of Sydney Smith.] When he was so ill that all his friends were full of anxiety about him, M---- having called to see him, and affectionately asking what sort of night he had passed, Sydney Smith replied, “Oh, horrid, horrid, my dear fellow! I dreamt I was chained to a rock and being talked to death by Harriet Martineau and Macaulay.” FRANCES ANN KEMBLE: ‘Records of Later Life.’ New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1882. * * * * * [Sidenote: Mr. Payn’s account of her conversation and character.] The author of the ‘Vestiges of Creation’ said to me once, in his dry, humorous way, “Your friend, Miss Martineau, has been giving me the address in town where she gets _all her ear-trumpets_. Why, good heavens! what does she want of them? Does she mean to say that she ever wore one ear-trumpet out in all her life in listening to what anybody had to say?”