She had no sense of taste whatever. “Once,” she told me, when I was expressing my pity for this deprivation of hers, “I tasted a leg of mutton, and it was delicious. I was going out, as it happened, that day, to dine, and, I am ashamed to say, that I looked forward to the pleasures of the table with considerable eagerness; but nothing came of it--the gift was withdrawn as suddenly as it came.” The sense of smell was also denied her, as it was to Wordsworth; in his case, too, curiously enough, it was vouchsafed to him, she told me, upon one occasion only. “He once smelled a bean-field and thought it heaven.” JAMES PAYN: ‘Some Literary Recollections.’ New York: Harper & Bros., 1884. * * * * * [Sidenote: Practical education.] “I could make shirts and puddings,” she declares, “and iron, and mend, and get my bread by my needle, if necessary--as it was necessary, for a few months, before I won a better place and occupation with my pen.” During the winter which followed the failure of the old Norwich house she spent the entire daylight hours poring over fancy work, by which alone she could with certainty earn money. But she did not lay aside the sterner implement of labor for that bright little bread-winner, the needle. After dark she began a long day’s literary labor in her own room. MRS. FENWICK MILLER: ‘Harriet Martineau.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Happy result of family loss of income.] In a very short time, my two sisters at home and I began to feel the blessing of a wholly new freedom. I, who had been obliged to write before breakfast, or in some private way, had henceforth liberty to do my own work in my own way; for we had lost our gentility. Many and many a time since have we said that, but for that loss of money, we might have lived on in the ordinary provincial method of ladies with small means, sewing and economizing, and growing narrower every year; whereas, by being thrown, while it was yet time, on our own resources, we have worked hard and usefully, won friends, reputation and independence, seen the world abundantly, abroad and at home, and, in short, have truly lived instead of vegetated. * * * * * [Sidenote: Manner of life during period immediately following.]