A large portion of her time and thought was absorbed, in these years, by the American struggle and its consequences. Loving the United States and their people as she did, the interest and anxiety with which she watched their progress were extreme. She was no coward--as it is, no doubt, hardly necessary to remark on this page--and though she grieved deeply for the sufferings both of personal friends and of the whole country, yet her soul rose up in noble exultation over the courage, the resolution, and the high-mindedness of the bulk of the American nation. Over here, she threw herself with warm eagerness into the effort to support those Lancashire workers upon whom fell so heavy a tax of deprivation in the cotton famine. The patience, the quietness, the heroism with which our North-Country workers bore all that they had to suffer, supported as they were by the sympathy of the mass of their fellow-countrymen, and by their own intelligent convictions that they were aiding a good cause by remaining peaceful and quiet--this was just the sort of thing to arouse all Harriet Martineau's loving sympathies. "Her face would all light up and the tears would rush to her eyes whenever she was told of a noble deed," says Miss Arnold; "no matter how humble the doer, or how small the matter might seem, you could see the delight it gave her to know that a fine, brave, or unselfish act had been done." Animated by such respectful joy in the attitude of the Lancashire workers, she threw herself into their service; and her correspondence on this topic during 1861, when she used all her public and private influence on their behalf, and employed her best energies in aiding and advising the relief committees, would fill a large volume. In the midst of her labors for America, she could not but be gratified by the testimonies which constantly reached her from that country to the appreciation of the work which she had done and was doing.