In _Once a Week_, however, her articles became more decisively political year by year. Some of her best political papers are in that magazine for 1863. The most noteworthy feature in them are their basis of principles and not of party, and their practical wisdom. When I speak of her devotion to principles, in politics, I half fear that I may be misunderstood--for so shockingly does Cant spawn its loathsomeness over every holy phrase, that such expressions come to us "defamed by every charlatan," and doubtful in their use. But she was neither doctrinaire, nor blind, nor pig-headed, nor pharisaic, nor jealous, nor scheming; but wise, brave, truthful, upright, and independent. Love of justice and truthfulness of speech were as much to her in public affairs as they are to any high-minded person in private. Her desire in her thoughts and utterances on politics was simply to secure "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" of the people; and the spirit in which she worked was correctly appraised by the then editor of the _Daily News_, William Weir, when he wrote to her in these terms, in 1856:-- I have never before met--I do not hope again to meet--one so earnest (as you) to promote progress, so practical in the means by which to arrive at it. My aim in life is to be able to say, when it is closing, "I, too, have done somewhat, though little, to benefit my kind;" and there are so few who do not regard this as Quixotism or hypocrisy, that I shrink even from confessing it. He so well recognized that as truly _her_ aim also that he did not fear to utter to her his high aspiration. It is in this spirit that her political articles are written, and the result of the constant reference to principles is that her essays are almost as instructive reading now as they were when first published; _then_, their interest and their importance were both incalculable. Of such articles Harriet Martineau wrote in the _Daily News_, from first to last, _sixteen hundred and forty-two_: besides the great number that I have referred to, which appeared in other journals. I wonder how many of the men who have presumed to say that the women are "incapable of understanding politics," or of "sympathizing in great causes," received a large part of their political education, and of rousing stimulus to public-spirited action, from those journalistic writings by Harriet Martineau?