Mrs. Martineau's circumstances were such as to increase her natural tendency to stern and decided rule. Dr. Martineau tells me that all who knew his mother feel that Harriet does not do justice in her "Autobiography" to that mother's nobler qualities, both moral and intellectual, and especially the latter. Harriet and James Martineau, like so many other men and women of mark, were the children of a mother of uncommon mental capacity. Her business faculties were so good, and her judgment so clear, that her husband (a man of a sweet and gentle disposition) invariably took counsel with her about all his affairs, and acted by her advice. There are still inhabitants of Norwich who remember Mrs. Martineau, and their testimony of her is identical with her son's. "She was the ruling spirit in that house," says one of them. "Whatever was done there, you understood that it was she who did it." The way in which this gentleman came to know so much of her corroborates Dr. Martineau's declaration that "she was really devoted to her children, and would do anything for them; if we were miserable in our childhood (a fact which he does not dispute) it could not be said to be consciously her fault." Mr. ---- was the husband of a lady who had been reared from early childhood by Mrs. Martineau, having been adopted by her simply in order to provide her little daughter, Ellen, who was nine years younger than Harriet, with a child companion somewhat about her own age. This lady, her widowed husband tells me, retained a most warm admiration and affection for Mrs. Martineau. Mothers who have brought up eight children of their own can appreciate the self-devotedness of this mother in receiving a ninth child by adoption in order to increase the well-being of her own little daughter. Several other instances were told to me of Mrs. Martineau's benevolence and kindness of disposition. Young men belonging to her religious body, and living in lodgings in Norwich, were uniformly made welcome to her house, as a home, every Sunday evening. One of the Norwich residents, with whom I have talked about her, received a presentation from her to the Unitarian Free School, and afterwards, in his school life, met with constant encouragement and patronage at her hands. He tells me that he has never forgotten the stately and impressive address with which she gave him the presentation ticket, concluding with a reminder that if he made good use of this opportunity he might even hope one day to become a member of the Town Council of that city,--and at that giddy eminence her _protege_ now stands. For the sake of the lesson, it should be understood that she was thus truly benevolent and kindly, and no vulgar termagant or scold. It is for us to see how such a nature can be spoiled for daily life by too unchecked a course of arbitrary rule, and by repression of outward signs of tenderness.