I have never regretted its boldness of speech. I felt a relief in having opened my mind which I would at no time have exchanged for any gain of reputation or fortune. The time had come when, having experienced what might be called the extremes of obscurity and difficulty first, and influence and success afterwards, I could pronounce that there was nothing for which it was worth sacrificing freedom of thought and speech. There was but little in _Society in America_ of the ordinary book of travels. As an account of the political condition and the social arrangements of the American people it was of singular value. But the personal incidents of travel, the descriptions of scenery, the reminiscences of eminent persons, of all which Harriet Martineau had gathered a store, were entirely omitted from this work. Messrs. Saunders and Otley suggested to her that she should make a second book out of this kind of material. She consented; and wrote her _Retrospect of Western Travel_. She completed the manuscript of this in December, 1837, and it was published soon afterwards in three volumes. The publishers gave her six hundred pounds for it. The fifteen hundred pounds which she thus earned exceeded in amount the whole of what she had then received for her _Illustrations of Political Economy_. The last-named great work was nearly all published upon the absurdly unequal terms which Charles Fox had secured from her in the beginning. It was characteristic of her generosity in pecuniary matters and her loyalty to her friends, that although her agreement with Fox was dissoluble at the end of every five numbers, she nevertheless allowed it to hold good, and permitted him to pocket a very leonine share of her earnings throughout the whole publication of the original series, only claiming a revision of the terms when she commenced afresh, as it were, with the "Poor-Law," and "Taxation" tales. Thus the immense popularity of the _Illustrations_ had not greatly enriched her. A portion of her earnings by them was invested in her American tour; and now that she received this return from her books of travels she felt it her duty to make a provision for the future. She purchased a deferred annuity of one hundred pounds to begin in April, 1850. It displayed a characteristic calm confidence in herself that she should thus have entirely locked up her earnings for twelve years. She clearly felt a quiet assurance that her brain and her hand would serve to maintain her, at least as long as she was in the flower of her age. The six volumes about America were not the whole of her work during the first eighteen months after her return to England. She wrote an article on Miss Sedgwick's works for the _Westminster Review_, and several other short papers for various magazines. The extraordinary industry with which she returned to labor after her long rest requires no comment.