Harriet Martineaus Autobiography | Page 6

story about was that I came home
the absurdest little preacher of my years (between two and three) that
ever was. I used to nod my head emphatically, and say "Never ky for
tyfles:" "Dooty fust, and pleasure afterwards," and so forth: and I
sometimes got courage to edge up to strangers, and ask them to give
me--"a maxim." Almost before I could join letters, I got some sheets of
paper,and folded them into a little square book, and wrote, in double
lines, two or three in a page, my beloved maxims. I believe this was my
first effort at book-making. It was probably what I picked up at
Carleton that made me so intensely religious as I certainly was from a
very early age. The religion was of a bad sort enough, as might be
expected from the urgency of my needs; but I doubt whether I could
have got through without it. I pampered my vain-glorious propensities
by dreams of divine favor, to make up for my utter deficiency of
self-respect: and I got rid of otherwise incessant remorse by a most
convenient confession and repentance, which relieved my nerves
without at all, I suspect, improving my conduct.
To revert to my earliest recollections:--I certainly could hardly walk
alone when our nursemaid took us,--including my sister Elizabeth, who
was eight years older than myself,--an unusual walk; through a lane,
(afterwards called by us the "Spinner's Lane") where some Miss
Taskers, acquaintances of Elizabeth's and her seniors, were lodging, in
a cottage which had a fir grove behind it. Somebody set me down at the
foot of a fir, where I was distressed by the slight rising of the ground at
the root, and by the long grass, which seemed a terrible entanglement. I
looked up the tree, and was scared at its height, and at that of so many
others. I was comforted with a fir-cone; and then one of the Miss
Taskers caught me up in her arms and kissed me; and I was too
frightened to cry till we got away.--I was not more than two years old
when an impression of touch occurred to me which remains vivid to
this day. It seems indeed as if impressions of touch were at that age
more striking than those from the other senses. I say this from
observation of others besides myself; for my own case is peculiar in
that matter. Sight, hearing and touch were perfectly good in early
childhood; but I never had the sense of smell; and that of taste was

therefore exceedingly imperfect. On the occasion I refer to, I was
carried down a flight of steep back stairs, and Rachel (a year and half
older than I) clung to the nursemaid's gown, and Elizabeth was going
before, (still quite a little girl) when I put down my finger ends to feel a
flat velvet button on the top of Rachel's bonnet. The rapture of the
sensation was really monstrous, as I remember it now. Those were our
mourning bonnets for a near relation; and this marks the date, proving
me to have been only two years old.
I was under three when my brother James was born. That day was
another of the distinct impressions which flashed upon me in after
years. I found myself within the door of the best bedroom,--an
impressive place from being seldom used, from its having a dark,
polished floor, and from the awful large gay figures of the chintz bed
hangings. That day the curtains were drawn, the window blinds were
down, and an unknown old woman, in a mob cap, was at the fire, with
a bundle of flannel in her arms. She beckoned to me, and I tried to go,
though it seemed impossible to cross the slippery floor. I seem to hear
now the paltering of my feet. When I arrived at her knee, the nurse
pushed out with her foot a tiny chair, used as a footstool, made me sit
down on it, laid the bundle of flannel across my knees, and opened it so
that I saw the little red face of the baby. I then found out that there was
somebody in the bed,--seeing a nightcap on the pillow. This was on the
21st of April, 1805. I have a distinct recollection of some incidents of
that summer. My mother did not recover well from her confinement,
and was sent to the sea, at Yarmouth. On our arrival there, my father
took me along the old jetty,--little knowing what terror I suffered. I
remember the strong grasp of his large hand being some comfort; but
there were holes in the planking of the jetty quite big enough to let my
foot through; and they disclosed the horrible sight of waves flowing