Harriet Martineaus Autobiography | Page 7

and receding below, and great tufts of green weeds swaying to and fro.
I remember the sitting room at our lodgings, and my mother's dress as
she sat picking shrimps, and letting me try to help her.--Of all my many
fancies, perhaps none was so terrible as a dream that I had at four years
old. The impression is as fresh as possible now; but I cannot at all
understand what the fright was about. I know nothing more strange
than this power of re-entering, as it were, into the narrow mind of an

infant, so as to compare it with that of maturity; and therefore it may he
worth while to record that piece of precious nonsense,--my dream at
four years old. I imagine I was learning my letters then from cards,
where each letter had its picture,--as a stag for S. I dreamed that we
children were taking our walk with our nursemaid out of St. Austin's
Gate (the nearest bit of country to our house.) Out of the public-house
there came a stag, with prodigious antlers. Passing the pump, it crossed
the road to us, and made a polite bow, with its head on one side, and
with a scrape of one foot, after which it pointed with its foot to the
public-house, and spoke to me, inviting me in. The maid declined, and
turned to go home. Then came the terrible part. By the time we were at
our own door it was dusk, and we went up the steps in the dark; but in
the kitchen it was bright sunshine. My mother was standing at the
dresser, breaking sugar; and she lifted me up, and set me in the sun, and
gave me a bit of sugar. Such was the dream which froze me with horror!
Who shall say why? But my panics were really unaccountable. They
were a matter of pure sensation, without any intellectual justification
whatever, even of the wildest kind. A magic-lantern was exhibited to us
on Christmas-day, and once or twice in the year besides. I used to see it
cleaned by daylight, and to handle all its parts,--understanding its
whole structure; yet, such was my terror of the white circle on the wall,
and of the moving slides, that, to speak the plain truth, the first
apparition always brought on bowel-complaint; and, at the age of
thirteen, when I was pretending to take care of little children during the
exhibition, I could never look at it without having the back of a chair to
grasp, or hurting myself, to carry off the intolerable sensation. My
bitter shame may be conceived; but then, I was always in a state of
shame about something or other. I was afraid to walk in the town, for
some years, if I remember right, for fear of meeting two people. One
was an unknown old lady who very properly rebuked me one day for
turning her off the very narrow pavement of London Lane, telling me,
in an awful way, that little people should make way for their elders.
The other was an unknown farmer, in whose field we had been
gleaning (among other trespassers) before the shocks were carried. This
man left the field after us, and followed us into the city,--no doubt, as I
thought, to tell the Mayor, and send the constable after us. I wonder
how long it was before I left off expecting that constable. There were

certain little imps, however, more alarming still. Our house was in a
narrow street; and all its windows, except two or three at the back,
looked eastward. It had no sun in the front rooms, except before
breakfast in summer. One summer morning, I went into the
drawing-room, which was not much used in those days, and saw a sight
which made me hide my face in a chair, and scream with terror. The
drops of the lustre on the mantle-piece, on which the sun was shining,
were somehow set in motion, and the prismatic colors danced
vehemently on the walls. I thought they were alive,--imps of some sort;
and I never dared go into that room alone in the morning, from that
time forward. I am afraid I must own that my heart has beat, all my life
long, at the dancing of prismatic colors on the wall.
I was getting some comfort, however, from religion by this time. The
Sundays began to be marked days, and pleasantly marked, on the whole.
I do not know why crocuses were particularly associated with Sunday
at that time; but probably my mother might have walked in the garden
with us, some early spring Sunday. My idea of Heaven was of a place
gay with yellow and lilac crocuses. My love of gay colors was very
strong.