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Untitled Article
last number of the ' Edinburgh Review comineneefc—Art article calculated to do her more injury than all the attacks to which she has been exposed . The writer has totally mistaken , or misrepresented , her character . He looks at the wrong side of the tapestry , making shadows of the lights , and lights of the shadows . From
his description the public are led to infer that she is une femme (de tete exaltee , possessed with a riotous and runaway imagination , subject to intellectual fever / full of the inspiration of genius , ' Which * according to thie vulgar conception of it , he seems to think implies the lack of common-sense , and somewhat deficient ih f accurate observation , and patient thought . ' And on this description are founded certain advices and criticisms , the tendency
of which is as injurious as the premises are fallacious . The writer dislikes Miss Martine&u ' s independence ) fears her energy , stands aghast at her consistency in following out a principle to its consequences , and , regarding her as a female Samson , would , under this pretext of fever , shear the locks in which lies her strength , take her fronv , and unfit her for , her high vocation , and send her to grind , blindly and uselessly , in the mill of Conservative Whiggism .
Considerable familiarity with Miss Martineau ' s productions has impressed us with a completely different notion of her mental character , from that sketched by the reviewer . We have often admired what he desiderates , her i accurate observation and patient thought , ' but we have not seen in her any quality to which such terms as genius , inspiration , or imagination can be properly applied . We use those terms in their genuine and loftiest sense ; we
mean by them the creative faculty which can c call spirits from the vasty deep ; ' which in materials of stone or clay , worthless to an energy less plastic and divine , can mould the image of God and breathe into it the breath of life . Miss Martineau may be poetical , but she is not a poet . She does not create , but combine . And very extraordinary and efficient is her power of combination , as may be shown by a brief mention of the characteristics of her intellect .
That accuracy of observation which has been so hastily denied her , we should be disposed to regard , though not the greatest , yet as the primal faculty of her mind . She has a keen eye , and its notices are preserved in a retentive memory . She never adopted Harnlet ' s resolution :
From the book and volume of my brain I'll wipe away all trivial fond records , All saWs of books , all forms , all pressures past , That 3 'outh and observation copied there / They are all legible , though mixed with hi g her matter , and her recollection can * t&ke in all , and verge enough for more . ' If any one will take the trouble to trace her , in her narrative publications especially , they will find , not invention , not creation , no armed
Untitled Article
376 Poor Laws and Panper $ .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1833, page 378, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2616/page/18/
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