Harriet Martineau on her passion, aged eighteen, for translation: 'Our cousin J. M. L., then studying for his profession in Norwich, used to read Italian with Rachel [her sister] and me [...] before breakfast. We made some considerable progress, through the usual course of prose authors and poets; and out of this grew a fit which Rachel and I at one time took, in concert with our companions and neighbours, the C.'s, to translate Petrarch [sonnets] [...] I believe we really succeeded pretty well'.