She had begun to be deaf at eight years old, and at eighteen had almost entirely lost the sense of hearing. This was a bitter trial to her. In 1822, when she was twenty, an attachment arose between herself and a Mr. Worthington, a student for the Unitarian ministry, and the friend of her brother (afterward Dr. James Martineau). Worthington was poor, and her family refused to sanction a formal engagement. Three years of waiting and suspense followed. In June, 1826, Thomas Martineau died. The financial crisis of the winter of 1825 had left him comparatively poor, and he could only provide in his will “a bare maintenance” for his wife and daughters. By this time Mr. Worthington had completed his studies, and obtained a position; and the Martineau family, under these altered conditions, permitted Harriet to enter into an engagement with him. The unfortunate young man, however, was seized with a brain fever, which left him mentally shattered, and toward the close of the year 1826 he died. Harriet’s literary career had already begun with certain contributions to the Monthly Repository, a Unitarian magazine. In 1823 she had published, anonymously, a small volume of _Devotional Exercises_, and in 1826 a book of _Addresses, Prayers, and Hymns_. In the comparative poverty to which she was now reduced, she took up her pen with a will, but for some time with little result. She supplied anonymous short stories to a publisher named Houlston, and wrote for him a tale called _Principle and Practice_, and a sequel thereto. She contributed, without payment, to the Repository and wrote, on commission, a _Life of Howard_, for which she never received the remuneration promised. In June, 1829, the old Norwich house, in which, after their father’s death, her brother Henry had remained a partner, became bankrupt. As Mrs. Martineau and her daughters had been dependent on the profits of the factory for the payment of their small income, they were now left utterly without support. The other sisters became teachers; Harriet worked with her needle by day, and wrote by night. She continued her contributions to the Repository, for a compensation of £15 a year; and wrote for this periodical a story called _The Hope of the Hebrews_, which was so highly praised among the Unitarians that Mr. W. J. Fox, the editor, advised her to publish a volume of such stories. She did so, and it was moderately successful. She took part in a competition for three prizes offered by a Unitarian association “for the best essays designed to convert Roman Catholics, Jews, and Mohammedans, respectively, to Unitarianism.” She won all three of the prizes, thus gaining twenty-five guineas, and much honor in the sect. In the same year, 1830, she wrote the long story, _Five Years of Youth_, and a volume called _Traditions of Palestine_.