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102 AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
in small things as in great, for the good of those whom I
loved ; a desire to give, to make happy, and to comfort.
Yes, if I could have done it, I would have given to the
hungry the flesh of my own body. I loved my mother
most tenderly and passionately, and longed, above every
thing else in the world, to please her. I failed herein com
pletely. YT walked badly, sat badly, stood badly, curtsied
badly ; and many bitter moments this cost me, because my
mother wished that her daughters should be perfect, as the
heroines of romance are perfect, by birth and nature.
This, of course, we sincerely wished to be, but to me Dame
Nature was rather unfriendly, throwing all kinds of diffi-
culties in my way. None of those who surrounded me un-
derstood how to guide a character like mine to good. They
tried to curb me by severity, or else my thoughts and feel-
ings were ridiculed. I was very unhappy in my early youth,
and, violent as I was in every thing, I formed many plans
to shorten my life, to put out my eyes, &c., &c., merely for
the sake of making my mother repent her severity; but all
ended in my standing on the margin of the lake, looking
down into the water, or feeling the pricking of the knife in
my eyeball. Unhappy at home, because I was a restless,
passionate creature, without the least of what one would call
tact, my soul clung ardently to the events of the outer world.
The war against Napoleon stirred within me all my deepest
feelings. I determined to flee from home, to proceed to
the theatre of war, which I imagined would be an easy
matter, and, dressed in male costume, to become page to
the Crown-Prince (afterwards King Charles XIV.), who
at that time appeared to me to be little less than a demi-
god. JI entertained these plaris more than a year, until
they melted away slowly, like snow in water. Gradually
my patriotic and warlike feelings were lulled, but only to
make room for new ones of another kind. Religious en-
thusiasm and the most worldly coquetry were struggling
within me, with feelings for which I was unable fully to ac-
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