Childhood and Early Youth 31 answer. This naive credulity, which makes her expect from others the same nobility characteristic of herself, to believe the best of people and interpret their actions in the best possible light, has ever caused her many dis- appointments. To strengthen her naturally somewhat deli- cate constitution Ellen spent four summers on the west coast before she was eleven years old. The sea made a deep impression on her. There she felt she could breathe freely, she wanted to live her life on the sea, and wished to become a sailor! Thus, the little girl dreamed, and this love of the sea has re- mained with the matured woman and has made her yearn to grow old near it and actually die in it. Not for nought was Don Quixote one of the friends of her childhood ; he had moved her to tears oftener than to laughter. Ellen Key never went to school in the ordi- nary sense, although during the year of her confirmation she was a boarder in a private school in Stockholm, and attended lessons in special subjects for two semesters. Together with her Swedish schooling she had been fortunate enough to have, from the age of six, a German teacher, and a native French