36 Ellen Key- gift of the grandfather. From her window, she had a close view of the lake with its islands and of meadows of oak and birch. It was her great good fortune that she was al- lowed to live among books and nature and, awakened by the sunrise on summer mornings, to lie and listen to the singing of the birds, the lapping of the waves, and inhale the fra- grance of the honeysuckle and linden blossoms through the open window. "You see," she once wrote, "I am born for country and solitude ; they nourish me. Social activity and fellow-feeling—I have acquired. Thanks to this training of herself, the imagi- native and contemplative disposition, which Ellen Key another time calls her temptation, has not been allowed the upper hand. She occupied this room from twelve un- til forty years of age. First uninterruptedly eight years—except the winter spent in Stock- holm when she was confirmed—and after that during the summers. How happy she felt each time she arrived home from Stockholm! How intensely she worked, thought, and studied in this little room! To herself may well be applied the words: "The bom individualist has, even in the nur- sery, instinctively chosen his books, his mode