Youth and First Years in Stockholm 43 The Swedish religious lyricists, Stagnelius, Atterbom, and Topelius, were at this age her favourite poets. Her feeling towards Natiire was very romantic during this period ; Nature was personified. It is probable that she had already learned the virtue of that "Stillness," of which she speaks so feelingly in one of her essays, and which she later so often sought for herself in remote and secluded places. When Ellen was in her seventeenth year, a tragedy determined her life's philosophy. Two young women, cousins of Ellen's, visit- ing at Sundsholm, were drowned while bathing, and Ellen herself barely escaped. Religious emotions now filled her completely, and for years she struggled with the problem of a Christian view of life, and the philosophy, which later put its stamp on all her words and actions, slowly matured within her. To the deep-thinking, truth-seeking Ellen, who had seen her two friends snatched from life in a few seconds, their spiritual state not at all what Christianity required as essential to their sal- vation, the question of eternal bliss and punish- ment became the vital problem in life. She wrote whole packs of "journals " during the fol- lowing ten years, which journals reflect the