CHAPTER V WORK THE words with which Ellen Key ends her autobiographical data may be quoted as introductory to the period of her life between thirty and forty years of age. "... In the meantime, the agricultural crisis drew near, which, in our county, affected my father first of all. His public life had consumed all his means as well as all his interest. I realised now that the future for me would not hold the realisation of my personal dreams of a 'Folk-highschool' in our parish, but that my work would be wherever I best could earn my livelihood." Ellen Key has expressed herself so discreetly in regard to the radical change in the life of her family and herself, that it would be un- seemly for a biographer to dwell upon the feelings of sorrow and regret. In the beginning of the year 1880, the sepa- 64