Public Activity 85 her having learned to overcome her inborn disposition whose deepest indination was to sink back into her own world of nature, books, feelings, and dreams,—an inclination which she has called her "temptation." One of her intimate friends once said: "Ellen Key could never have broken away from romanticism by intellectual or aesthetic processes. Only the ethical power in her nature could liberate her." This remark is deeply true. In the fall of 1884, when Ellen returned to Stockholm to take up her work at the school and Institute, her mother had recently passed away, and she was very sad. At her mother's death-bed, she had tested her own position in regard to a belief in immortality. In speaking to a friend she said: "I felt there, that it would not be so hard to die without hope of immortality,—to live without it is harder. There now followed some years of deep personal experiences, new joys, and bitter sorrows. For years, her life seemed so value- less to her that she was tempted to do away with herself, but this personal crisis had decisive consequences in that it strengthened