The Last Years in Stockholm 155 old maid's desire for marriage! Those who care to understand, feel that Ellen Key speaks as one who does not consider herself or her own fate although doomed by fate to be among those who "sit alone by solitary fires." And "x) her strength lies in not having lost the feeling - for the great values of life, with all her heart she desires for others what she has not herself. Whatever the cause of Ellen Key's singleness may have been, one cannot but wonder at the amazing manner in which her views of the happiness of love as the highest life value have been interpreted, interpreta- tions by which she would have deemed her own life valueless. Many know how rich Ellen Key has made her lonely life, and it has indeed not been easy for her to believe that she could be misinterpreted to such an extent as that she would have all women return to the kitchen hearth and the nursery, while she herself was engaged in large public activities. It has been all the harder for her to tmderstand this, as the consistency between her words and her actions is one of the strong traits in her charac- ter, and if she had wanted to turn women back to private life she herself would have been the first to return thither. Ellen Key has never taken part in public