Love and Marriage

Love and Marriage

Ellen Key, whose most important book is here for the first time presented in English, is no stranger in the English-speaking world. Her Century of the Child has already found many appreciative readers in America as well as in England. Ellen Key is descended from a Scotch Highlander, Colonel MKey (probably of the famous MacKay clan) who fought under Gustavus Adolphus, and she attaches no little significance to this ancestry. She has always interested herself in English matters, and is well acquainted with the life and literature of Great Britain; but she belongs first and foremost to Scandinavia. She was born in 1849 in the Swedish province of Smaland, on a country estate of her father. He had played a distinguished part in the Swedish parliament as an avowed radical, but his wife was a representative of an old and noble family. Ellen, their eldest child, was marked from an early age by her love of nature and of natural things. This devotion to nature may be considered hereditary, for her great-grandfather was an ardent disciple of Rousseau, and a special admirer of Rousseaus famous treatise on Education. Heviii gave to his son the name of mile, which was handed down to Ellen Keys father. It was perhaps owing to the Rousseau tradition that the young girl was initiated from childhood in swimming, rowing, riding, and other exercises then usually reserved for boys. At the same time, she loved music and devoured books including Scotts novels and Shakespeares plays. An early enthusiasm was for Goethes Hermann and Dorothea; it may be said, indeed, that the ideal of natural, beautiful, and harmonious living for which that book stands has never left Ellen Key. She was educated for the most part at home by German, French, and Swedish teachers, but it may easily be believed that a girl of so much individuality of character, so impetuous and so independent, proved a difficult child to manage and was often misunderstood. One may divine as much from the sympathetic attitude towards children and the reverence for their healthy instincts, which are revealed in The Century of the Child. Fortunately young Ellen had a wise and discerning mother, to whom she owed much; with a fine intuition, this mother overlooked her daughters indifference to domestic vocations and left her free to follow her own instincts, at the same time exercising a judicious influence over her development. While still a young girl, the future author, inspired by Bjrnson and other Scandinavian writers, conceived the idea of devoting herself to the study of the condition of the people and wrote severalix novels on peasant life. A remark of her mothersthat her daughter surely could not be meant to write novels, because the main questions for her were the questions of her own soulopened her eyes to the truth that fiction could not be her vocation. But she was very far from knowing what her lifes work was to be, and her dreams were of love and motherhood, not of a career. With Bjrnson she was throughout in friendly relationship. He had recognised her fine abilities before she even began to write, and she on her side was full of admiration for his genius, strength, and goodness. The other world-famous writer of Scandinavia Ellen Key learned to know through his work at the age of eighteen, when her mother presented to her Loves Comedy, Brand, and Peer Gynt; this also was an influential event in her life. Among writers to whom she was later attracted were Elizabeth B. Browning, George Eliot, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and John Ruskin. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 57592
Author: Key, Ellen
Release Date: Jul 28, 2018
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Translator: Chater, Arthur G.