two years later to a large estate at Årsta, some twenty miles from the
capital, which was her subsequent home. At Årsta the father of Fredrika,
who had amassed a fortune in the iron industry in Finland, set up an
establishment in accord with his means. The manor-house, built two
centuries before, had become in some parts dilapidated, but it was
ultimately restored and improved beyond its original condition. From its
windows on one side the eye stretched over nearly five miles of meadows,
fields, and villages belonging to the estate.

[Illustration: FREDRIKA BREMER]

In spite of its surroundings, however, Fredrika's childhood was not a
happy one. Her mother was severe and impatient of petty faults, and the
child's mind became embittered. Her father was reserved and melancholy.
Fredrika herself was restless and passionate, although of an
affectionate nature. Among the other children she was the ugly duckling,
who was misunderstood, and whose natural development was continually
checked and frustrated. Her talents were early exhibited in a variety of
directions. Her first verses, in French, to the morn, were written at
the age of eight. Subsequently she wrote comedies for home production,
prose and verse of all sorts, and kept a journal, which has been
preserved. In 1821 the whole family went on a tour abroad, from which
they did not return until the following year, having visited in the
meantime Germany, Switzerland, and France, and spent the winter in
Paris. This year among new scenes and surroundings seems to have brought
home to Fredrika, upon the resumption of her old life in the country,
its narrowness and its isolation. She was entirely shut off from all
desired activity; her illusions vanished one by one. "I was conscious,"
she says in her short autobiography, "of being born with powerful wings,
but I was conscious of their being clipped;" and she fancied that they