her country-men to fight in the cause of right and freedom. A
strong desire possessed her to become a warrior; it was, in truth, the
bird beating against the bars: the restlessness and activity of a genius
which as yet had not found its proper channel of expression. She at one
time resolved to flee from home and proceed to the theatre of war, which
she imagined would be a matter of no difficulty, and, attired in male
costume, to become page to the Crown Prince (afterwards King Charles
XIV.), who then appeared to her little less than a demi-god. This
scheme amused her fancy for more than a year, and melted away slowly,
like snow in water. Gradually her enthusiasm as patriot and warrior
declined, and gave way to new and equally strong emotions. Religious
fervour, she says, and the most mundane coquetry struggled within her;
feelings for which she could not account seemed to beset her young
bosom, filling it sometimes with a heaven and sometimes with a hell.
"Like two all-consuming flames," she writes, "the desire to know and the
desire to enjoy were burning in my soul, without being satisfied for
many long years. The mere sight of certain words in a book--words such
as Truth, Liberty, Glory, Immortality--roused within me feelings which
vainly I would try to describe. I wanted in some way or other to give
vent to and express the same; and I wrote verses, dramatic pieces, and a
thousand different kinds of essays; composed music, drew and painted
pictures, some of them worse than others."

By degrees, society in Stockholm began to appreciate the fact that the
Bremer family boasted of a maiden of more than ordinary ability, who,
for the family fetes, composed little dramas of more than usual merit.
They engaged the attention of the poet Frauzon, who was frequently
present at the juvenile performances, and by his advice helped to form
the young dramatist's taste, and correct her judgment. Her earlier
efforts were in verse; but after a time she essayed to clothe her
thoughts in prose, and in prose of a very vivid and forcible kind. The
"Correspondence between Axel and Anna" was her first serious work; so
great already was her facility of composition that she finished it in
two days and two nights. Her poems did not make their appearance until
twenty years later, when they had been revised and corrected by their
author, whom experience had taught that polish of style and gravity of
language which can be acquired only by the caref