20 CAROLUS LINNAEUS 



If a paradox like this may be ventured, one 

 may say that the fatherhood of a great man 

 must, in many an instance, be credited to the 

 mother. The man of power and influence may 

 have for his male parent one of quiet retiring 

 manner, unaggressive, unambitious, and even 

 slow, if the mother be very decidedly of the 

 opposite temperament active, energetic, am- 

 bitious, ardent, and also young, strong and 

 in perfect health. Just these conditions pre- 

 vailed at the nativity of Linnaeus. The 

 strong character in that household was the 

 mother, Christina Broderson Linnaeus. It 

 is safe to infer from her antecedents that she 

 was a woman of refinement and perhaps 

 unusual mentality. She may almost be said 

 to have had none but cultured men among 

 her ancestry for three generations back. We 

 have already seen that her husband was her 

 father's successor in the Stenbrohult pastorate. 

 Her father had not only been pastor there all 

 his official life, he had been born there, as 

 the son of the pastor whom he in turn suc- 

 ce^ded; so that her father and her grandfather 

 had been pastors of that parish all their lives 

 so to speak while the priest who preceded 

 her paternal grandfather in that same church 

 had been her great-grandfather on her mother's 



