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LINNAEUS 
took the most important place in Linnaeus’s thoughts. 
During the preceding autumn in conversation with 
Johan Browallius, the latter pointed out that to provide 
means for foreign travel, the best way would be to 
marry some rich girl, who would make him happy. 
This theoretically pleased Linnaeus, but he made no 
attempt to carry out the plan. Now during this 
Christmas, he met with the eighteen-year-old maiden, 
Sara Elizabeth Moraea, who seemed very attractive, 
and he soon began assiduously to wait upon her. Thus 
in his jottings in an almanack, he has noted that on 
the 2nd January, 1735, he called on her in his Lapp 
costume, and again on the 3rd, when the parents were 
out; on the 10th and other visits, and on the 15th he 
was a guest of the Assay Master in Falun, with his 
sweetheart, and finally on 16th he records a delightful 
day spent with her. His feelings for the chosen one 
apparently did not escape the notice of others, for 
when he on the 19th was the guest of the artist Trygg, 
it went so far that the host or some of the company 
wagered two cans of Rhine wine, if a christening did 
not happen in four years. 
Now began unrest and trouble. The young girl 
and Linnaeus noted that if he had first gained the 
parents’ esteem, no one else would have become his 
affianced. But he now had to encounter difficulties. 
Her father was the town physician in Falun, Assessor 
Dr. Johan Moraeus, learned, experienced, and well 
to do. He liked Linnaeus extremely, and so was 
often visited by the latter. Moraeus had repeatedly 
declared that the practice of medicine, with regard to 
income was more precarious than any other profession, 
therefore he had resolved that none of his children 
should follow it. This, with the consciousness of his 
own narrow economic position, could only awaken 
despair in Linnaeus, a simple student. He realized 
that he was a poor man who could not maintain a wife, 
while she was wealthy. He knew that she was courted 
by many eligible suitors, but to cast her out of his 
