BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
3i 
his wife by him. The other guests sat in two or three rows of 
chairs around the room, all faces turned towards the poet. 
Sven Hedin, a member recently reelected to Parliament, made 
a long speech in honor of Ibsen, and then it was responded to 
by the poet, but first each person rose, at a word, from their 
chairs, approached the table, and took a glass of punch to drink 
the poet’s health; he had also a glass. Friends, guests, and 
ladies hurried up to touch his glass and drink his health. Other 
speeches and responses followed, — one by the actress in which 
she read from a slip of paper. A singer from the opera, Miss 
Oka, sang several Scandinavian songs beautifully. She is from 
the royal opera. 
“The same spirit of solid intelligence I feel here in distinc¬ 
tion to the brilliancy of home intellect. About midnight ladies 
were leaving, — the reception continued, as far as the men 
were concerned, until late. Sounds of laughter and drinking 
came to me. 
“The memory of the reception was one of warmth, intelli¬ 
gence, solidity, and of the highest culture. 
“ Governesses to high families, literary and artistic persons, 
all belonging to the upper middle class, were represented.” 
One day in company with the famous Professor Hildebrandt, 
whom she thought “the most magnificent intellectual giant” 
she had as yet met, she visited a private school for girls where 
she was impressed by “the seriousness with which the girls 
followed the class, and the marked interest on the part of the 
teacher.” She says: — 
“The first class or reading lesson was very instructive. The 
little girls in turn were reading from ‘Robinson Crusoe’ in 
Swedish. The two little pupils on the front benches reminded 
me of little birds in a nest reaching out their heads for food, 
with such eagerness did they correct the mistakes in pronun¬ 
ciation of the other readers.” 
With a letter of introduction from Sven Löven of the Svenska 
Vetenskaps Akademien, a kindly old man of seventy-nine who 
had patted her on the back and inquired into her work, she 
visited the chemical laboratory of the “high technical school” 
which was under the direction of Professor F. L. Ekman, and 
