In the comparatively limited circle to which for several years she was confined, and under conditions of domestic life which were unfavourable to the happy development of her genius, she would have found it very difficult to indulge her literary tendencies, if the Countess Sonnethjelm, a Norwegian lady, had not come to her assistance by providing her with an asylum under her roof. There her powers began rapidly to expand, and she herself to comprehend that literature offered the sphere of action for which she had so ardently longed.
Afterwards, like the authoress of "Jane Eyre," she spent some time as a governess in a ladies' school at Stockholm. We have already hinted that her early life was not altogether happy; her parents do not appear to have understood or sympathized with her, and the household concord was frequently broken by the austere, not to say eccentric, temperament of its head. She says of herself that "a dark cloud came over the splendour of her youthful dreams; like early evening it came over the path of the young pilgrim of life, and earnestly, but in vain, she endeavoured to escape it. The air was dimmed as by a heavy fall of snow; darkness increased and it became night. And in the depth of that endless winter's night she heard lamenting voices from the east and from the west, from plant and animal, from dying nature and despairing humanity; she saw life with all its beauty, its love, its throbbing heart, buried alive beneath a chill covering of ice."
In the summer of 1831 she paid a visit, which extended over a twelvemonth, to a recently married sister, then settled at Christianstadt. We are told that the young novelist had determined not to mix in society or accept any invitations, but to live in retirement, and develop herself for what she now considered to be her mission and her vocation, namely, to become an authoress; and, enriched by experience of the world, to devote her talents in a double measure to the comfort and assistance of the suffering and unhappy.
"Frederika," says her sister,[9] "found and felt that she required to learn much, and that she stood in need of a firm religious faith, which she had hitherto lacked. The contradictions which she fancied she saw in the Bible and the world had long shaken her belief, and raised doubts in her soul to such a degree that, at times, with her reflecting and inquiring mind, they seemed to darken life."
The teacher, or guide, for whom she had instinctively yearned, she found at Christianstadt in the head master of the High School, the Rev. Peter Böklin, by whose teaching, example, and character she profited greatly. His influence was as beneficial as it was powerful. Well versed in history and philosophy, he gave a new impulse to Frederika's genius, while his wise and judicious criticism corrected the errors into which spontaneity and facility betrayed her. He showed her that it was not enough to compose with ease, she must learn to think clearly and soundly; and that grace of style and picturesqueness of description were of little avail to the novelist without the creative idea.
Under these changed circumstances a change came over the tone in which she spoke of life. Writing to her mother, in October, 1831, she says:—
"Life seems now to be of value to me. Formerly it was not so. My youth has not been happy; on the contrary, it has been a time of suffering, and its days to a great extent—this is indeed the truth—have passed away in a continual wish to die. But now it is otherwise. As a compensation for that long period of pain and compulsory inactivity, another has succeeded, which gives me the means of usefulness, and therefore also of new life and gladness. We hope—we desire—my sisters and I—nothing else than to be able to do some little good while we are wandering here on earth, and according to the power that is given to us to work for the good of others, and live ourselves in peace and harmony; and perhaps our saddened youth, if it have deprived us of some of the enjoyments of life, may in a certain measure have led our minds to higher aspirations, and to a stronger desire for real usefulness."