eyer was born at Vienna on the 15th of October, 1797. Her parents
occupied a respectable position, and took care that she should receive a
decent education; but from her earliest childhood she manifested a
strong distaste for the accomplishments and amusements which were then
considered "proper" for her sex. They were too tame and spiritless for
her ardent nature, and she inclined towards the bolder and more robust
pastimes of her brothers. Up to the age of nine she was their constant
companion--wore clothes like theirs, and shared in all their games,
looked with utter scorn upon dolls and toys, and thirsted after guns and
swords, and the music of the drum. She says of herself that she was
livelier and hardier than even her elder brothers, who were lively and
hardy beyond most boys of their age. Evidently nature had gifted her
with a strong constitution: she was physically as well as mentally
strong. Endowed, moreover, with an heroic will, she loved the heroic in
history and poetry. William Tell was one of the gods of her idolatry,
and on one occasion she was found with an apple on her head, at which
her brothers, like the Swiss champion, were shooting arrows!--a
remarkable example of coolness of nerve and contempt of danger. For
Napoleon, as the conqueror of her country, she entertained an intense
feeling of hatred. In 1809 she was compelled by her mother to accompany
her to the Emperor's review of his Imperial Guards at Schoenbrunn; but
when he approached the ground she indignantly turned her back. Her
mother struck her, and by sheer force held the head of her obstinate
daughter towards Napoleon. She resolutely shut her eyes, and thus was
able to say that she had never seen her country's oppressor.

It was a day of sorrow for Ida when she was forced to assume the dress
of her sex. She fell ill with grief and disappointment, and her parents
found it necessary to allow her to retain the boy's blouse and cap, to
which she was so partial. Then, as if by magic, she recovered, and
resumed her favourite games. She acknowledges that feminine work filled
her with contempt. Pianoforte-playing, amongst other things, seemed an
occupation so inappropriate and uncongenial, that to escape those odious
"exercises"--which thousands of girls, by the way, have found equally
distasteful--she would frequently cut and wound her fingers severely.

We have alluded to her fondness for history. She was not less addicted
to voyages and travels-