A love for humanity came over me, and watered and fertilised the fields of my inner world which had been lying fallow, and this love of humanity vented itself in a vast compassion.

But my doubt would not be overcome. Kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that Christianity was not horror or madness. For me it was sometimes both.

Among the delights of Summer were picnics to the woods.

My father, though, could run very much faster. It was impossible to compete with him on the grass. But it was astonishing how slow old people were. Some of them could not run up a hill and called it trying to climb stairs.

It was jolly in the country. A cow and little pigs to play with and milk warm from the cow.

The stream of time sweeps away errors, and leaves the truth for the inheritance of humanity.

The Danish glee: the national version of cheerfulness.