Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: TRANSITIONAL YEARS Schoolboy Fancies—Religion—Early Friends—Daemonic Theory—A West Indian Friend—My Acquaintance Widens—Politics—The Reactionary Party—The David Family—A Student Society—An Excursion to Sleivig —Temperament—The Law—Hegel—Spinoza—Love for Humanity—A Religious Crisis—Doubt—Personal Immortality—Renunciation. MY second schoolboy fancy dated from my last few months at school. It was a natural enough outcome of the attraction towards the other sex which, never yet encouraged, was lurking in my mind; but it was not otherwise remarkable for its naturalness. It had its origin partly in my love of adventure, partly in my propensity for trying my powers, but, as love, was without root, inasmuch as it was rooted neither in my heart nor in my senses. The object of it was again a girl from another country. Her name and person had been well known to me since I was twelve years old. We had even exchanged compliments, been curious about one another, gone so far as to wish for a lock of each other's hair. There was consequently a romantic background to our first meeting. When I heard that she was coming to Denmark I was, as by chance, on the quay, and saw her arrive. She was exactly the same age as I, and, without real beauty, was very good-looking and had unusually lovely eyes. I endeavoured to make her acquaintance through relatives of hers whom I knew, and had no difficulty in getting into touch with her. An offer to show her the museums and picture galleries in Copenhagen was accepted. Although I had very little time, just before my matriculation examination, my new acquaintance filled my thoughts to such an extent that I did not care how much of this valuable time I sacrificed to her. In the Summer, when the girl went out near Charlot- tenlund, whereas my parents...