I slept badly that night, for this is what I find in my diary: "Got on board after what I think was the hardest row I ever had. Slept well for a little, but am now lying tossing about in my berth, unable to sleep. Is it the coffee I drank after supper? or the cold tea I drank when I awoke with a burning thirst? I shut my eyes and try again time after time, but to no purpose. And now memory's airy visions steal softly over my soul. Gleam after gleam breaks through the mist. I see before me sunlit landscapes--smiling fields and meadows, green, leafy trees and woods, and blue mountain ridges. The singing of the steam in the boiler-pipe turns to bell-ringing--church bells--ringing in Sabbath peace over Vestre-Aker on this beautiful summer morning. I am walking with father along the avenue of small birch-trees that mother planted, up towards the church, which lies on the height before us, pointing up into the blue sky and sending its call far over the country-side. From up there you can see a long way. Næsodden looks quite close in the clear air, especially on an autumn morning. And we give a quiet Sunday greeting to the people that drive past us, all going our way. What a look of Sunday happiness dwells on their faces! "I did not think it all so delightful then, and would much rather have run off to the woods with my bow and arrow after squirrels--but now--how fair, how wonderfully beautiful that sunlit picture seems to me! The feeling of peace and happiness that even then no doubt made its impression, though only a passing one, comes back now with redoubled strength, and all nature seems one mighty, thrilling song of praise! Is it because of the contrast with this poor, barren, sunless land of mists--without a tree, without a bush--nothing but stones and clay? No peace in it either--nothing but an endless struggle to get north, always north, without a moment's delay. Oh, how one yearns for a little careless happiness!"