It may seem … [that Isak Dinesen is] merely moralizing and that she conceives of art merely as the expression of some traditional religious doctrine…. It would be closer to the truth to say that she is offering art as a substitute, rather than as an apology, for religion. No one has been able to assign her beliefs to any single known religion. All that can safely be said is that she believed in a creative force which, for the sake of convenience, she called God. (p. 8)

[There is] an unmistakable religious feeling behind her stories, a feeling which carries over into her critical thinking. It is a pervasive, albeit vague, religiosity…. (pp. 8-9)

What interests her is an attitude which she finds compatible with what life and art have taught her…. [She] does not make art justify religion but religion justify art. This idea is central to Isak...