Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller

“‘She knows everything about the sublimation of loss, about suffering as the nourishment of genius, about pain's resonance as harmony in a work of art,' [thought a friend of Blixen]. And all the same, she yielded to the most banal human moods and impulses, pettiness, impatience, caprice, stinginess. She suffered from a craving for power in spite of her generosity. She toyed with human fates, in spite of a contempt for such toying. Yes, she suffered from self-contempt, in spite of her mighty, legitimate self-confidence and pride. She was a paradox outside of any moral category....”