I must also have been quite a pompous child. I had a notebook of essays, with a title that still makes me blush: “What I write of what I think.”
The first essay, written before I turned eleven, was a discussion of faith. It approvingly quoted Pascal’s saying “Faith is God made perceptible to the heart” (“How right this is!”), then went on to point out that this genuine spiritual experience was probably rare and unreliable, and that cathedrals and organ music had been created to generate a more reliable, ersatz version of the thrills of faith. The child who wrote this had some aptitude for psychology, and a great need for a normal life.