Happy Birthday, Blixen.

Baronness Karen von Blixen, who, under the pen name Isak Dineson, wrote Out of Africa, was born on this date in 1885.


People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue. They also know that the real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom. It is not the freedom of the dictator, who enforces his own will on the world, but the freedom of the artist, who has no will, who is free of will. The pleasure of the true dreamer does not lie in the substance of the dream, but in this: that there things happen without any interference from his side, and altogether outside his control. Great landscapes create themselves, long splendid views, rich and delicate colours, roads, houses, which he has never seen or heard of ...
- Isak Dinesen

He prayeth well, who loveth well both man and bird and beast.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere"