“If, in planting a coffee tree, you bend the taproot, that tree will start, after a little time, to put out a multitude of small delicate roots near the surface. That tree will never thrive, nor bear fruit, but it will flower more richly than the others … Those fine roots are the dreams of the trees. As it puts them out, it need no longer think of its bent taproot. It keeps alive by them – a little, not very long … If you want to go to sleep at night, Lincoln, you must not think, as people tell you, of a long row of sheep or camels passing through a gate, for they go in one direction, and your thoughts will go along with them. You should think instead of a deep well. In the bottom of that well, just in the middle of it, there comes up a spring of water, which runs out in little streamlets to all possible sides, like the rays of a star. If you can make your thoughts run out with that water, not in one direction, but equally to all sides, you will fall asleep.”
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~ Text and title: From "The Dreamers" Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen
~ Image: Frank Borzage, The Pilgrim, 1916
