186.A silence - awful silence broods
Profoundly o'er these solitudes;
Not but the lapsing of the floods
Breaks the deep stillness of the woods;
A sense of desolation reigns
O'er these unpeopled forest plains
Where sounds of life ne'er wake tone
Of cheerful praise round Nature's throne,
Man finds himself with God - alone.
Susannah Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush, New Canadian Library, Toronto, 1971, p. 24.
PLACE: Grosse Isle, Quebec, Canada
TIME: September, 1832
...our first glance at Quebec was greatly damped by the sad conviction that the cholera plague raged within her wall, while the almost ceaseless tolling bells proclaimed a mournful tale of woe and death.
Susannah Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush, New Canadian Library, Toronto, 1971, p. 25.
PLACE: Quebec, Canada
TIME: September, 1832
Those who did not possess washing tubs, pails, or iron pots, or could not obtain access to a hole in the rocks, were running to an fro screaming and scolding in no measured terms. The confusion of Babel was among them. All talkers and no hearers - each shouting and yelling in his or her uncouth dialect, and all accompanying their vociferation with violent and extraordinary gestures, quite incomprehensible to the uninitiated. We were literally stunned by the strife of tongues.
Susannah Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush, New Canadian Library, Toronto, 1971, p. 25.
PLACE: Grosse Isle, Quebec, Canada
TIME: September, 1832
I know not how it was, but the sound of that tinkling brook, for ever rolling by, filled my heart with a strange melancholy, .... The voice of waters in the stillness of night, always had an extraordinary effect upon my mind. Their ceaseless motion and perpetual sound convey to me the idea of life - eternal life....
Susannah Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush, New Canadian Library, Toronto, 1971, p. 99.
PLACE: The backwoods of Ontario, Canada
TIME: 1834
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