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318.I don't know the song of this place. It doesn't quite know its own tune. It starts with a deep full note on the mighty cedars, primeval, immense, full, grand, noble from roots to tips, and ends up in a pitiful little squeak of nut bushes. Under the cedars you sense the Indian and brave, fine spiritual things. Among the nut bushes are picknickers with shrieking children bashing and destroying, and flappers in pyjama suits. And there are wood waggons and gravel waggons blatantly snorting in and out cutting up the rude natural roads, smelling and snorting like evil monsters among the cedars.
Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr, Toronto/Vancouver, Clarke, Irwin and Company, 1966, p. 56.
PLACE: Goldstream Flats, about 12 miles outside of Victoria, B.C.
TIME: September 9, 1933.
CIRCUMSTANCE: Impressions while camping.
There is a cackling woman opposite en route to bury Mamma in Wisconsin. She doesn't seem depressed though she wonders if she will feel just like taking in the Chicago Fair the day after. Her heart is gummed shut around her superlative husband and her super-superlative daughter whom she left behind, but she sure brought along a waggling tongue. I don't wonder she has stomach trouble; her tongue must neglect her organs -- it's so busy elsewhere.
Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr, Toronto/Vancouver, Clarke, Irwin and Company, 1966, p.70 - 71
PLACE: En route from Victoria to the Chicago World's Fair.
TIME: October 31, 1933.
CIRCUMSTANCE: On the train (Seattle to Chicago).
It's nearly dawn and I have been awake for a couple of hours. All the birds have started up such a racket. Now they haven't got any words and don't want or need any. All they are impelled to do is to toss praise into space where it mixes up with all the other essences of joy that all the rest of creation is pouring forth, bubbling up and spilling over and amalgamating with other spills-over, and becoming a concrete invisible something of great power. It becomes the something that has burst through its mortal wrappings and is pouring back to its source -- God -- in praise, a concentrated essence, very strong and very subtle in its strength.
Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr, Toronto/Vancouver, Clarke, Irwin and Company, 1966, p. 116.
PLACE: Victoria, B.C.
TIME: Early morning, April 24, 1934.
CIRCUMSTANCE: Impressions of the dawn while journal writing.
Oh, the birds! They are as birdy and as busy as they can be in May. Before it is light they are at their singing. Then there's breakfast and the all-day-long job of feeding and teaching the young. Maybe that is why they do get up so early, to have a little quiet to themselves and have time for their devotions. I do not think of birds as saying anything but only as tossing off the overflow of their joy in being in the few notes that are peculiarly their own. The bird doesn't need many notes because he doesn't know many emotions. When his feelings are bad he does not express them but hides them away somewhere off in the silence. He's noisy and ecstatic over living. Over dying he is silent and secretive. I know now why birds, those perpetual campers, sing after rain.
Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr, Toronto/Vancouver, Clarke, Irwin and Company, 1966, p. 120 - 121.
PLACE: Esquimalt Lagoon, Vancouver Island.
TIME: May 15, 1934.
CIRCUMSTANCE: Impressions while camping.
I am circled by trees. They are full of chatter, the wind and the birds helping them. Through the sighing of the wind they tell their sorrows. Through the chortle of the birds they tell their joy. The birds are not so intimate here as down in the swamp. There they flew low and sought earth things and dug for worms. Here their concerns are in the high trees. My spirit has gone up with the birds. On the flats it was too concerned with the mud.
Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr, Toronto/Vancouver, Clarke, Irwin and Company, 1966, p. 125 - 126.
PLACE: Near Esquimalt Lagoon, Vancouver Island.
TIME: May 29, 1934.
CIRCUMSTANCE: Comparing camping in the swamp to camping on higher and drier ground.
The wind is keen and raw, it rains when the wind will let it come down. The trees take the wind so differently. Some snatch at it as if glad of the opportunity to be noisy. Some squeak and groan, and some bow meekly with low murmurs. And there are tall, obstinate ones who scarcely give even a sulky budge.
Emily Carr, Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr, Toronto/Vancouver, Clarke, Irwin and Company, 1966, p. 126.
PLACE: Near Esquimalt Lagoon, Vancouver Island.
TIME: May 30, 1934
CIRCUMSTANCE: Impressions while camping.
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