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Literary Quotes: The Mystical West
From
Far from the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy, 1874 |
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Between
this half-wooded, half-naked hill, and the vague, still horizon
that its summit indistinctly commanded, was a mysterious sheet
of fathomless shade - the sounds from which suggested that what
it concealed bore some resemblance to features here. The thin
grasses, more or less coating the hill were touched by the wind
in breezes of differing powers, and almost of differing natures
- one rubbing the blades heavily, another raking them piercingly,
another brushing them like a soft broom. The instinctive act of
humankind was to stand and listen, and learn how the trees on
the right and the trees on the left wailed or chanted to each
other in the regular antiphonies of a cathedral choir...
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From
A letter to Eugene Vinaver
by John Steinbeck, 1959 |
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Yesterday
I climbed Camelot on a Golden Day. The Orchards are in flower
and we could see the Bristol Channel and Glastonbury too, and
King Alfred's tower and all below. And that wonderful place
and structure with layer on layer of work and feeling. I found
myself weeping. |
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From
The Hiding Place
by Trezza Azzopardi, published by Picador, 2000 |
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Cardiff
glowed beneath a painful light. A bank of clouds boiled up orange
in the lowering sun, and there was the saturated clarity of air
after the rain. I was unprepared for such colour. It used to be
a place of grey; a dull pearl sheen, leaden buildings, the stink
of the Dowlais like charcoal on the wind. There were pin-sharp
moments - trips to the pierhead to watch a ship come in,
once to the circus, too often to the hospital - and tingling
tram rides in the night to Carlotta's house, sitting in
a stunned row and watching my mother argue over the fares. |
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