“To the east the land was darkening. Night does not fall. It rises from the earth as the sun sinks low, sets, and embraces the land with its shadow. How could I describe this place? Words could only be read and the scene imagined. Even a photo could only be seen. It would not include the sound of the water on the stones, the scent of the spruce trees, the coolness of sea wrack under my hand, or the weary satisfaction of just sitting there after paddling six hours that day, and six weeks before that. The size of these islets and their details of sand, shell and rock beach, grass, driftwood, and flowers, the small woods back of the shore – these are proportioned to kayaks and close-ups, not big cruise ships or ferries. Those get a far outline of the shore, but their only close-ups are of the docks and the towns. This country is made for the pace of a kayak.”
―
Audrey Sutherland,
Paddling North: A Solo Adventure Along the Inside Passage
“I went out to the area of drift logs on the shore, looking for dimensional lumber or plywood to repair the cabin’s wood box. Ninety-eight percent of driftwood is logs. They have their own beauty; shades of blond and gray, curved and hollowed and sleeked like a human body – or perhaps we’re like them – aged and smoothed by years of tumbling in the seas and on the rocks.” ― Audrey Sutherland, Paddling North: A Solo Adventure Along the Inside Passage
“THE CURSEPRICE Forged in heartbreak, set in bone, cast in blood, carved in stone. A thousand years will my curse reign, unless I have these six things: The tears of a fairy from a wood so deep. The fig of a vorgrath from his mate’s keep. The scale of a selkie burnished gold. The bone of a wood witch a century old. The midnight sliver of a Shade Queen’s horn. The sacrifice of two lovers torn. Haven Ashwood had a horrible habit of flirting” ― Audrey Grey, Oath Taker
“All [the inhabitants of this land] believe in the unity of God. As for the honor they show to images made of stone, wood, and other things that idiots consider idol worship, it is not so. The writer of this felicitous book has sat conversing with many wise and righteous men, and it is clear that they fashion images of some who have approached the court of the Purified One as aids to prevent the mind from wandering and render worship of God indispensable. In all their practices and customs, they seek favor from the world-illuminating sun and count the holy essence of incomparable God as higher than action.75” ― Audrey Truschke, Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court
“I’ve just been to see Audrey,” Beatrix said breathlessly, entering the private upstairs parlor and closing the door. “Poor Mr. Phelan isn’t well, and--well, I’ll tell you about that in a minute, but--here’s a letter from Captain Phelan!”Prudence smiled and took the letter. “Thank you, Bea. Now, about the officers I met last night…there was a dark-haired lieutenant who asked me to dance, and he--”“Aren’t you going to open it?” Beatrix asked, watching in dismay as Prudence laid the letter on a side table.Prudence gave her a quizzical smile. “My, you’re impatient today. You want me to open it this very moment?””Yes.” Beatrix promptly sat in a chair upholstered with flower-printed fabric.“But I want to tell you about the lieutenant.”“I don’t give a monkey about the lieutenant, I want to hear about Captain Phelan.”Prudence gave a low chuckle. “I haven’t seen you this excited since you stole that fox that Lord Campdon imported from France last year.”“I didn’t steal him, I rescued him. Importing a fox for a hunt…I call that very unsporting.” Beatrix gestured to the letter. “Open it!”Prudence broke the seal, skimmed the letter, and shook her head in amused disbelief. “Now he’s writing about mules.” She rolled her eyes and gave Beatrix the letter.Miss Prudence MercerStony CrossHampshire, England7 November 1854Dear Prudence,Regardless of the reports that describe the British soldier as unflinching, I assure you that when riflemen are under fire, we most certainly duck, bob, and run for cover. Per your advice, I have added a sidestep and a dodge to my repertoire, with excellent results. To my mind, the old fable has been disproved: there are times in life when one definitely wants to be the hare, not the tortoise.We fought at the southern port of Balaklava on the twenty-fourth of October. Light Brigade was ordered to charge directly into a battery of Russian guns for no comprehensible reason. Five cavalry regiments were mowed down without support. Two hundred men and nearly four hundred horses lost in twenty minutes. More fighting on the fifth of November, at Inkerman.We went to rescue soldiers stranded on the field before the Russians could reach them. Albert went out with me under a storm of shot and shell, and helped to identify the wounded so we could carry them out of range of the guns. My closest friend in the regiment was killed.Please thank your friend Prudence for her advice for Albert. His biting is less frequent, and he never goes for me, although he’s taken a few nips at visitors to the tent.May and October, the best-smelling months? I’ll make a case for December: evergreen, frost, wood smoke, cinnamon. As for your favorite song…were you aware that “Over the Hills and Far Away” is the official music of the Rifle Brigade?It seems nearly everyone here has fallen prey to some kind of illness except for me. I’ve had no symptoms of cholera nor any of the other diseases that have swept through both divisions. I feel I should at least feign some kind of digestive problem for the sake of decency.Regarding the donkey feud: while I have sympathy for Caird and his mare of easy virtue, I feel compelled to point out that the birth of a mule is not at all a bad outcome. Mules are more surefooted than horses, generally healthier, and best of all, they have very expressive ears. And they’re not unduly stubborn, as long they’re managed well. If you wonder at my apparent fondness for mules, I should probably explain that as a boy, I had a pet mule named Hector, after the mule mentioned in the Iliad.I wouldn’t presume to ask you to wait for me, Pru, but I will ask that you write to me again. I’ve read your last letter more times than I can count. Somehow you’re more real to me now, two thousand miles away, than you ever were before.Ever yours,ChristopherP.S. Sketch of Albert included” ― Lisa Kleypas, Love in the Afternoon
“Una de las cosas que más me llamaba la atención era que casi todos los centros comerciales que había visitado no tenían ventanas. La finalidad: que los consumidores no se percataran de la hora y, en consecuencia, pasaran más tiempo y compraran más.” ― Audrey Dry, Bienvenido a Wood Pine (Iris Miller nº 1)
“While timing was only part of the issue with Doris Day, it would be a key reason why, from the mid-1950s onward, good people were unable to appear in good musicals. An original like Never Steal Anything Small was unsuccessful on every level—and heinous in its waste of Jimmy Cagney’s talent—while skillful adaptations like Silk Stockings and Bells Are Ringing flopped resoundingly. As fewer opportunities arose, they were sometimes attended by the questionable notion that dubbing solves all problems. This is why Rossano Brazzi and Sidney Poitier could look great, in South Pacific and Porgy and Bess, and sound ostensibly like the opera singers who were doing the actual vocalizing. While dubbing had been present from the very beginning, it achieved some kind of pinnacle from the mid-fifties to the late sixties. Hiring nonsinging names like Deborah Kerr and Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn, even nonsinging non-names like Richard Beymer, was viewed as a form of insurance, conviction be damned.8 Casting for name recognition instead of experience has long been part of the film equation, and it cuts both ways. It may, for example, have seemed more astute than desperate to put Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood into Paint Your Wagon, despite the equivocal results. Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge! was far less a musical player than a photogenic, aurally enhanced artifact, and many people left Mamma Mia! wondering if Pierce Brosnan’s execrable singing was intended as a deliberate joke. In contrast with these are the film people who take the plunge with surprising ease.” ― Richard Barrios, Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter
“The next year, when Evan told his ma he wanted to tame a wild horse, she said he wasn't ready. But Cully thought differently."The boy's going to be running your spread soon enough, ma'am. I think he can break that filly if he has a mind to do it."Evan smiled when he recalled that day. The horse had thrown him four times. He was scraped and sore, but Cully wouldn't let him give up, not even when the horse bucked him over the corral fence. The cowboy laughed until tears streamed down his face."I didn't know anything without wings could fly that far!" he exclaimed.” ― Audrey Wood, A Cowboy Christmas: The Miracle at Lone Pine Ridge
“In the long winter evenings Evan and Della sat by the hearth and listened to the cowboy's tales of his life on the trail."After a long, hot ride we finally camped at Red River. Cookie had our beans boiling in the pot, when an ornery steer got stuck in a mud hole. No one wanted to get him out, so they volunteered me for the job. I lassoed him and my horse gave him a good pull. Now you'd think that longhorn would have been grateful, but when I set him loose, he chased me around camp like I was a Spanish matador. He finally stopped when a pretty heifer called him over for a kiss.""Maybe that bull was just trying to say thank you," Evan said. "If you had stayed put he might have kissed you instead!" And the cowboy laughed.” ― Audrey Wood, A Cowboy Christmas: The Miracle at Lone Pine Ridge
“The boy came to know all of Cully's friends through the stories he told. He longed to meet each one, and he always asked about them. "What about Lucky Lefty? Was he with you this season?""Yep," Cully said. "And he's luckier than ever. One stormy day we were pushing the herd over Barker's Pass. Lucky and I were riding together, and to while away the time, he was telling the story of Noah and his animal ark. He was just to the part about the forty days and forty nights when, out of nowhere, prairie lightning flashed down from a cloud and struck him right on his chest.""Was he hurt bad?" Evan asked."It knocked him straight off the back of his horse, but he lived. He's got a long scar to show where the lightning hit him...on his left side of course.""Maybe the Lord didn't like the way Lucky was telling the story," Della said with a smile."I'll warn him about that, ma'am," the cowboy said, smiling back.” ― Audrey Wood, A Cowboy Christmas: The Miracle at Lone Pine Ridge
“I went out to the area of drift logs on the shore, looking for dimensional lumber or plywood to repair the cabin’s wood box. Ninety-eight percent of driftwood is logs. They have their own beauty; shades of blond and gray, curved and hollowed and sleeked like a human body – or perhaps we’re like them – aged and smoothed by years of tumbling in the seas and on the rocks.” ― Audrey Sutherland, Paddling North: A Solo Adventure Along the Inside Passage
“THE CURSEPRICE Forged in heartbreak, set in bone, cast in blood, carved in stone. A thousand years will my curse reign, unless I have these six things: The tears of a fairy from a wood so deep. The fig of a vorgrath from his mate’s keep. The scale of a selkie burnished gold. The bone of a wood witch a century old. The midnight sliver of a Shade Queen’s horn. The sacrifice of two lovers torn. Haven Ashwood had a horrible habit of flirting” ― Audrey Grey, Oath Taker
“All [the inhabitants of this land] believe in the unity of God. As for the honor they show to images made of stone, wood, and other things that idiots consider idol worship, it is not so. The writer of this felicitous book has sat conversing with many wise and righteous men, and it is clear that they fashion images of some who have approached the court of the Purified One as aids to prevent the mind from wandering and render worship of God indispensable. In all their practices and customs, they seek favor from the world-illuminating sun and count the holy essence of incomparable God as higher than action.75” ― Audrey Truschke, Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court
“I’ve just been to see Audrey,” Beatrix said breathlessly, entering the private upstairs parlor and closing the door. “Poor Mr. Phelan isn’t well, and--well, I’ll tell you about that in a minute, but--here’s a letter from Captain Phelan!”Prudence smiled and took the letter. “Thank you, Bea. Now, about the officers I met last night…there was a dark-haired lieutenant who asked me to dance, and he--”“Aren’t you going to open it?” Beatrix asked, watching in dismay as Prudence laid the letter on a side table.Prudence gave her a quizzical smile. “My, you’re impatient today. You want me to open it this very moment?””Yes.” Beatrix promptly sat in a chair upholstered with flower-printed fabric.“But I want to tell you about the lieutenant.”“I don’t give a monkey about the lieutenant, I want to hear about Captain Phelan.”Prudence gave a low chuckle. “I haven’t seen you this excited since you stole that fox that Lord Campdon imported from France last year.”“I didn’t steal him, I rescued him. Importing a fox for a hunt…I call that very unsporting.” Beatrix gestured to the letter. “Open it!”Prudence broke the seal, skimmed the letter, and shook her head in amused disbelief. “Now he’s writing about mules.” She rolled her eyes and gave Beatrix the letter.Miss Prudence MercerStony CrossHampshire, England7 November 1854Dear Prudence,Regardless of the reports that describe the British soldier as unflinching, I assure you that when riflemen are under fire, we most certainly duck, bob, and run for cover. Per your advice, I have added a sidestep and a dodge to my repertoire, with excellent results. To my mind, the old fable has been disproved: there are times in life when one definitely wants to be the hare, not the tortoise.We fought at the southern port of Balaklava on the twenty-fourth of October. Light Brigade was ordered to charge directly into a battery of Russian guns for no comprehensible reason. Five cavalry regiments were mowed down without support. Two hundred men and nearly four hundred horses lost in twenty minutes. More fighting on the fifth of November, at Inkerman.We went to rescue soldiers stranded on the field before the Russians could reach them. Albert went out with me under a storm of shot and shell, and helped to identify the wounded so we could carry them out of range of the guns. My closest friend in the regiment was killed.Please thank your friend Prudence for her advice for Albert. His biting is less frequent, and he never goes for me, although he’s taken a few nips at visitors to the tent.May and October, the best-smelling months? I’ll make a case for December: evergreen, frost, wood smoke, cinnamon. As for your favorite song…were you aware that “Over the Hills and Far Away” is the official music of the Rifle Brigade?It seems nearly everyone here has fallen prey to some kind of illness except for me. I’ve had no symptoms of cholera nor any of the other diseases that have swept through both divisions. I feel I should at least feign some kind of digestive problem for the sake of decency.Regarding the donkey feud: while I have sympathy for Caird and his mare of easy virtue, I feel compelled to point out that the birth of a mule is not at all a bad outcome. Mules are more surefooted than horses, generally healthier, and best of all, they have very expressive ears. And they’re not unduly stubborn, as long they’re managed well. If you wonder at my apparent fondness for mules, I should probably explain that as a boy, I had a pet mule named Hector, after the mule mentioned in the Iliad.I wouldn’t presume to ask you to wait for me, Pru, but I will ask that you write to me again. I’ve read your last letter more times than I can count. Somehow you’re more real to me now, two thousand miles away, than you ever were before.Ever yours,ChristopherP.S. Sketch of Albert included” ― Lisa Kleypas, Love in the Afternoon
“Una de las cosas que más me llamaba la atención era que casi todos los centros comerciales que había visitado no tenían ventanas. La finalidad: que los consumidores no se percataran de la hora y, en consecuencia, pasaran más tiempo y compraran más.” ― Audrey Dry, Bienvenido a Wood Pine (Iris Miller nº 1)
“While timing was only part of the issue with Doris Day, it would be a key reason why, from the mid-1950s onward, good people were unable to appear in good musicals. An original like Never Steal Anything Small was unsuccessful on every level—and heinous in its waste of Jimmy Cagney’s talent—while skillful adaptations like Silk Stockings and Bells Are Ringing flopped resoundingly. As fewer opportunities arose, they were sometimes attended by the questionable notion that dubbing solves all problems. This is why Rossano Brazzi and Sidney Poitier could look great, in South Pacific and Porgy and Bess, and sound ostensibly like the opera singers who were doing the actual vocalizing. While dubbing had been present from the very beginning, it achieved some kind of pinnacle from the mid-fifties to the late sixties. Hiring nonsinging names like Deborah Kerr and Rosalind Russell and Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn, even nonsinging non-names like Richard Beymer, was viewed as a form of insurance, conviction be damned.8 Casting for name recognition instead of experience has long been part of the film equation, and it cuts both ways. It may, for example, have seemed more astute than desperate to put Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood into Paint Your Wagon, despite the equivocal results. Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge! was far less a musical player than a photogenic, aurally enhanced artifact, and many people left Mamma Mia! wondering if Pierce Brosnan’s execrable singing was intended as a deliberate joke. In contrast with these are the film people who take the plunge with surprising ease.” ― Richard Barrios, Dangerous Rhythm: Why Movie Musicals Matter
“The next year, when Evan told his ma he wanted to tame a wild horse, she said he wasn't ready. But Cully thought differently."The boy's going to be running your spread soon enough, ma'am. I think he can break that filly if he has a mind to do it."Evan smiled when he recalled that day. The horse had thrown him four times. He was scraped and sore, but Cully wouldn't let him give up, not even when the horse bucked him over the corral fence. The cowboy laughed until tears streamed down his face."I didn't know anything without wings could fly that far!" he exclaimed.” ― Audrey Wood, A Cowboy Christmas: The Miracle at Lone Pine Ridge
“In the long winter evenings Evan and Della sat by the hearth and listened to the cowboy's tales of his life on the trail."After a long, hot ride we finally camped at Red River. Cookie had our beans boiling in the pot, when an ornery steer got stuck in a mud hole. No one wanted to get him out, so they volunteered me for the job. I lassoed him and my horse gave him a good pull. Now you'd think that longhorn would have been grateful, but when I set him loose, he chased me around camp like I was a Spanish matador. He finally stopped when a pretty heifer called him over for a kiss.""Maybe that bull was just trying to say thank you," Evan said. "If you had stayed put he might have kissed you instead!" And the cowboy laughed.” ― Audrey Wood, A Cowboy Christmas: The Miracle at Lone Pine Ridge
“The boy came to know all of Cully's friends through the stories he told. He longed to meet each one, and he always asked about them. "What about Lucky Lefty? Was he with you this season?""Yep," Cully said. "And he's luckier than ever. One stormy day we were pushing the herd over Barker's Pass. Lucky and I were riding together, and to while away the time, he was telling the story of Noah and his animal ark. He was just to the part about the forty days and forty nights when, out of nowhere, prairie lightning flashed down from a cloud and struck him right on his chest.""Was he hurt bad?" Evan asked."It knocked him straight off the back of his horse, but he lived. He's got a long scar to show where the lightning hit him...on his left side of course.""Maybe the Lord didn't like the way Lucky was telling the story," Della said with a smile."I'll warn him about that, ma'am," the cowboy said, smiling back.” ― Audrey Wood, A Cowboy Christmas: The Miracle at Lone Pine Ridge
