No, what numbed these fields, peopled with bad dreams was not the oppressive grip of a plague but rather an ailing retreat, a sort of sad widowhood. Man had started to subdue these vacant expanses, then had grown weary of eating into it, and now even the desire to preserve what had been claimed had perished. He had established everywhere an ebb, a sorrowful withdrawal. His cuttings into the forest, which were seen at long intervals, had lost their hard edges, their distinct notches: now a thick brushwood had driven its sabbath into the broad daylight of the glades, hiding the naked trunks as high as their lowest branches. . Julien Gracq
About This Quote

This is an excerpt from the novel "Le Corbeau" by French writer Victor Hugo. The book takes place in 1793, during the French Revolution. The entire book is about the Devil himself who is impersonated by a crows. This excerpt is talking about how once man begins to cut trees down he can't stop.

The trees that are cut down are almost like people who are killed and then buried. They are dead but they aren't gone, they can still be found if you look hard enough.

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More Quotes By Julien Gracq
  1. Blood had long since ceased to beat from one end to the other, but one could sense, from passages marked with fresher traces of wheels and hooves, that once the meaning and even the very idea of a long journey was lost, sleep had not...
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