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the traps, frozen yet have never hitherto seen
this iron dog perish from cold. But already
as if to mark the severity of our climate we have lost three by actual freezing and are obliged
to take the rest, savage wolves as they
are, into our one room for protection.
Deficient food of course lessens their resistance to cold.

The most impressive feature of
the extreme cold was that which came
to me an immaginative man, day
before yesterday. When thoughtful
and homesick deserted even by my
fidus achates Hans I had followed
the rabbit tracks well inland among
the rocky knobs of Bessie Mountain.

There I was beyond the ice voices
of the frozen sea, in the midst
of an inorganic motionless nature,
and for the first time realized the
meaning of that awful word "Silence."

[It came to me as] is a positive quality
[not as that negative sensation, which
at home is rather a comparative absence
of sound than] "absolute silence."
The murmuring life of [communities?]
whether in the [desert] city or the forest
among the murmur of waters or the
crisping of desert sands, never gives
to the human tympanum the relaxation
of rest. It has often struck me
that, if absolute suspension of vibration
be the normal condition of this organ
we never experience it. Here however
for the first time in my life I recognized
a silence beyond all preceding
[sentiment] (apprehension) of that quality.
A stillness per se .

The organic movements
of my own vitality were the only
drawback to its absoluteness, and

249

The traps, frozen yet have never hitherto seen
this iron dog [punish?] from cold. But already
as if to mark the severity of our climate we have lost three by actual freezing and are obliged
to take the rest, savage wolves as they
are, into our one room for protection.
Deficient food of course lessens their resistance to cold.

The most impressive feature of
the extreme cold was that which came
to me an immaginative man, day
before yesterday. When thoughtful
and homesick deserted even by my
[?] Hans I had followed
the rabbit tracks well inland among
the rocky knobs of Bessie Mountain.

There I was beyond the ice voices
of the frozen sea, in the midst
of an inorganic motionless nature,
and for the first time realized the
meaning of that awful word "Silence."

[It came to me as] is a positive [?]
[not as that negative sensation, which
at home is rather a comparative absence
of sound than] "absolute silence."
The murmuring life of [communities?]
whether in the [desert] city or the forest
among the murmur of [waters?] or the
[crisping?] of desert sands, never gives
to the human tympanum the relaxation
of rest. It has often struck me
that, if absolute suspension of vibration
be the normal condition of this organ
we never experience it. Here however
for the first time in my life I recognized
a silence beyond all preceding
[sentiment] (apprehension) of that quality.
A stillness [?]/

The organic movements
of my own vitality were the only
drawback to its absoluteness, and