In illness words seem to possess a mystic quality. We grasp what is beyond their surface meaning, gather instinctively this, that, and the other—a sound, a colour, here a stress, there a pause—which the poet, knowing words to be meagre in comparison with ideas, has strewn about his page to evoke, when collected, a state …

The night outside was like a dark, heavy, perfumed flower. An expectant night- a night when things intended to happen. Very still. Only the loveliest of muted sounds- the faintest whisper of trees, the airiest sigh of wind, the half-heard, half-felt moan of the sea. L.M. Montgomery, Emily’s Quest (via lesgardenias)