“The great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its sombre wastes.”

—  Willa Cather , book O Pioneers!

Part I, Ch. 9
O Pioneers! (1913)
Context: The great fact was the land itself, which seemed to overwhelm the little beginnings of human society that struggled in its sombre wastes. It was from facing this vast hardness that the boy's mouth had become so bitter; because he felt that men were too weak to make any mark here, that the land wanted to be let alone, to preserve its own fierce strength, its peculiar, savage kind of beauty, its uninterrupted mournfulness.

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Willa Cather 99
American writer and novelist 1873–1947

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