Bence is the chief ranger of Arches National Monument; he’s Abbey’s age, a geologist by training, who shares Abbey’s hatred of desk jobs and his passionate love of the open West. Like Merle McRae, Bence’s role is minor: he helps orient Abbey on his first day in Arches, joking about the solitude, and he later joins the manhunt for a dead photographer. Also like McRae, he’s aware of the coming development in the parks, but his closeness to Abbey in age highlights a difference between the two men: Bence seems sadly resigned to these coming changes, while Abbey, as a seasonal employee who’s largely an outsider, is outraged.
Floyd Bence Quotes in Desert Solitaire
The Desert Solitaire quotes below are all either spoken by Floyd Bence or refer to Floyd Bence. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Solitaire
Quotes
The odor of burning juniper is the sweetest fragrance on the face of the earth, in my honest judgment; I doubt if all the smoking censers of Dante’s paradise could equal it. One breath of juniper smoke, like the perfume of sagebrush after rain, evokes in magical catalysis, like certain music, the space and light and clarity and piercing strangeness of the American West.
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Floyd Bence Quotes in Desert Solitaire
The Desert Solitaire quotes below are all either spoken by Floyd Bence or refer to Floyd Bence. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Solitaire
Quotes
The odor of burning juniper is the sweetest fragrance on the face of the earth, in my honest judgment; I doubt if all the smoking censers of Dante’s paradise could equal it. One breath of juniper smoke, like the perfume of sagebrush after rain, evokes in magical catalysis, like certain music, the space and light and clarity and piercing strangeness of the American West.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
