I thought myself so much to the earliest leaf and the fist meadow orchis-so important that I should note the first zeezee of the titlark-- that I should pronounce it summer, because now the oaks were green; I must not miss a day nor an hour in the fields lest something should escape me.... But today I have to listen to the lark's song-not out of doors with him, but through the windowpane... They manage without me very well; they know their times and seasons-not only the civilized rooks, with their libraries of knowledge in their old nests of reference... They go on without me. Orchis flower and cowslip-I cannot number them all-I hear as it were, the patter of their feet-flower and bud and the beautiful clouds that go over, with the sweet rush of rain and burst of sun glory among the leafy trees. They go on, and I am no more than the least of the empty shells that strewed the sward of the hill. Nature sets no value upon life, neither mine nor of the larks that sang years ago. The earth is all in all to me, but I am nothing to the earth: it is bitter to know this before you are dead. These delicious violets are sweet for themselves; they were not shaped and coloured and gifted with that exquisite proportion and adjustment of odour and hue for me. High up against the grey cloud I hear the lark through the window singing and each note falls into my heart like a knife.

-Richard Jeffries "Hours of Spring" -1886