Extract from 'The Open Air' (Wildflowers Chapter) by Richard Jefferies - first published 1885

The great stone of the fallen cromlech, crouching down afar off in the plain behind me, cast its shadow in the sunny morn as it had done, so many summers, for centuries - for thousands of years: worn white by the endless sunbeams - the ceaseless flood of light - the sunbeams of centuries, the impalpable beams polishing and grinding like rushing water: silent, yet witnessing of the Past; shadowing the Present on the dial of the field: a mere dull stone; but what is it the mind will not employ to express to itself its own thoughts?