" The first thing I noticed was the clarity of the air, and then the sharp green colour of the land. There was no softness anywhere. The distant hills did not blend into the sky but stood out like rocks, so close that I could almost touch them, their proximity giving me that shock of surprise and wonder which a child feels looking for the first time through a telescope. Nearer to me, too, each object had the same hard quality, the very grass turning to single blades, springing from a younger, harsher soil than the soil I knew. I had expected - if I had expected anything - a transformation of another kind: a tranquil sense of wellbeing, the blurred intoxication of a dream, with everything about me misty, illdefined; not this tremendous impact, a reality more vivid than anything hitherto experienced, sleeping or awake, "

― Daphne du Maurier , The House on the Strand