"[Ратйу life must have been different] in the days when a family had fed on the produce of the same few miles of country for six generations, and that perhaps was why they saw nymphs in the fountains

"[Ратйу life must have been different] in
the days when a family had fed on the
produce of the same few miles of country
for six generations, and that perhaps was
why they saw nymphs in the fountains and
dryads in the wood they were not
mistaken for there was in a sense real (not
metaphorical) connections between them
and the countryside. What had been earth
and air and later corn, and later still bread,
really was in them. We of course who live
on a standardized international diet...are
artificial beings and have no connection
(save in sentiment) with any place on earth
We are synthetic men, uprooted. The
strength of the hills is not ours."
J.R.R. Tolkien, from an unpublished letter
to Arthur Greeves