Laudator Temporis Acti

Walter Savage Landor, "Epicurus, Leontion and Ternissa," Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans (London: Edward Moxon, 1853), pp. 219-279 (at 220; Epicurus speaking):

To me there is this advantage in a place at some distance from the city. Having by no means the full possession of my faculties where I hear unwelcome and intrusive voices, or unexpected and irregular sounds that excite me involuntarily to listen, I assemble and arrange my thoughts with freedom and with pleasure in the fresh air and open sky; and they are more lively and vigorous and exuberant when I catch them as I walk about, and commune with them in silence and seclusion.

Id.:

In the country the mind is soothed and satisfied: here is no restraint of motion or of posture. These things, little and indifferent as they may seem, are not so: for the best tempers have need of ease and liberty, to keep them in right order long enough for the purposes of composition; and many a froward axiom, many an inhumane thought, hath arisen from sitting inconveniently, from hearing a few unpleasant sounds, from the confinement of a gloomy chamber, or from the want of symmetry in it. We are not aware of this, until we find an exemption from it in groves, on promontories, or along the sea-shore, or wherever else we meet Nature face to face, undisturbed and solitary.

Hat tip: Eric Thomson.