Rainer Maria Rilke, “Worpswede” (1902)

With human beings, we are in the habit of learning much from their hands and everything from their faces, on which, as on a dial, the hours are visible that cradle and carry their souls. But landscape is without hands and has no face - or rather it is all face and has a terrible and dispiriting effect on man….

For let it be confessed: landscape is foreign to us, and we are fearfully alone amongst trees that blossom and by streams that flow. Alone with a corpse one is not nearly so defenceless as when alone with trees. For however mysterious death may be, life that is not our life is far more mysterious, life that is not concerned with us, and which, without seeing us, celebrates its festivals, as it were, at which we look on with a certain embarrassment, like chance guests who speak another language.