The faint possibility of a snowdrop, hinting its yet undrooping white through a peaked green film; the distant hope of a primrose bud, peeping—with yellow point, for all the world just like that of a coloured crayon—out of the young, crisp, green leaves that are crowning the limp, ragged ones of last year; the wild dream of a find of those sweet buds—little geologists’ hammers, with white or violet noses—among their round seeds and drilled leaves, in some warmer corner; 26 such, summonings as these woo the steps to the threshold on a strayed mild day late in February.
— from The Harvest of a Quiet Eye: Leisure Thoughts for Busy Lives by John Richard Vernon