Children can be taken occasionally to the country to see what the sun looks like as they are taken now to see a hill or a mountain. Probably many of them will not want to go anyway, for the country will be to them only what it was to the London club man: “A damp sort of place where all sorts of birds fly about uncooked.”
Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-1970) American educator, writer, critic, naturalist
The Twelve Seasons, “June” (1949)
(Source)
The comment at the end is sometimes misattributed to Oscar Wilde. Further discussion of this quotation here: The Country: A Damp Sort of Place Where All Sorts of Birds Fly About Uncooked – Quote Investigator.