Bathing the Soul

The following are the musings of Henry Ward Beecher as he walks through his large Estate. He day dreams as he walks through the orchards, along the meadows and by the lakeside. He considers what improvements he may make and just drinks up the beauty while dreaming the day away. Then he questions himself as to whether this is of value or not.

“But of what use is all this fanciful using of the head?
Is it a mere waste of precious time?
But, if it gives great delight, if it keeps the soul awake, sweet thoughts alive and sordid thoughts dead, if it brings one a little out of conceit with hard economies, and penurious reality, and stingy self-conceit; if it be like a bath to the soul, in which it washes away the grime of human contacts, and the sweat and dust of life among selfish, sordid men; if it makes the thoughts more supple to climb along the ways where the spiritual fruits do grow; and especially, if it introduces the soul to a fuller conviction of the Great Unseen, and teaches it to esteem the visible as less real than things which no eye can see, or hands handle, it will have answered a purpose which is in vain sought after among stupid conventionalities.
At any rate, such a discourse of the thoughts with things that are beautiful, and such an opening of the soul to things which are sweet-breathed, will make one joyful at the time and tranquil thereafter. And if one fully believes that the earth is the Lord’s, and that God yet walks among leaves, and trees, in the cool of the day, he will not easily be persuaded to cast away the belief that all these vagaries and wild communings are but those of a child in his father’s house, and that the secret springs of joy which they open are touched of God!”

There is so much I like in this piece, I like the line "a bath to the sould that washes away the grime of human contacts , and the sweat and dust of life among selfish and sordid men."
I also like "an opening of the soul to things which are sweet-breathed"
Aw! nature.......