So, after the tempest of debauch, little men wake from their carnal desires, and, leaving behind them the uncleanness of their flesh, go forth into the pure morning, subdued and ashamed, yet irresistibly sure that life is good and holds forgiveness and hope for them. With the new day they will become like their dreams, clean and pure. Thus, also, those larger men, not eaten by bodily lusts, those greater sinners who are caught on the whirling spikes of bolder passions, who are torn and twisted--these, also, return at certain hours to the soul within them, and renew there the pure fire of their natures, so that they may enter again the endless contest having hope and health. Thus, above all, the great heart of things, the abundant mother of life, the earth, renews herself eternally according to the laws of her being, and comes forth afresh and undiminished for the business of living. The mere lump of man lying there inert upon the ground felt this great process of renewal all about him, and sucked in fresh life and health. In like manner, years before, in his youth, he had gone down to the sea, and there had known something of this mysterious sensation of renewal. His body plunged in cool, black sea-water, he had drawn through the pores of his flesh the elemental currents of life. He longed now to escape again from men, to go down to the sea and touch those waters washing in from their remote tidal courses up and down the earth. By such means Nature cleanses and teaches man. Heedless of man, unconcerned with his follies and vices, impersonal, irresistible, majestic, she receives his head upon her breast, and renews within him his spirit,--the power to battle, the power to live.