I'm a fan of the American writer James Fenimore Cooper, and his "Leather Stocking Tales'; The Deerslayer in particular. It was the first of the five in the series of novels if you set them out as a chronology and not by publication date - think Star Wars starting at Episode IV.
During my residency year in grad school, I opted in for such a course because, up to that point, I didn't have much use for the flowery prose and my high school and undergrad "dip my toes" in those waters was pretty much a disaster. It was dissertation time and I figured some new vocabulary would waste more than a few pages of prose.
Anyway, the description of New York's Lake Otsego in the first chapters got to me as by then having enough philosophy courses to make my mind swim, Rousseau came clear, Natty Bumppo and Hurry Harry - well this whole business of observation of nature teaching a "natural good" and Bumppo and Harry, having a common goal were good and evil....well you get the gist in the mill and suddenly being a born again romantic was appealing and necessary.
This morning I drove by this little "pond" off Long Island Sound on the way to Orient, NY. It is no Otsego nor am I a "Cooper" but to me it was a Glimmerglass. The Long Island Sound is just over the last spit of land. This little drop in the bucket, noted just as is on maps dating back centuries was so still and glass flat I couldn't resist pulling over and admiring it.
I suppose that if you looked at these reflections long enough, in detail and in glimpse, you might turn out to be a little better human.