WATER 



F ALL inorganic substances, 

 acting in their own proper 

 nature, and without assist- 

 ance or combination, water 

 is the most wonderful. If 

 we think of it as the source 

 of all the changefulness and 

 beauty which we have seen 



in the clouds; then as the instrument by which the earth we have 

 contemplated was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiseled into 

 grace; then as, in the form of snow, it robes the mountains it has 

 made, with that transcendent light which we could not have conceived 

 if we had not seen ; then as it exists in the foam of the torrent, in the 

 iris which spans it, in the morning mist which rises from it, in the 

 deep crystalline pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad 

 lake and glancing river, finally, in that which is to all human minds 

 the best emblem of unwearied, unconquerable power, the wild, various, 

 fantastic, tameless unity of the sea; what shall we compare to this 

 mighty, this universal element, for glory and for beauty? or how shall 

 we follow its eternal cheerfulness of feeling? It is like trying to paint 

 a soul." RUSKIN. 



