Chapter IX 



Water 



THOUGH not so indispensable to landscape 

 as a rich vegetation, fresh and clear water, 

 whether stream or lake, greatly increases its charm. 

 Eye and ear are equally delighted, for who does 

 not hearken with delight to the sweet murmur of 

 the brook, the distant plashing of the mill wheels, 

 the prattling of the pearly spring ? Who has not 

 been enchanted in quiet hours by the perfect 

 calm of the slumbering lake in which the giants 

 of the forest are dreamily mirrored, or by the 

 aspect of foaming waves, chased by the storm, 

 where the sea-gulls merrily rock? But it is very 

 difficult for the artist to conquer Nature here, 

 or to impose on her what she herself has not 

 created on the spot. 



Therefore, I would advise to leave undone 

 altogether a faulty imitation. A region without 

 water can still present many beauties, but a bad- 

 odored swamp infects every one ; the first is only 

 a negative fault ; the second a positive, and, with 

 the exception of the owner himself, nobody will 

 take a cesspool of this kind for a lake, or a stag- 

 nant ditch overgrown with duckweed for a stream. 

 But if one can by any means guide a running 

 stream into one's own property, if the terrain 



