58 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



the shadow the water was difficult to see through, 

 and the brown scum of spring that lined the bottom 

 rendered everything uncertain. 



By gazing steadily at a stone my eyes presently 

 became accustomed to the peculiar light, the pupils 

 adjusted themselves to it, and the brown tints became 

 more distinctly denned. Then sweeping by degrees 

 from a stone to another, and from thence to a 

 rotting stick embedded in the sand, I searched the 

 bottom inch by inch. If you look, as it were, at 

 large at everything at once you see nothing. 

 If you take some object as a fixed point, gaze all 

 around it, and then move to another, nothing can 

 escape. 



Even the deepest, darkest water (not, of course, 

 muddy) yields after a while to the eye. Half close 

 the eyelids, and while gazing into it let your intel- 

 ligence rather wait upon the corners of the eye than 

 on the glance you cast straight forward. For some 

 reason when thus gazing the edge of the eye becomes 

 exceedingly sensitive, and you are conscious of slight 

 motions or of a thickness not a defined object, but 

 a thickness which indicates an object which is 

 otherwise quite invisible. 



The slow feeling sway of a fish's tail, the edges of 

 which curl over and grasp the water, may in this 

 manner be identified without being positively seen, 

 and the dark outline of its body known to exist 

 against the equally dark water or bank. Shift, too, 

 your position according to the fall of the light, just 

 as in looking at a painting. From one point of view 

 the canvas shows little but the presence of paint and 



