134 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



wandering to and fro where high banks exclude the 

 direct influence of the breeze, flutter the ripples hither 

 and thither, so that, instead of rolling upon one lee 

 shore, they meet and expend their little force upon 

 each other. A continuous rising and falling, without 

 a line of direction, thus breaks up the light, not with 

 sparkle or glitter, but with endless silvery facets. 



There is no pattern. The apparently intertangled 

 tracing on a work of art presently resolves itself into 

 a design, which once seen is always the same. These 

 wavelets form no design ; watch the sheeny maze as 

 long as one will, the eye cannot get at the clue, and 

 so unwind the pattern. 



Each seems for a second exactly like its fellow, but 

 varies while you say " These two are the same," and 

 the white reflected light upon the wide stream is 

 now strongest here, and instantly afterwards flickers 

 yonder. 



Where a gap in the willows admits a current of air 

 a ripple starts to rush straight across, but is met by 

 another returning, which has been repulsed from the 

 bluff bow of a moored boat, and the two cross and run 

 through each other. As the level of the stream now 

 slightly rises and again falls, the jagged top of a large 

 stone by the shore alternately appears above, or is 

 covered by the surface. The water as it retires leaves 

 for a moment a hollow in itself by the stone, and then 

 swings back to fill the vacuum. 



Long roots of willows and projecting branches cast 

 their shadow upon the shallow sandy bottom ; the 

 shadow of a branch can be traced slanting downwards 

 with the shelve of the sand till lost in the deeper water. 



