Still you can see her as she is.' A friend of the 

 Waters, late Keeley Halswelle told me that this able 

 artist (who was originally a ' figure ' and 

 'subject' painter) remarked to him that he 

 had never realised the supreme charm of 

 autumnal Nature among still waters till he 

 found himself one day trying to translate to 

 his canvas the placid loveliness of the wide, 

 shallow reaches of the Avon around Christ- 

 church. Doubtless many other painters, 

 French and Dutch and English, have felt thus, 

 and been glad to give their best to the inter- 

 pretation of the supreme charm of still waters 

 in autumn. What would Venice be without 

 them . . . Amsterdam . . . Holland . . . 

 Finland . . . Sweden ? Imagine Scotland 

 without this water-beauty, from Loch Ken to 

 Loch Maree, from the Loch of the Yowes 

 to the * thousand -waters' of Benbecula : or 

 Ireland, where the white clouds climbing out 

 of the south may mirror themselves in still 

 waters all day till they sink beyond the Lough 

 of Shadows in the silent north. 



The phrase is as liberal as ' running 

 water.' That covers all inland waters 

 in motion, from the greatest rivers to 

 the brown burn of the hillside, from the 

 melting of the snows in fierce spate to the 

 swift invasion and troubled floods of the 



256 



