STILL WATERS 



PERHAPS at no season of the year is the beauty 

 of still waters at once so obvious and so ethereal 

 as in Autumn. All the great painters of 

 Nature have realised this crowning secret of 

 their delicate loveliness. Corot exclaimed to 

 a friend who was in raptures about one of his 

 midsummer river scenes . . . 'Yes, yes, but 

 to paint the soul of October, voila mon ideal!' 

 Daubigny himself, that master of slow winding 

 waters and still lagoons, declared that if he had 

 to be only one month out of his studio it 

 would have to be October, ' for then you can 

 surprise Nature when she is dreaming, then 

 you may learn her most evanescent and most 

 exquisite secrets.' And our own Millais, when 

 he was painting ' Chill October ' near Murthly, 

 in Perthshire, wrote that nothing had ever 

 caused him so much labour, if nothing had ever 

 given him so much pleasure, in the painting, 

 * for Nature now can be found in a trance, and 

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