VIII 



WATER 



"I ^VEN if fresh and clear water (whether 

 I stream or lake) is not so indispensable to 



landscape as a rich vegetation, it greatly 

 increases its charm. Eye and ear are equally de- 

 lighted, 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 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 rather to leave undone 

 altogether a faulty imitation. A region without 

 water can yet present many beauties, but a stinking 

 swamp infects everyone; 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 stagnant ditch overgrown 



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