haracteristic of the two
great divisions or classes of torrents--that whose motion is continuous,
and whose motion is interrupted: all drawing of running water will
resolve itself into the representation of one or other of these. The
descent of the distant stream in the vignette to the Boy of Egremond is
slight, but very striking; and the Junction of the Greta and Tees, a
singular instance of the bold drawing of the complicated forms of a
shallow stream among multitudinous rocks. A still finer example occurs
in a recent drawing of Dazio Grande, on the St. Gothard, the waves of
the Toccia, clear and blue, fretting among the granite debris which were
brought down by the storm that destroyed the whole road. In the Ivy
bridge the subject is the rest of the torrent in a pool among fallen
rocks, the forms of the stones are seen through the clear brown water,
and their reflections mingle with those of the foliage.

Sec. 29. Sea painting. Impossibility of truly representing foam.

More determined efforts have at all periods been made in sea painting
than in torrent painting, yet less successful. As above stated, it is
easy to obtain a resemblance of broken running water by tricks and
dexterities, but the sea _must_ be legitimately drawn; it cannot be
given as utterly disorganized and confused, its weight and mass must be
expressed, and the efforts at expression of it end in failure with all
but the most powerful men; even with these few a partial success must be
considered worthy of the highest praise.

As the right rendering of the Alps depends on power of drawing snow, so
the right painting of the sea must depend, at least in all coast
scenery, in no small measure on the power of drawing foam. Yet there are
two conditions of foam of invariable occurrence on breaking waves, of
which I have never seen the slightest record attempted; first the thick
creamy curdling overlapping massy form which remains for a moment only
after the fall of the wave, and is seen in perfection in its running up
the beach; and secondly, the thin white coating into which this
subsides, which opens into oval gaps and clefts, marbling the waves over
their whole surface, and connecting the breakers on a flat shore by long
dragging streams of white.

It is evident that the difficulty of expressing either of these two
conditions must be immense. The lapping and curdling form is difficult
enough to catch even when the lines of its undulation alone are