m a wild duck's breast. And (as in other subjects) if
you are dissatisfied with your result, always try for more unity and
delicacy: if your reflections are only soft and gradated enough, they
are nearly sure to give you a pleasant effect.[35] When you are taking
pains, work the softer reflections, where they are drawn out by motion
in the water, with touches as nearly horizontal as may be; but when you
are in a hurry, indicate the place and play of the images with vertical
lines. The actual construction of a calm elongated reflection is with
horizontal lines: but it is often impossible to draw the descending
shades delicately enough with a horizontal touch; and it is best always
when you are in a hurry, and sometimes when you are not, to use the
vertical touch. When the ripples are large, the reflections become
shaken, and must be drawn with bold undulatory descending lines.

143. I need not, I should think, tell you that it is of the greatest
possible importance to draw the curves of the shore rightly. Their
perspective is, if not more subtle, at least more stringent than that of
any other lines in Nature. It will not be detected by the general
observer, if you miss the curve of a branch, or the sweep of a cloud, or
the perspective of a building;[36] but every intelligent spectator will
feel the difference between a rightly-drawn bend of shore or shingle,
and a false one. _Absolutely_ right, in difficult river perspectives
seen from heights, I believe no one but Turner ever has been yet; and
observe, there is NO rule for them. To develop the curve mathematically
would require a knowledge of the exact quantity of water in the river,
the shape of its bed, and the hardness of the rock or shore; and even
with these data, the problem would be one which no mathematician could
solve but approximatively. The instinct of the eye can do it; nothing
else.

144. If, after a little study from Nature, you get puzzled by the great
differences between the aspect of the reflected image and that of the
object casting it; and if you wish to know the law of reflection, it is
simply this: Suppose all the objects above the water _actually_ reversed
(not in appearance, but in fact) beneath the water, and precisely the
same in form and in relative position, only all topsy-turvy. Then,
whatever you could see, from the place in which you stand, of the solid
objects so reversed under the water, you will see in the reflection,
always in the tru