e edges of the
reflections, when the water is in the least agitated; nor on the
decision with which you may reverse the object, when the water is quite
calm. Most drawing of reflections is at once confused and hard; but
Nature's is at once intelligible and tender. Generally, at the edge of
the water, you ought not to see where reality ceases and reflection
begins; as the image loses itself you ought to keep all its subtle and
varied veracities, with the most exquisite softening of its edge.
Practice as much as you can from the reflections of ships in calm
water, following out all the reversed rigging, and taking, if anything,
more pains with the reflection than with the ship.

NOTE 4, p. 100.--"_Where the reflection is darkest, you will see
through the water best._"

250. For this reason it often happens that if the water be shallow, and
you are looking steeply down into it, the reflection of objects on the
bank will consist simply of pieces of the bottom seen clearly through
the water, and relieved by flashes of light, which are the reflection of
the sky. Thus you may have to draw the reflected dark shape of a bush:
but, inside of that shape, you must not draw the leaves of the bush, but
the stones under the water; and, outside of this dark reflection, the
blue or white of the sky, with no stones visible.

NOTE 5, p. 101.--"_Approach streams with reverence._"

251. I have hardly said anything about waves of torrents or waterfalls,
as I do not consider them subjects for beginners to practice upon; but,
as many of our younger artists are almost breaking their hearts over
them, it may be well to state at once that it is physically impossible
to draw a running torrent quite rightly, the luster of its currents and
whiteness of its foam being dependent on intensities of light which art
has not at its command. This also is to be observed, that most young
painters make their defeat certain by attempting to draw running water,
which is a lustrous object in rapid motion, without ever trying their
strength on a lustrous object standing still. Let them break a coarse
green-glass bottle into a great many bits, and try to paint those, with
all their undulations and edges of fracture, as they lie still on the
table; if they cannot, of course they need not try the rushing crystal
and foaming fracture of the stream. If they can manage the glass bottle,
let them next buy a fragment or two of yellow fire-opal; it is quite