, though an echo actually increases the quantity of
sound heard, its repetition of the notes or syllables of sound, gives an
idea of calmness attainable in no other way; hence the feeling of
calm given to a landscape by the notes of the cuckoo. Understanding
this, observe the anxious _doubling_ of every object by a visible echo
or shadow throughout this picture. The grandest feature of it is the
steep distant cliff; and therefore the dualism is more marked here than
elsewhere; the two promontories or cliffs, and two piers below them,
being arranged so that the one looks almost like the shadow of the
other, cast irregularly on mist. In all probability, the more distant
pier would in reality, unless it is very greatly higher than the near
one, have been lowered by perspective so as not to continue in the same
longitudinal line at the top,--but Turner will not have it so; he
reduces them to exactly the same level, so that the one looks like the
phantom of the other; and so of the cliffs above.

Then observe, each pier has, just below the head of it, in a vertical
line, another important object, one a buoy, and the other a stooping
figure. These carry on the double group in the calmest way, obeying the
general law of vertical reflection, and throw down two long shadows on
the near beach. The intenseness of the parallelism would catch the eye
in a moment, but for the lighthouse, which breaks the group and prevents
the artifice from being too open. Next come the two heads of boats, with
their two bowsprits, and the two masts of the one farthest off, all
monotonously double, but for the diagonal mast of the nearer one, which
again hides the artifice. Next, put your finger over the white central
figure, and follow the minor incidents round the beach; first, under the
lighthouse, a stick, with its echo below a little to the right; above, a
black stone, and its echo to the right; under the white figure, another
stick, with its echo to the left; then a starfish,[X] and a white spot
its echo to the left; then a dog, and a basket to double its light;
above, a fisherman, and his wife for an echo; above them, two lines of
curved shingle; above them, two small black figures; above them, two
unfinished ships, and two forked masts; above the forked masts, a house
with two gables, and its echo exactly over it in two gables more; next
to the right, two fishing-boats with sails down; farther on, two
fishing-boats with sails up, each with its