Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, and without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. If we think of it as the course of all the changefulness and beauty which we have seen in clouds; then as the instrument by which the earth we have contemplated was modeled into symmetry, and its crags chiseled into grace; then as, in the form of snow, it robes the mountains it has made with that transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we had not seen; then as it exists in the foam of the torrent--in the iris which spans it, in the morning mist which rises from it, in the deep crystalline pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad lake and glancing river; finally, in that which is to all human minds the best emblem of unwearied, unconquerable power, the wild, various, fantastic, tameless unity of the sea; what shall we compare to this mighty, this universal element, for glory and for beauty? or how shall we follow its eternal changefulness of feeling: It is like trying to paint a soul. [Footnote 41: From "Modern Painters," Vol. II, Section V.] To suggest the ordinary appearance of calm water--to lay on canvas as much evidence of surface and reflection as may make us understand that water is meant--is, perhaps, the easiest task of art; and even ordinary running or falling water may be sufficiently rendered, by observing careful curves of projection with a dark ground, and breaking a little white over it, as we see done with judgment and truth by Ruysdael. But to paint the actual play of hue on the reflective surface, or to give the forms and fury of water when it begins to show itself--to give the flashing and rocket-like velocity of a noble cataract, or the precision and grace of the sea wave, so exquisitely modeled, tho so mockingly transient--so mountainous in its form, yet so cold-like in its motion--with its variety and delicacy of color, when every ripple and wreath has some peculiar passage of reflection upon itself alone, and the radiating and scintillating sunbeams are mixt with the dim hues of transparent depth and dark rock below;--to do this perfectly is beyond the power of man; to do it even partially, has been granted to but one or two, even of those few who have dared to attempt it....