button to main menu  Observations on Picturesque Beauty, page 98

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vol.1 p.98
  lake, surface
The surface of the lake offers itself last to observation. The several incidents, which arise here, are all owing to the sky, and the disposition of the water to receive it's impression.
That the sky is the great regulator of the colour of the water, is known to all artists.

Olli caeruleus supra caput astitit imber,
Noctem hyememque ferens: et inhorruit unda tenebris.
And again

Jamque rubesebat radiis mare, et athere ab alto
Aurora in roseis fulgebat lutea bigis.
The effect indeed holds universally; as water in all cases, exposed to the sky, will act as a mirror to it.
In the darkness of a brooding storm, we have just seen, the whole body of the water will be dark: inhorruit unda tenebris.
In clear, in windy weather, the breezy ruffled lake, as Thomson calls it, is a shattered mirror: It reflects the serenity; but reflects it partially. the hollow of each wave is commonly in shadow, the summit is tipped with light. The light or shadow therefore prevails, according to the position of the waves to the
eye:
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