re he wishes to obtain an expression of repose: in my notice of the
plate of Scarborough, in the series of the Harbors of England, I have
already had occasion to dwell on this point; and I extract in the
note[55] one or two sentences which explain the principle. In the
composition I have chosen for our illustration, this reduplication is
employed to a singular extent. The tower, or leading feature, is first
repeated by the low echo of it to the left; put your finger over this
lower tower, and see how the picture is spoiled. Then the spires of
Coblentz are all arranged in couples (how they are arranged in reality
does not matter; when we are composing a great picture, we must play the
towers about till they come right, as fearlessly as if they were
chessmen instead of cathedrals). The dual arrangement of these towers
would have been too easily seen, were it not for the little one which
pretends to make a triad of the last group on the right, but is so faint
as hardly to be discernible: it just takes off the attention from the
artifice, helped in doing so by the mast at the head of the boat, which,
however, has instantly its own duplicate put at the stern.[56] Then
there is the large boat near, and its echo beyond it. That echo is
divided into two again, and each of those two smaller boats has two
figures in it; while two figures are also sitting together on the great
rudder that lies half in the water, and half aground. Then, finally, the
great mass of Ehrenbreitstein, which appears at first to have no
answering form, has almost its _facsimile_ in the bank on which the girl
is sitting; this bank is as absolutely essential to the completion of
the picture as any object in the whole series. All this is done to
deepen the effect of repose.

198. Symmetry, or the balance of parts or masses in nearly equal
opposition, is one of the conditions of treatment under the law of
Repetition. For the opposition, in a symmetrical object, is of like
things reflecting each other: it is not the balance of contrary natures
(like that of day and night), but of like natures or like forms; one
side of a leaf being set like the reflection of the other in water.

Symmetry in Nature is, however, never formal nor accurate. She takes the
greatest care to secure some difference between the corresponding things
or parts of things; and an approximation to accurate symmetry is only
permitted in animals, because their motions secure perpetual differenc