CHAPTER XIY. 



NATURE'S COLOR ON MOUNTAIN, MEADOW, AND 

 WOODLAND. 



THERE is no better place to study the colors of 

 Nature than on the highway. Here we may obtain 

 the best effect of light on mountain and intervale, 

 and the greatest color depth in the shadows of bor- 

 dering trees ; here the sunshine on the birches looks 

 greener than it does elsewhere, except in the woods, 

 and the emerald of the mountain pool ceases to be 

 fancy, but fact. The neutral gray-buff of the road 

 furnishes an admirable canvas, so to speak, on which 

 the colors, as in a picture, reveal their true strength 

 and beauty. 



I have elsewhere spoken of tone deafness ; it is a 

 fact that some ears lack either the ability or the 

 training to hear properly. In the same sense there 

 are many of us who do not properly see color in 

 Nature. Years ago, when the impressionists first ex- 

 hibited their work in Paris, they were ridiculed by 



220 



