An Ocean of Azure 



monotony of tint so uninteresting that she was 

 charmed to get back to her old friend. 



Tastes differ, certainly. Not many would 

 agree with her. Yet it is a fact that the great 

 Turner went to the Bristol Channel, with all 

 its mud, for many of his marvellous sea and 

 cloud effects. 



" Deeply, darkly, beautifully blue," sang Byron 

 of the ocean, and he sang truly, even though 

 the ocean itself, putting aside the Bristol Channel, 

 is not always and uniformly azure. Near land 

 the tint is often greenish. Sometimes it is pure 

 green. Often it is a pale and watery blue. At 

 other times we have a leaden grey. The genuine 

 ocean-blue, which resembles nothing else on 

 Earth, can seldom be enjoyed till one gets on 

 really deep water, far from land. Or till one 

 is looking at the Mediterranean. 



Why should the sea be blue ? And why 

 should the sky be blue ? For the matter of that, 

 why should anything be blue ? What do we 

 mean by colour ? whether blue or green, red or 

 yellow ? 



We mean that particular tint or sensation 

 which the object in question causes us to see 

 or feel. The object receives sunlight, and 

 reflects it to our eyes. And since sunlight is 



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