NATURE And books. 



have I gone In three steps from May dandelion to Sep- 

 tember apple ; an immense space measured by things 

 beautiful, so filled that ten folio volumes could not hold 

 the description of them, and I have left out the meadows, 

 the brooks, and hills. Often in writing about these 

 things I have felt very earnestly my own incompetence 

 to give the least idea of their brilliancy and many-sided 

 colours. My gamut was so very limited in its terms, 

 and would not give a note to one in a thousand of those 

 I saw. At last I said, I will have more words ; I will 

 have more terms ; I will have a book on colour, and I 

 will find and use the right technical name for each one 

 of these lovely tints. I was told that the very best book 

 was by Chevreul, which had tinted illustrations, chro- 

 matic scales, and all that could be desired. 



Quite true, all of it ; but for me it contained nothing. 

 There was a good deal about assorted wools, but nothing 

 about leaves ; nothing by which I could tell you the 

 difference between the light scarlet of one poppy and 

 the deep purple-scarlet of another species. The dande- 

 lion remained unexplained ; as for the innumerable other 

 flowers, and wings, and sky-colours, they were not even 

 approached. The book, in short, dealt with the artificial 

 and not with nature. Next I went to science — works 

 on optics, such a mass of them. Some I had read in 

 old time, and turned to again ; some I read for the first 

 time, some translated from the German, and so on. It 

 appeared that, experimenting with physical colour, tan- 

 gible paint, they had found out that red, yellow, and 

 blue were the three primary colours ; and then, experi- 

 menting with light itself, with colours not tangible, they 

 found out that red, green, and violet were the three 

 primary colours ; but neither of these would do for the 

 dandelion. Once upon a time I had taken an interest 



