84 PKOSERPINA. 



would be changed for all the rest of his life. But his igno- 

 rance of good art is no excuse for the acutely illogical sim- 

 plicity of the rest of his talk of colour in the " Descent of 

 Man." Peacocks' tails, he thinks, are the result of the ad- 

 miration of blue tails in the minds of well-bred peahens, 

 and similarly, mandrills' noses the result of the admiration 

 of blue noses in well-bred baboons. But it never occurs to 

 him to ask why the admiration of blue noses is healthy in 

 baboons, so that it develops their race properly, while sim- 

 ilar maidenly admiration either of blue noses or red noses 

 in men would be improper 5 and develop the race improper- 

 ly. The word itself 'proper' being one of which he has 

 never asked, or guessed, the meaning. And when he 

 imagined the gradation of the cloudings in feathers to rep- 

 resent successive generation, it never occurred to him to 

 look at the much finer cloudy gradations in the clouds of 

 dawn themselves ; and explain the modes of sexual pref- 

 erence and selective development which had brought them 

 to their scarlet glory, before the cock could crow thrice. 

 Putting all these vespertilian speculations out of our way, 

 the human facts concerning colour are briefly these. 

 Wherever men are noble, they love bright colour ; and 

 wherever they can live healthily, bright colour is given 

 them in sky, sea, flowers, and living creatures. 



On the other hand, wherever men are ignoble and sensual, 

 they endure without pain, and at last even come to like 

 (especially if artists,) mud-colour and black, and to dislike 

 rose-colour and white. And wherever it is unhealthy for 



