46 



NATURE FOB ITS OWN SAKE 



Star 

 thadowt. 



ing of nature is undoubtedly true, but it is al- 

 ways a subdued dull color. And the shadows, 

 though they are luminous and not black opaque 

 patches, have only dull shades of blue, purple, 

 and gray. There is a modern tendency to see 

 too much color in moonlight in fact, to see 

 more than really exists. The old idea of the 

 whiteness of its light and the blackness of its 

 shadows has passed away, but the new idea has 

 some extravagance about it. Colors of every 

 kind under the moon are far removed from the 

 feeblest of daylight tintings. 



Feebler still than the moonlight is the light 

 that comes from the stars. The planet Venus 

 and many of the fixed stars are bright enough 

 to throw at times a long reflecting track upon 

 ruffled water, but the colors produced by them 

 upon landscape are blurred into smudges of 

 dark purple and blue, and the hues of the 

 shadows are too vague to be seen. 



