96 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



point onwards, through magenta, hlac, mauve, 

 violet, purple, refinement is increasingly marked 

 until blue is reached. Then blue, starting darkly, 

 advances to " Cambridge " tints, and so into 

 v^hite. 



Now white is the " colour " of which we know 

 the least — and talk the most. Really, it indicates 

 nothing— that which is as " a bunghole without a 

 barrel round it" — and of this, naturally, we can have 

 but a very inaccurate appreciation. We speak 

 glibly about white, and we soar with it to giddy, 

 dreamy heights, but we speak and mostly dream of 

 colour not of white. For — 



" liife, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 

 Stains the white radiance of eternity." 



We talk of snow as if it were of no colour ; but we 

 are able to talk about it only because it is so 

 colour-full. We talk arrogantly of ourselves as 

 " white people," and we are able to do so because 

 we are not white people, but people with a rude 

 amount of red in us — " animals with red cheeks," 

 as Nietzsche calls us ; indeed, it is possible that the 

 negro has more right to call himself a white man, 

 for he is nearer to black than we are to white, and, 

 according to the well-known formula, " Black is 



