§ 10. NATURAL TASTE FOR COLOUR. 2o 



at this later period may be at once verified by comparing 

 them with the dominant colours of the unchangeable glass 

 windows of the earlier age, executed in the 1200* and the 

 following century. From all this it follows that the neutral 

 tint " quiet colour " of England (which many people of demure 

 habits seem to associate with propriety, as if the beautiful was 

 connected with sin), the browns and yellows of a Flemish 

 painted glass window, or the dull hues of the dingy Dutch 

 carpet, are not attributable to any malady of vision produced 

 by a murky northern atmosphere ; they are rather owing to 

 the loss of the natural and true perception of colour, and to 

 its not having yet been succeeded by a knowledge of it ob- 

 tained from good precepts. The one has been lost, and the 

 other has not yet been acquired. It must be admitted that 

 the painted glass windows of our cathedrals generally find 

 favour even with the English ; it is, therefore, surprising that 

 so many should be inconsistent enough to deny any colour to 

 the rest of the building ; those who have objected to this, both 

 on the window and the wall, are at least more consistent ; and 

 a better excuse may be found for their prejudice than for the 

 caprice of placing a coloured window only at the east end of 

 a church, where it stands in glaring contrast to all the rest 

 of the whitewashed building ; and where, from its generally 

 affecting to imitate a "painting" it has all the appearance of 

 a transparent blind. Some again object to coloured glass 

 because the light of the sun, passing through that variegated 

 medium, injures the effect of the pictures which may be in 

 the church ; but this objection is not a fair one ; for, as I 

 have elsewhere observed (Part II. § 58), such works of art, on 



* I hope I may be excused for using this mode of expressing dates, in pre- 

 ference to the usual one. It prevents that confusion of 13th and 14th centuries, 

 and the necessity of recollecting, when we say 13 or 14, that we mean 12 

 or 13. The only deviation from this will be in the " 1st century," which it will 

 be necessary to retain. 



