THE GREAT MIRROR 



73 



they are but as vague forms of light that slowly 

 glide under the celestial blue. 



The two blues ! Have they always been blue 

 to human eyes? The Semite thought the sky 

 was merely a shade of white, an embodiment 

 of light akin to sapphire ; and the Greek spoke 

 of the sea as " wine-dark " and even " black," 

 l)ut never " blue." The Kig-Veda, the Talmud, 

 the Homeric poems, the Edda, do not mention 

 the word. Was this a limitation of vision or 

 merely of vocabulary? The average person to- 

 day has neither eye nor name for the finely 

 broken hues used in the manufacture of silks 

 and tapestries, and it is not to be wondered at 

 if the ancients confused colors with the light 

 which they contained, and considered them 

 merely as tones or shades of white. 



Yet the blues have a very real existence. 

 The sky color I have already described and 

 explained as caused by the dust particles in 

 the u])per air which refract and practically 

 hold in check the blue rays of the sunbeam;* 

 and the sea color is always more or less a re- 

 flection of the sky. The sea itself is like a 

 mirror and, of course, it comes the nearest to 

 faithfully reproducing what is over it when its 

 waters are the smoothest; but from the fact 

 * The Desert, p. 82 et seq. 



The two 

 blues. 



Knowledge 

 of color 

 with the 

 ancients. 



The sen like 

 a mirn-r. 



