CHRYSANTHEMUMS 



faithful to their old masters and wear the livery of the drab 

 and weary months that give them birth. It does not permit 

 them to betray those masters and to don the princely shot 

 garments of Spring and sunrise ; and, if, sometimes, it suffers 

 a pink, this is only on condition that it be borrowed from the 

 cold lips, the pale brow of the veiled and afflicted virgin pray- 

 ing on a tomb. It forbids most strictly the tints of Summer, 

 of too youthful, ardent and serene a life, of a health too joyous 

 and exuberant. In no case will it consent to hilarious ver- 

 milions, impetuous scarlets, imperious and dazzling purples. 

 As for the blues, from the azure of the dawn to the indigo of 

 the sea and the deep lakes, from the periwinkle to the borage 

 and the larkspur, they are banished under pain of death. 



4 



Nevertheless, thanks to some inadvertence on the part of 

 nature, the most unusual colour in the world of flowers and 

 the most severely forbidden, the colour which the corolla of 

 the poisonous spurge is almost alone in wearing in the city 

 of umbels, petals and calyces, green, the colour exclusively 

 reserved for the servile and nutrient leaves, has penetrated 

 within the jealously-guarded precincts. True, it has slipped 



[165] 



