CHAPTER XIV 

 MAGENTA THE MALIGNED 



Beauty deprived of its proper foils ceases to be enjoyed as beauty, just 



as light deprived of all shadow ceases to be enjoyed as light. ^ 



— Ruskin. 



THE above quotation supplies the reason that ma- 

 genta is so universally despised and shunned. Not 

 only is it deprived of its proper foils, but it is nearly 

 always set down beside those colours surest to bring out its 

 worst side. I am very fond of this colour as worn by 

 flowers and have taken some trouble to bring it into har- 

 mony with its surroundings. Combative it is, but to be 

 won; fastidious as to its associations, but gentle and beauti- 

 ful when considered. Surely any one who has seen the 

 sumptuous rim of colour following the banks of the Hudson 

 River and its tributary streams in certain sections where 

 the Rose Loosestrife, a flower of the purest magenta, has 

 naturalized itself, will not deny the possibility of beauty in 

 the use of this colour. Besides the Loosestrife many of the 

 finest hardy plants garb themselves in the maligned hue, 

 and Mr. Schuyler Mathews in his "Field Book of American 

 Wildflowers" gives 73 familiar wild flowers that are en- 

 rolled under the magenta banner. But in all my gardening 

 experience I have met only one person who confessed 



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