80 A TOUR KOUNB MY GARDEN. 



brought together by upholsterers, produce, with me, the most 

 disagreeable impressions. 



It often happens, even in houses in which I am not very- 

 much at home, that I rise in the midst of a conversation to 

 go and separate two inimical coloiu^, which some unlucky 

 chance has brought into conjunction upon one piece of furni- 

 ture. There are, for me, between colours and their shades, 

 discords as strong as those that can possibly exist between 

 certain notes of music. 



There are no false colours except in the nomenclature of our 

 marchandes des modes; but there are assemblages of colours 

 as false as the notes of any one who had never had a bow in 

 his hand, but took up a violin and scraped away at random. 

 I remember two persons who were always disagreeable to me 

 on account of the colours they persisted in wecving : the first 

 was a certain large woman, who always appeared in green 

 dresses and yellow bonnets; the other, a man who decked 

 himself out in staring red waistcoats and bright blue cravats. 

 I endeavoured to contend against the prejudices inspired by 

 such disfigurements; I have reason to repent of them: I 

 have since had much to complain of in my relations with 

 these two persons. 



There are at least as many people with a false sight as with 

 a false ear, without speaking of painters, some of whom see 

 yellow, and others blue or grey, as if they looked at objects 

 through spectacles of these colours. ' 



It is remarkable that country people seem to acknowledge 

 no colour but red, the domain of which, for them, embraces 

 rose-colour and orange, and all the shades comprised within 

 these two colours: — ^yellow, but only certain shades; when it 

 is pale, they call it white; when deeper, it is red; — blue, 

 which begins at amaranth and embraces all the shades of 

 violet, except pure blue, which they sometimes confound with 

 green. They know green pretty well ; white is applied to all 

 pale shades, black to all deep shades. 



Being one day on the sea-shore, I walked over a track 

 completely covered with little withered flowers, and so close 

 together, that I thought, if viewed from a distance at the 

 time of their blowing, the entire hill must have appeared of 

 their colour. Well, not a soul in the country could tell me 



