Blue and Gold! 79 



grass, like the finest of backgrounds, may only empha- 

 sise the effect of unity and harmony. We all know 

 what effects are secured by painters through laying 

 their semi-transparent colours over darker and more 

 opaque ones. Nature clearly has forestalled the artist 

 here, and does the same in many of her finest arrange- 

 ments and harmonies. 



In plots in the more shaded parts, and often nestling 

 close to the roots of certain trees, grow primroses in 

 thick tufts and clusters ; for it is, above all, a grega- 

 rious flower, and the wild violets seem everywhere to 

 sidle up to the primroses ; and just, as sometimes it 

 appears, as though beauties in society pair so as to set 

 off each other's charms to the best advantage, so one 

 might fancy that some such idea determines the asso- 

 ciation of primroses and wild violets. And even 

 among the primroses — though to not a few even of 

 those who live in the country, Wordsworth's lines on 

 Peter Bell would apply — 



" A primrose by the river's brim 

 A yellow primrose was to him, 

 And it was nothing more ; " — 



Even among the primroses, we say, if you look well, 

 you will find a gentle variation of depth of tint such 

 as will perhaps surprise you. They vary from the 

 palest yellow or straw colour up almost to the yellow 

 of sulphur, and the sense of unity and satisfaction to 

 the eye in the mass may, to some extent, be due to this. 

 Blue and gold ! The colours of the stars and the 

 sky ! Well might the poet sing of the flowers as the 

 stars of earth — if he had only more emphatically cele- 

 brated the sky of earth, which the violets and the 

 hyacinths are ! 



