46 
NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
Moon 
shadows. 
Star 
shadows. 
ing of nature is undoubtedly true, but it is al- 
ways a subdued dull color. And the shadows, 
though they are luminous and not black opaque 
patches, have only dull shades of blue, purple, 
and gray. There is a modern tendency to see 
too much color in moonlight—in fact, to see 
more than really exists. The old idea of the 
whiteness of its light and the blackness of its 
shadows has passed away, but the new idea has 
some extravagance about it. Colors of every 
kind under the moon are far removed from the 
feeblest of daylight tintings. 
Feebler still than the moonlight is the ight 
that comes from the stars. The planet Venus 
and many of the fixed stars are bright enough 
to throw at times a long reflecting track upon 
ruffled water, but the colors produced by them 
upon landscape are blurred into smudges of 
dark purple and blue, and the hues of the 
shadows are too vague to be seen. 
