4 
NATURE AND BOOKS. 21 
have I gone in three steps from May dandelion to Sep- 
tember apple ; an immense space measured by things 
beautiful, so filled that ten folio volumes could not hold 
the description of them, and I have left out the meadows, 
the brooks, and hills. Often in writing about these 
things I have felt very earnestly my own incompetence 
to give the least idea of their brilliancy and many-sided 
colours. My gamut was so very limited in its terms, 
and would not give a note to one in a thousand of those 
Isaw. At last I said, I will have more words; I will 
have more terms; I will have a book on colour, and I[ 
will find and use the right technical name for each one 
of these lovely tints. I was told that the very best book 
was by Chevreul, which had tinted illustrations, chro- 
matic scales, and all that could be desired. 
Quite true, all of it ; but for me it contained nothing. 
There was a good deal about assorted wools, but nothing 
about leaves; nothing by which I could tell you the. 
difference between the light scarlet of one poppy and 
the deep purple-scarlet of another species. The dande- 
lion remained unexplained ; as for the innumerable other 
flowers, and wings, and sky-colours, they were not even 
approached. The book, in short, dealt with the artificial 
and not with nature. Next I went to science—works 
on optics, such a mass of them. Some I had read in 
old time, and turned to again ; some I read for the first 
time, some translated from the German, and so on. It 
appeared that, experimenting with physical colour, tan- 
gible paint, they had found out that red, yellow, and 
blue were the three primary colours; and then, experi- 
menting with light itself, with colours not tangible, they 
found out that red, green, and violet were the three 
primary colours ; but neither of these would do for the 
dandelion. Once upon a time I had taken an interest 
