The Beauty of Trees 
when her greens are exhausted, Nature falls 
back upon other colors, and gives us such an 
eccentric thing as, for instance, the purple 
beech. 
In default of a marked natural gift, it is 
more difficult, perhaps, to cultivate a good 
eye for color than for form ; yet it can be 
largely developed by a process of constant 
observation and comparison. The main 
trouble is that few people even try to appre- 
ciate the difference between coloristic har- 
monies and discords. They do not really 
look at anything they see. 
As it is with texture, so it is with color in 
trees : restfulness, which implies dignity, of 
effect, is more often desirable than restless- 
ness and fragile grace, and is always desir- 
able when a large mass is in question ; and 
it may broadly be said that dark colors are 
quieter than pale colors, and that the most 
restless of all are those which are mottled 
instead of simple. The unquiet look of a 
silver-maple, for instance, as compared with 
the restful look of a sugar -maple, depends as 
much upon the contrasted colors of the up- 
per and lower sides of its leaves as upon 
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