Color and Its Combinations 13 
because yellow in its purity is a color of 
such wonderful light and transparency. 
Pure yellow, indeed, is very rare in na- 
ture, for yellow flowers are usually shaded 
towards red or blue — that is, into orange 
or green. 
All of this is general, of course, and 
elastic, in its application, for among 
flowers the green of the foliage and the 
white which we may always fall back upon, 
allow a really wide latitude. It is well, 
however, to conform to these basic prin- 
ciples, unless one is a color genius. Then 
very wonderful color harmonies — truly 
66 lyric 99 gardens — may be worked out, by 
making daring departures from them. 
Whistler did this in some of his pictures — 1 
but Whistler is caviare to the masses, re- 
member: and it is the masses usually for 
whom gardens are planted and tended. 
We are most of us the masses ; very few 
have a color perception of such delicacy 
that the commonly accepted discords are 
actually seen to be harmonies. 
