Incongruity may be frequently observed in the adoption of colours
without reference to their accordance with the complexion or stature
of the wearer. We continually see a light-blue bonnet and flowers
surrounding a sallow countenance, or a pink opposed to one of a
glowing red; a pale complexion associated with a canary or lemon
yellow, or one of delicate red and white rendered almost colourless by
the vicinity of deep red. Now, if the lady with the sallow complexion
had worn a transparent white bonnet; or if the lady with the glowing
red complexion had lowered it by means of a bonnet of a deeper red
colour; if the pale lady had improved the cadaverous hue of her
countenance by surrounding it with pale-green, which, by contrast,
would have suffused it with a delicate pink hue; or had the face
'Whose red and white,
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on,'
been arrayed in a light-blue, or light-green, or in a transparent
white bonnet, with blue or pink flowers on the inside--how different,
and how much more agreeable, would have been the impression on the
spectator! How frequently, again, do we see the dimensions of a tall
and _embonpoint_ figure magnified to almost Brobdignagian proportions
by a white dress, or a small woman reduced to Lilliputian size by a
black dress! Now, as the optical effect of white is to enlarge
objects, and that of black to diminish them, if the large woman had
been dressed in black, and the small woman in white, the apparent size
of each would have approached the ordinary stature, and the former
would not have appeared a giantess, or the latter a dwarf.--_Mrs
Merrifield in Art-Journal._