[75] Blue jewels, blue eyes, blue flowers delight us; but in these the
color accompanies either transparency or visible softness. It is perhaps
because of the incongruity between hard opacity and blue that the sight
of a book in sky-blue binding is unendurable. I can imagine nothing more
atrocious.
[76] This essay was written several years ago. During 1897 I noticed for
the first time since my arrival in Japan a sprinkling of dark greens
and light-yellows in the fashions of the season; but the general tone
of costume was little affected by these exceptions to older taste. The
light-yellow appeared only in some girdles of children.