It was formerly the custom in such provinces as Normandy, for example,
or Britanny, to consecrate children to the color blue. The vow
was limited to a certain number of years,--seven, fourteen, or
twenty-one,--probably because of the virtues of the number seven, as
considerable as they are mysterious. Most often the final figure was
decided upon,--the age of reason, says the Church, which considers it
never too soon to place its hand upon the conscience and the will.
It was charming for the little girls, though somewhat monotonous; on
the contrary, it was troublesome to the little boys. But it seems the
custom was efficacious in warding off the illnesses of childhood, and
that it drew to the "consecrated one" the protection of the gods--I
mean, of the Virgin--and of the celestial court. The divine personages,
inhabiting the sky, which is blue, were in fact seen in blue by the
popular imagination, and to adopt their color and assume their livery
was to put oneself in the shelter of their power and win their good
grace.
Women, through an analogous, though much more complicated and varied
symbolism, often select a color and match all the elements of their
toilette to it as far as fashion permits. It is exceedingly difficult
to ascertain the reason for their choice. They themselves are at a loss
for explanation. Often they believe that they have chosen the color or
the shade that best frames their complexion or that harmonizes best
with the color of their hair. But often they go astray. Those who are
fond of bright blue would look far prettier in very pale green or in
deep red, for example. They admit this, but for form's sake only: a
secret power holds them to the color that they have desired through
instinct,--the color under which they will live, under which they will
know love and all the joys and all the tears of life.
Not only women, but men have their color. We seem to do the choosing,
but it is nature that imposes it upon us,--it is she that dedicates us
to the shade that shall be our favorite atmosphere.
One who will never feel merry amid red hangings will grow cheerful amid
green or yellow. Astrologers say that we are dominated by a planet
that controls our destiny. This is not very easy to understand. On the
contrary, nobody would deny the rôle played in our lives by colors.
Would such and such a woman have evoked the passion which is today her
happiness if her gown, on that evening, had been rose and not mauve?
Who can tell? It requires so little to entrance the eye and so little
to provoke it. A false note, and the concert that was thrilling us
fills us with laughter. If Cleopatra's nose, said Pascal, had been
shorter, the face of the world would have been changed. As for me,
I believe that Cleopatra rather resembled Dido, who, according to
Scarron's mot, was "somewhat snub-nosed, in the African style." Perhaps
it was really the happy shade of her tunic, the harmonious hue of her
peplum that vanquished Antony and brought him to the feet of the queen
of Egypt. History, which so often gossips beside the point, is mute
upon this capital question. Nevertheless, were I to write the life of
Cleopatra, I should write it in green,--Nile green, of course,--and
nobody, I believe, would have the effrontery to contradict me.
Writing lives or stories in such and such a color is one of the things
I have recently tried to do, and the attempt has in some instances
proved to be a rather delicate affair to manage. There are blue women;
there are rose ones, and mauve and red; that is to say, they may be
scarcely represented except in association with one of these colors
or shades. Conceiving an old maid who had retained her good looks,
who was very pious and yet of very equivocal habits, I could see her
only in violet. The story is violet from beginning to end; it was
impossible for me to introduce a different hue; I would have felt that
I was committing a gross offence against harmony. The lady is vowed to
violet: to place upon her head a blue or rose hat would have been a
sort of sacrilege which would have terrified even her. Can this be the
reason why her narrow life as an old maid found late in life so many
happy, if perverse, days? Without a doubt, for violet, which is her
color, is also her logic, and it is always well to have respected the
logic of one's destiny.
Now, in thus amusing myself, I have not made any pretensions toward
reforming esthetics, nor toward revolutionizing the conditions of the
art of writing. I have simply been playing with a box of pastels,
loving the colors for themselves, one by one, somewhat in the manner of
the great and singular artist Odilon Redon, whose flowers are so real
that one is moved to smell them.
We have our favorite colors. Tastes and colors.... This aphorism is
not at all so frivolous as one might believe. Nietzsche, who was by
no means a superficial spirit, cites it willingly. It is an argument
that favors individualistic philosophy and freedom of thought. It is an
argument, too, and not the least valuable, that supports determinism
and the philosophy of necessity. For the colors we love are not
dictated by choice but by a secret sympathy which it is impossible for
us to reason out. The study of tastes and colors should form part of
psychology. Perhaps there might even be discovered here the elements
of a new science. Being fond of red or of green is not a matter to be
dismissed with indifference.
A preference for red indicates rudeness, and the fondness for green
reveals tenderness of character. It is known, moreover, that red is
an excitant, while green induces repose, and meditation. The studios
of the firm of Lumière, where photographic plates are prepared, were
at first provided with red panes of glass; but this led to such
effervescence,--the men and women, after several hours of red gazed at
one another with such sparkling eyes, that it was necessary to have
recourse to panes of a soothing color. Men that come from large cities,
overexcited by the disharmony of sounds and colors, can regain a bit of
calm only amid the forests and the prairies or at the sea-shore, which
is green when it is not blue. Blue is the most soothing of colors, and
it is doubtless thanks to its blue sky that the South may endure the
brilliancy of its springs, the purple of its autumns.
Color has its importance. Before making friends with anyone, before
undertaking the conquest of a woman, observe what their favorite
colors are. Think at the same time of your own, and try to make happy
combinations. If you are fond of red, take to yourself a dash of blue,
thus forming an agreeable lilac; and if it is blue that charms you, do
not reject yellow; this combination will give you all the shades of
green and will assure you lifelong peace. How many misfortunes have
been caused by the maladroit mixing of hostile colors! But above all,
beware of violet. There is no more perfidious hue; it is, among the
colors of life, the least stable and the most hypocritical.