THE CHARM OF COLOR
"How strange are the freaks of memory,
The lessons of life we forget.
While a trifle, a trick of color,
In the wonderful web is set."
--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
The quality of charm in color is most subtle; it is like the human
attribute known as fascination, "whereof," says old Cotton Mather, "men
have more Experience than Comprehension." Certainly some alliance of
color with a form suited or wonted to it is necessary to produce a
gratification of the senses. Thus in the leaves of plants every shade of
green is pleasing; then why is there no charm in a green flower? The
green of Mignonette bloom would scarcely be deemed beautiful were it not
for our association of it with the delicious fragrance. White is the
absence of color. In flowers a pure chalk-white, and a snow-white (which
is bluish) is often found; but more frequently the white flower blushes
a little, or is warmed with yellow, or has green veins.
Where green runs into the petals of a white flower, its beauty hangs by
a slender thread. If the green lines have any significance, as have the
faint green checkerings of the Fritillary, which I have described
elsewhere in this book, they add to its interest; but ordinarily they
make the petals seem undeveloped. The Snowdrop bears the mark of one of
the few tints of green which we like in white flowers; its "heart-shaped
seal of green," sung by Rossetti, has been noted by many other poets.
Tennyson wrote:--
"Pure as lines of green that streak the white
Of the first Snowdrop's inner leaves."
[Illustration: Spring Snowflake.]
A cousin of the Snowdrop, is the "Spring Snowflake" or Leucojum, called
also by New England country folk "High Snowdrop." It bears at the end of
each snowy petal a tiny exact spot of green; and I think it must have
been the flower sung by Leigh Hunt:--
"The nice-leaved lesser Lilies,
Shading like detected light
Their little green-tipt lamps of white."
The illustration on page 234 shows the graceful growth of the flower and
its exquisitely precise little green-dotted petals, but it has not
caught its luminous whiteness, which seems almost of phosphorescent
brightness in each little flower.
The Star of Bethlehem is a plant in which the white and green of the
leaf is curiously repeated in the flower. Gardeners seldom admit this
flower now to their gardens, it so quickly crowds out everything else;
it has become on Long Island nothing but a weed. The high-growing Star
of Bethlehem is a pretty thing. A bed of it in my sister's garden is
shown on page 237.
It is curious that when all agree that green flowers have no beauty and
scant charm, that a green flower should have been one of the best-loved
flowers of my home garden. But this love does not come from any thought
of the color or beauty of the flower, but from association. It was my
mother's favorite, hence it is mine. It was her favorite because she
loved its clear, pure, spicy fragrance. This ever present and ever
welcome scent which pervades the entire garden if leaf or flower of the
loved Ambrosia be crushed, is curious and characteristic, a true
"ambrosiack odor," to use Ben Jonson's words.
A vivid description of Ambrosia is that of Gerarde in his delightful
_Herball_.
"Oke of Jerusalem, or Botrys, hath sundry small stems a foote and a
halfe high dividing themselves into many small branches. The leafe
very much resembling the leafe of an Oke, which hath caused our
English women to call it Oke of Jerusalem. The upper side of the
leafe is a deepe greene and somewhat rough and hairy, but
underneath it is of a darke reddish or purple colour. The seedie
floures grow clustering about the branches like the yong clusters
or blowings of the Vine. The roote is small and thriddy. The whole
herbe is of a pleasant smell and savour, and the whole plant dieth
when the seed is ripe. Oke of Jerusalem is of divers called
Ambrosia."
Ambrosia has been loved for many centuries by Englishwomen; it is in the
first English list of names of plants, which was made in 1548 by one Dr.
Turner; and in this list it is called "Ambrose." He says of it:--
"Botrys is called in englishe, Oke of Hierusalem, in duche, trauben
kraute, in french pijmen. It groweth in gardines muche in England."
Ambrosia has now died out "in gardines muche in England." I have had
many letters from English flower lovers telling me they know it not; and
I have had the pleasure of sending the seeds to several old English and
Scotch gardens, where I hope it will once more grow and flourish, for I
am sure it must feel at home.
[Illustration: Star of Bethlehem.]
The seeds of this beloved Ambrosia, which filled my mother's garden in
every spot in which it could spring, and which overflowed with cheerful
welcome into the gardens of our neighbors, was given her from the garden
of a great-aunt in Walpole, New Hampshire. This Walpole garden was a
famous gathering of old-time favorites, and it had the delightful
companionship of a wild garden. On a series of terraces with shelving
banks, which reached down to a stream, the boys of the family planted,
seventy years ago, a myriad of wild flowers, shrubs, and trees, from the
neighboring woods. By the side of the garden great Elm trees sheltered
scores of beautiful gray squirrels; and behind the house and garden an
orchard led to the wheat fields, which stretched down to the broad
Connecticut River. All flowers thrived there, both in the Box-bordered
beds and in the wild garden, perhaps because the morning mists from the
river helped out the heavy buckets of water from the well during the hot
summer weeks. Even in winter the wild garden was beautiful from the
brilliant Bittersweet which hung from every tree.
[Illustration: "The Pearl."]
Here Ambrosia was plentiful, but is plentiful no longer; and Walpole
garden lovers seek seeds of it from the Worcester garden. I think it
dies out generally when all the weeding and garden care is done by
gardeners; they assume that the little plants of such modest bearing
are weeds, and pull them up, with many other precious seedlings of the
old garden, in their desire to have ample expanse of naked dirt. One of
the charms which was permitted to the old garden was its fulness. Nature
there certainly abhorred a vacant space. The garden soil was full of
resources; it had a seed for every square inch; it seemed to have a
reserve store ready to crowd into any space offered by the removal or
dying down of a plant at any time.
Let me tell of a curious thing I found in an old book, anent our
subject--green flowers. It shows that we must not accuse our modern
sensation lovers, either in botany or any other science, of being the
only ones to add artifice to nature. The green Carnation has been chosen
to typify the decadence and monstrosity of the end of the nineteenth
century; but nearly two hundred years ago a London fruit and flower
grower, named Richard Bradley, wrote a treatise upon field husbandry and
garden culture, and in it he tells of a green Carnation which "a certayn
fryar" produced by grafting a Carnation upon a Fennel stalk. The flowers
were green for several years, then nature overcame decadent art.
There be those who are so enamoured of the color green and of foliage,
that they care little for flowers of varied tint; even in a garden, like
the old poet Marvell, they deem,--
"No white nor red was ever seen
So amorous as this lovely green."
Such folk could scarce find content in an American garden; for our
American gardeners must confess, with Shakespeare's clown: "I am no
great Nebuchadnezzar, sir, I have not much skill in grass." Our lawns
are not old enough.
A charming greenery of old English gardens was the bowling-green. We
once had them in our colonies, as the name of a street in our greatest
city now proves; and I deem them a garden fashion well-to-be-revived.
The laws of color preference differ with the size of expanses. Our broad
fields often have pleasing expanses of leafage other than green, and
flowers that are as all-pervading as foliage. Many flowers of the field
have their day, when each seems to be queen, a short day, but its rights
none dispute. Snow of Daisies, yellow of Dandelions, gold of Buttercups,
purple pinkness of Clover, Innocence, Blue-eyed Grass, Milkweed, none
reign more absolutely in every inch of the fields than that poverty
stricken creature, the Sorrel. William Morris warns us that "flowers in
masses are mighty strong color," and must be used with much caution in a
garden. But there need be no fear of massed color in a field, as being
ever gaudy or cloying. An approach to the beauty and satisfaction of
nature's plentiful field may be artificially obtained as an adjunct to
the garden in a flower-close sown or set with a solid expanse of bloom
of some native or widely adopted plant. I have seen a flower-close of
Daisies, another of Buttercups, one of Larkspur, one of Coreopsis. A new
field tint, and a splendid one, has been given to us within a few
years, by the introduction of the vivid red of Italian clover. It is
eagerly welcomed to our fields, so scant of scarlet. This clover was
brought to America in the years 1824 _et seq._, and is described in
contemporary publications in alluring sentences. I have noted the
introduction of several vegetables, grains, fruits, berries, shrubs, and
flowers in those years, and attribute this to the influence of the visit
of Lafayette in 1824. Adored by all, his lightest word was heeded; and
he was a devoted agriculturist and horticulturist, ever exchanging
ideas, seeds, and plants with his American fellow-patriots and
fellow-farmers. I doubt if Italian clover then became widely known; but
our modern farmers now think well of it, and the flower lover revels in
it.
The exigencies of rhyme and rhythm force us to endure some very curious
notions of color in the poets. I think no saying of poet ever gave
greater check to her lovers than these lines of Emily Dickinson:--
"Nature rarer uses yellow
Than another hue;
Saves she all of that for sunsets,
Prodigal of blue.
Spending scarlet like a woman,
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly,
Like a lover's words."
I read them first with a sense of misapprehension that I had not seen
aright; but there the words stood out, "Nature rarer uses yellow than
another hue." The writer was such a jester, such a tricky elf that I
fancy she wrote them in pure "contrariness," just to see what folks
would say, how they would dispute over her words. For I never can doubt
that, with all her recluse life, she knew intuitively that some time her
lines would be read by folks who would love them.
[Illustration: Pyrethrum.]
The scarcity of red wild flowers is either a cause or an effect; at any
rate it is said to be connected with the small number of humming-birds,
who play an important part in the fertilization of many of the red
flowers. There are no humming-birds in Europe; and the Aquilegia, red
and yellow here, is blue there, and is then fertilized by the assistance
of the bumblebee. Without humming-birds the English successfully
accomplish one glorious sweep of red in the Poppies of the field;
Parkinson called them "a beautiful and gallant red"--a very happy
phrase. Ruskin, that master of color and of its description, and above
all master of the description of Poppies, says:--
"The Poppy is the most transparent and delicate of all the blossoms
of the field. The rest, nearly all of them, depend on the texture
of their surface for color. But the Poppy is painted glass; it
never glows so brightly as when the sun shines through it. Whenever
it is seen, against the light or with the light, it is a flame, and
warms the wind like a blown ruby."
There is one quality of the Oriental Poppies which is very palpable to
me. They have often been called insolent--Browning writes of the
"Poppy's red affrontery"; to me the Poppy has an angry look. It is
wonderfully haughty too, and its seed-pod seems like an emblem of its
rank. This great green seed-pod stands one inch high in the centre of
the silken scarlet robe, and has an antique crown of purple bands with
filling of lilac, just like the crown in some ancient kingly portraits,
when the bands of gold and gems radiating from a great jewel in the
centre are filled with crimson or purple velvet. Around this splendid
crowned seed-vessel are rows of stamens and purple anthers of richest
hue.
We must not let any scarlet flower be dropped from the garden, certainly
not the Geranium, which just at present does not shine so bravely as a
few years ago. The general revulsion of feeling against "bedding out"
has extended to the poor plants thus misused, which is unjust. I find I
have spoken somewhat despitefully of the Coleus, Lobelia, and
Calceolaria, so I hasten to say that I do not include the Geranium with
them. I love its clean color, in leaf and blossom; its clean fragrance;
its clean beauty, its healthy growth; it is a plant I like to have near
me.
It has been the custom of late to sneer at crimson in the garden,
especially if its vivid color gets a dash of purple and becomes what
Miss Jekyll calls "malignant magenta." It is really more vulgar than
malignant, and has come to be in textile products a stamp and symbol of
vulgarity, through the forceful brilliancy of our modern aniline dyes.
But this purple crimson, this amarant, this magenta, especially in the
lighter shades, is a favorite color in nature. The garden is never weary
of wearing it. See how it stands out in midsummer! It is rank in Ragged
Robin, tall Phlox, and Petunias; you find it in the bed of Drummond
Phlox, among the Zinnias; the Portulacas, Balsams, and China Asters
prolong it. Earlier in the summer the Rhododendrons fill the garden with
color that on some of the bushes is termed sultana and crimson, but it
is in fact plain magenta. One of the good points of the Peony is that
you never saw a magenta one.
This color shows that time as well as place affects our color notions,
for magenta is believed to be the honored royal purple of the ancients.
Fifty years ago no one complained of magenta. It was deemed a cheerful
color, and was set out boldly and complacently by the side of pink or
scarlet, or wall flower colors. Now I dislike it so that really the
printed word, seen often as I glance back through this page, makes the
black and white look cheap. If I could turn all magenta flowers pink or
purple, I should never think further about garden harmony, all other
colors would adjust themselves.
It has been the fortune of some communities to be the home of men in
nature like Thoreau of Concord and Gilbert White of Selborne, men who
live solely in love of out-door things, birds, flowers, rocks, and
trees. To all these nature lovers is not given the power of writing down
readily what they see and know, usually the gift of composition is
denied them; but often they are just as close and accurate observers as
the men whose names are known to the world by their writings. Sometimes
these naturalists boldly turn to nature, their loved mother, and earn
their living in the woods and fields. Sometimes they have a touch of the
hermit in them, they prefer nature to man; others are genial, kindly
men, albeit possessed of a certain reserve. I deem the community blest
that has such a citizen, for his influence in promoting a love and study
of nature is ever great. I have known one such ardent naturalist, Arba
Peirce, ever since my childhood. He lives the greater part of his waking
hours in the woods and fields, and these waking hours are from sunrise.
From the earliest bloom of spring to the gay berry of autumn, he knows
all beautiful things that grow, and where they grow, for hundreds of
miles around his home.
[Illustration: Terraced Garden of Misses Nichols, Salem, Massachusetts.]
I speak of him in this connection because he has acquired through his
woodland life a wonderful power of distinguishing flowers at great
distance with absolute accuracy. Especially do his eyes have the power
of detecting those rose-lilac tints which are characteristic of our
rarest, our most delicate wild flowers, and which I always designate to
myself as Arethusa color. He brought me this June a royal gift--a great
bunch of wild fringed Orchids, another of Calopogon, and one of
Arethusa. What a color study these three made! At the time their
lilac-rose tints seemed to me far lovelier than any pure rose colors. In
those wild princesses were found every tone of that lilac-rose from the
faint blush like the clouds of a warm sunset, to a glow on the lip of
the Arethusa, like the crimson glow of Mullein Pink.
My friend of the meadow and wildwood had gathered that morning a
glorious harvest, over two thousand stems of Pogonia, from his own
hidden spot, which he has known for forty years and from whence no other
hand ever gathers. For a little handful of these flower heads he easily
obtains a dollar. He has acquired gradually a regular round of
customers, for whom he gathers a successive harvest of wild flowers from
Pussy Willows and Hepatica to winter berries. It is not easily earned
money to stand in heavy rubber boots in marsh mud and water reaching
nearly to the waist, but after all it is happy work. Jeered at in his
early life by fools for his wood-roving tastes, he has now the pleasure
and honor of supplying wild flowers to our public schools, and being the
authority to whom scholars and teachers refer in vexed questions of
botany.
I think the various tints allied to purple are the most difficult to
define and describe of any in the garden. To begin with, all these
pinky-purple, these arethusa tints are nameless; perhaps orchid color is
as good a name as any. Many deem purple and violet precisely the same.
Lavender has much gray in its tint. Miss Jekyll deems mauve and lilac
the same; to me lilac is much pinker, much more delicate. Is heliotrope
a pale bluish purple? Some call it a blue faintly tinged with red. Then
there are the orchid tints, which have more pink than blue. It is a
curious fact that, with all these allied tints which come from the union
of blue with red, the color name comes from a flower name. Violet,
lavender, lilac, heliotrope, orchid, are examples; each is an exact
tint. Rose and pink are color names from flowers, and flowers of much
variety of colors, but the tint name is unvarying.
Edward de Goncourt, of all writers on flowers and gardens, seems to have
been most frankly pleased with the artificial side of the gardener's
art. He viewed the garden with the eye of a colorist, setting a palette
of varied greens from the deep tones of the evergreens, the Junipers and
Cryptomerias through the variegated Hollies, Privets and Spindle trees;
and he said that an "elegantly branched coquettishly variegated bush"
seemed to him like a piece of bric-a-brac which should be hunted out and
praised like some curio hidden on the shelf of a collector.
A lack of color perception seems to have been prevalent of ancient days,
as it is now in some Oriental countries. The Bible offers evidence of
this, and it has also been observed that the fragrance of flowers is
nowhere noted until we reach the Song of Solomon. It is believed that in
earliest time archaic men had no sense of color; that they knew only
light and darkness. Mr. Gladstone wrote a most interesting paper on the
lack of color sense in Homer, whose perception of brilliant light was
good, especially in the glowing reflections of metals, but who never
names blue or green even in speaking of the sky, or trees, while his
reds and purples are hopelessly mixed. Some German scientists have
maintained that as recently as Homer's day, our ancestors were (to use
Sir John Lubbock's word) blue-blind, which fills me, as it must all blue
lovers, with profound pity.
[Illustration: Arbor in a Salem Garden.]
The influence of color has ever been felt by other senses than that of
sight. In the _Cotton Manuscripts_, written six hundred years ago, the
relations and effects of color on music and coat-armor were laboriously
explained: and many later writers have striven to show the effect of
color on the health, imagination, or fortune. I see no reason for
sneering at these notions of sense-relation; I am grateful for borrowed
terms of definition for these beautiful things which are so hard to
define. When an artist says to me, "There is a color that sings," I know
what he means; as I do when my friend says of the funeral music in
_Tristan_ that "it always hurts her eyes." Musicians compose symphonies
in color, and artists paint pictures in symphonies. Musicians and
authors acknowledge the domination of color and color terms; a glance at
a modern book catalogue will prove it. Stephen Crane and other modern
extremists depend upon color to define and describe sounds, smells,
tastes, feelings, ideas, vices, virtues, traits, as well as sights.
Sulphur-yellow is deemed an inspiring color, and light green a clean
color; every one knows the influence of bright red upon many animals and
birds; it is said all barnyard fowl are affected by it. If any one can
see a sunny bed of blue Larkspur in full bloom without being moved
thereby, he must be color blind and sound deaf as well, for that indeed
is a sight full of music and noble inspiration, a realization of Keats'
beautiful thought:--
"Delicious symphonies, like airy flowers
Budded, and swell'd, and full-blown, shed full showers
Of light, soft unseen leaves of sound divine."