Green must always have a large following among artists and art lovers;
for, as has been pointed out, an appreciation of it is a sure sign of a
subtle artistic temperament. There is something not quite good,
something almost sinister, about it--at least, in its more complex
forms, though in its simple form, as we find it in outdoor nature, it is
innocent enough; and, indeed, is it not used in colloquial metaphor as
an adjective for innocence itself? Innocence has but two colours, white
or green. But Becky Sharp's eyes also were green, and the green of the
aesthete does not suggest innocence. There will always be wearers of the
green carnation; but the popular vogue which green has enjoyed for the
last ten or fifteen years is probably passing. Even the aesthete himself
would seem to be growing a little weary of its indefinitely divided
tones, and to be anxious for a colour sensation somewhat more positive
than those to be gained from almost imperceptible _nuances_, of green.
Jaded with over-refinements and super-subtleties, we seem in many
directions to be harking back to the primary colours of life. Blue,
crude and unsoftened, and a form of magenta, have recently had a short
innings; and now the triumph of yellow is imminent. Of course, a love
for green implies some regard for yellow, and in our so-called aesthetic
renaissance the sunflower went before the green carnation--which is,
indeed, the badge of but a small schism of aesthetes, and not worn by
the great body of the more catholic lovers of beauty.
Yellow is becoming more and more dominant in decoration--in wall-papers,
and flowers cultivated with decorative intention, such as
chrysanthemums. And one can easily understand why: seeing that, after
white, yellow reflects more light than any other colour, and thus
ministers to the growing preference for light and joyous rooms. A few
yellow chrysanthemums will make a small room look twice its size, and
when the sun comes out upon a yellow wall-paper the whole room seems
suddenly to expand, to open like a flower. When it falls upon the pot of
yellow chrysanthemums, and sets them ablaze, it seems as though one had
an angel in the room. Bill-posters are beginning to discover the
attractive qualities of the colour. Who can ever forget meeting for the
first time upon a hoarding Mr. Dudley Hardy's wonderful Yellow Girl, the
pretty advance-guard of _To-Day_? But I suppose the honour of the
discovery of the colour for advertising purposes rests with Mr. Colman;
though its recent boom comes from the publishers, and particularly from
the Bodley Head. _The Yellow Book_ with any other colour would hardly
have sold as well--the first private edition of Mr. Arthur Benson's
poems, by the way, came caparisoned in yellow, and with the identical
name, _Le Cahier Jaune_; and no doubt it was largely its title that made
the success of _The Yellow Aster_. In literature, indeed, yellow has
long been the colour of romance. The word 'yellow-back' witnesses its
close association with fiction; and in France, as we know, it is the
all but universal custom to bind books in yellow paper. Mr. Heinemann
and Mr. Unwin have endeavoured to naturalise the custom here; but,
though in cloth yellow has emphatically 'caught on,' in paper it still
hangs fire. The ABC Railway Guide is probably the only exception, and
that, it is to be hoped, is not fiction. Mr. Lang has recently followed
the fashion with his _Yellow Fairy Book_; and, indeed, one of the best
known figures in fairydom is yellow--namely, the Yellow Dwarf. Yellow,
always a prominent Oriental colour, was but lately of peculiar
significance in the Far East; for were not the sorrows of a certain high
Chinese official intimately connected with the fatal colour? The Yellow
Book, the Yellow Aster, the Yellow Jacket!--and the Yellow Fever, like
'Orion' Home's sunshine, is always with us' somewhere in the world.' The
same applies also, I suppose, to the Yellow Sea.
Till one comes to think of it, one hardly realises how many important
and pleasant things in life are yellow. Blue and green, no doubt,
contract for the colouring of vast departments of the physical world.
'Blue!' sings Keats, in a fine but too little known sonnet--
'... 'Tis the life of heaven--the domain
Of Cynthia--the wide palace of the sun--
The tent of Hesperus, and all his train--
The bosomer of clouds, gold, grey, and dun.
Blue! 'Tis the life of waters ...
Blue! Gentle cousin of the forest green,
Married to green in all the sweetest flowers.'
Yellow might retort by quoting Mr. Grant Allen, in his book on _The
Colour Sense_, to the effect that the blueness of sea and sky is mainly
poetical illusion or inaccuracy, and that sea and sky are found blue
only in one experiment out of fourteen. At morning and evening they are
usually in great part stained golden. Blue certainly has one advantage
over yellow, in that it has the privilege of colouring some of the
prettiest eyes in the world. Yellow has a chance only in cases of
jaundice and liver complaint, and his colour scheme in such cases is
seldom appreciated. Again, green has the contract for the greater bulk
of the vegetable life of the globe; but his is a monotonous business,
like the painting of miles and miles of palings: grass, grass, grass,
trees, trees, trees, _ad infinitum_; whereas yellow leads a roving,
versatile life, and is seldom called upon for such monotonous labour.
The sands of Sahara are probably the only conspicuous instance of yellow
thus working by the piece. It is in the quality, in the diversity of the
things it colours, rather than in their mileage or tonnage, that yellow
is distinguished; though, for that matter, we suppose, the sun is as big
and heavy as most things, and that is yellow. Of course, when we say
yellow we include golden, and all varieties of the colour--saffron,
orange, flaxen, tawny, blonde, topaz, citron, etc.
If the sun may reasonably be described as the most important object in
the world, surely money is the next. That, as we know, is, in its most
potent metallic form, yellow also. The 'yellow gold' is a favourite
phrase in certain forms of poetry; and 'yellow-boys' is a term of
natural affection among sailors. Following the example of their lord the
sun, most fires and lights are yellow or golden, and it is only in
times of danger or superstition that they burn red or blue. And, if
yellow be denied entrance to beautiful eyes, it enjoys a privilege
which--except in the case of certain indigo-staining African tribes, who
cannot be said to count--blue has never claimed: that of colouring
perhaps the loveliest thing in the world, the hair of woman. Hair is
naturally golden--unnaturally also. When Browning sings pathetically of
'dear dead women--with such hair too!' he continues:--
'What's become of all the _gold_
Used to hang and brush their bosoms'--
not 'all the blue' or 'all the brown,' though some of us, it is true,
are condemned to wear our hair brown or blue-black. But such are only
unhappy exceptions. Yellow or gold is the rule. The bravest men and the
fairest women have had golden hair, and, we may add, in reference to
another distinction of the colour we are celebrating, golden hearts.
Hair at the present time is doing its best to conform to its normal
conditions of colour. Numerous instances might be adduced of its
changing from black to gold, in obedience to chemical law. 'Peroxide of
hydrogen!' says the cynic. 'Beauty!' says the lover of art.
And it might be argued, in a world of inevitable compromise, that the
damage done to the physical health and texture of the hair thus playing
the chameleon may well be overbalanced by the happiness, and consequent
increased effectiveness, of the person thus dyeing for the sake of
beauty. Thaumaturgists lay much stress on the mystic influence of
colours; and who knows but that, if we were only allowed to dye our hair
what colour we chose, we might be different men and women? Strange
things are told of women who have dyed their hair the colour of blood or
of wine, and we know from Christina Rossetti that golden hair is
negotiable in fairyland--
'"You have much gold upon your head,"
They answered all together:
"Buy from us with a golden curl."'
Whether Laura could have done business with the goblin merchantmen with
an oxidised curl is a difficult point, for fairies have sharp eyes; and,
though it be impossible for a mortal to tell the real gold from the
false gold hair, the fairies may be able to do so, and might reject the
curl as counterfeit.
Again, if in the vegetable world green almost universally colours the
leaves, yellow has more to do with the flowers. The flowers we love best
are yellow: the cowslip, the daffodil, the crocus, the buttercup, half
the daisy, the honeysuckle, and the loveliest rose. Yellow, too, has its
turn even with the leaves; and what an artist he shows himself when, in
autumn, he 'lays his fiery finger' upon them, lighting up the forlorn
woodland with splashes--pure palette-colour of audacious gold! He hangs
the mulberry with heart-shaped yellow shields--which reminds one of the
heraldic importance of 'or,'--and he lines the banks of the Seine with
phantasmal yellow poplars. And other leaves still dearer to the heart
are yellow likewise; leaves of those sweet old poets whose thoughts seem
to have turned the pages gold. Let us dream of this: a maid with yellow
hair, clad in a yellow gown, seated in a yellow room, at the window a
yellow sunset, in the grate a yellow fire, at her side a yellow
lamplight, on her knee a Yellow Book. And the letters we love best to
read--when we dare--are they not yellow too? No doubt some disagreeable
things are reported of yellow. We have had the yellow-fever, and we have
had pea-soup. The eyes of lions are said to be yellow, and the ugliest
cats--the cats that infest one's garden--are always yellow. Some
medicines are yellow, and no doubt there are many other yellow
disagreeables; but we prefer to dwell upon the yellow blessings. I had
almost forgotten that the gayest wines are yellow. Nor has religion
forgotten yellow. It is to be hoped yellow will not forget religion. The
sacred robe of the second greatest religion of the world is yellow, 'the
yellow robe' of the Buddhist friar; and when the sacred harlots of
Hindustan walk in lovely procession through the streets, they too, like
the friars, are clad in yellow. Amber is yellow; so is the orange; and
so were stage-coaches and many dashing things of the old time; and pink
is yellow by lamplight. But gold-mines, it has been proved, are not so
yellow as is popularly supposed. Hymen's robe is Miltonically 'saffron,'
and the dearest petticoat in all literature--not forgetting the
'tempestuous' garment of Herrick's Julia--was 'yaller.' Yes!--
''Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' er name was Supi-yaw-lat, jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen.'
Is it possible to say anything prettier for yellow than that?