rey like dove's plumage. One may seem grey like the deathly
frost, and another grey like the smoke of substantial kitchens. No
things could seem further apart than the doubt of grey and the decision
of scarlet. Yet grey and red can mingle, as they do in the morning
clouds: and also in a sort of warm smoky stone of which they build the
little towns in the west country. In those towns even the houses that
are wholly grey have a glow in them; as if their secret firesides were
such furnaces of hospitality as faintly to transfuse the walls like
walls of cloud. And wandering in those westland parts I did once really
find a sign-post pointing up a steep crooked path to a town that was
called Clouds. I did not climb up to it; I feared that either the town
would not be good enough for the name, or I should not be good enough
for the town. Anyhow, the little hamlets of the warm grey stone have
a geniality which is not achieved by all the artistic scarlet of the
suburbs; as if it were better to warm one's hands at the ashes of
Glastonbury than at the painted flames of Croydon.

Again, the enemies of grey (those astute, daring and evil-minded men)
are fond of bringing forward the argument that colours suffer in grey
weather, and that strong sunlight is necessary to all the hues of
heaven and earth. Here again there are two words to be said; and it is
essential to distinguish. It is true that sun is needed to burnish and
bring into bloom the tertiary and dubious colours; the colour of peat,
pea-soup, Impressionist sketches, brown velvet coats, olives, grey and
blue slates, the complexions of vegetarians, the tints of volcanic rock,
chocolate, cocoa, mud, soot, slime, old boots; the delicate shades of
these do need the sunlight to bring out the faint beauty that often
clings to them. But if you have a healthy negro taste in colour, if you
choke your garden with poppies and geraniums, if you paint your house
sky-blue and scarlet, if you wear, let us say, a golden top-hat and a
crimson frock-coat, you will not only be visible on the greyest day,
but you will notice that your costume and environment produce a certain
singular effect. You will find, I mean, that rich colours actually look
more luminous on a grey day, because they are seen against a sombre
background and seem to be burning with a lustre of their own. Against
a dark sky all flowers look like fireworks. There is something strange
about them, at once vivid and secret, like fl