THE COLOUR OF LIFE
Red has been praised for its nobility as the colour of life. But the true
colour of life is not red. Red is the colour of violence, or of life broken
open, edited, and published. Or if red is indeed the colour of life, it is so
only on condition that it is not seen. Once fully visible, red is the colour of
life violated, and in the act of betrayal and of waste. Red is the secret of
life, and not the manifestation thereof. It is one of the things the value of
which is secrecy, one of the talents that are to be hidden in a napkin. The
true colour of life is the colour of the body, the colour of the covered red,
the implicit and not explicit red of the living heart and the pulses. It is
the modest colour of the unpublished blood.
So bright, so light, so soft, so mingled, the gentle colour of life is
outdone by all the colours of the world. Its very beauty is that it is white,
but less white than milk; brown, but less brown than earth; red, but less
red than sunset or dawn. It is lucid, but less lucid than the colour of lilies.
It has the hint of gold that is in all fine colour; but in our latitudes the hint
is almost elusive. Under Sicilian skies, indeed, it is deeper than old ivory;
but under the misty blue of the English zenith, and the warm grey of the
London horizon, it is as delicately flushed as the paler wild roses, out to
their utmost, flat as stars, in the hedges of the end of June