e! And may there not here be a symbol of such a
union?

The art of color is yet in its infancy, and although Tyrian purple was
magnificent and famous, and the highly prized Turkey red unfading, yet
modern chemical discovery has opened a wide variety of hues unknown to
the ancients.

Colors obtained from vegetable substances have been the most numerous,
those from the animal kingdom the most brilliant, and from the mineral
the greatest variety from the same substance. A buff, a blue, and a
black, and again a red, a blue, a purple, and a violet, are produced
from the same metal.

The recent discovery of aniline colors, to be extracted from coal
refuse, has given art new, beautiful, and durable shades of red, blue,
purple, and violet. We know but by description what the lauded Tyrian
purple was, for monopoly caused the art to be lost; but for softness,
richness, and beauty of purple we have none to approach that extracted
from this refuse. Nature means nothing to be lost, and waste arises from
ignorance. She is a royal mistress when royally represented.

To the mineral kingdom we are indebted for most of the mordants which
fix the hues derived from other sources. That in union is strength is
taught by the most common art.

Much is yet to be learned in regard to color. Men have understood its
correspondence sufficiently to associate red and cruelty as its lowest
expression, so that the men of the bloody French Revolution received an
undying name from the red cap of the Carmagnole costume--and yellow with
shame, for a ruff of this color on the neck of a woman hanged drove this
fashion out of England--and white with purity, as the ermine of the
judge shows; although, thousands of years ago, the men of Tartary and
Thibet prized the wool of the Crimean sheep stained of a peculiar gray
by its feeding upon the _centarina myriocephala_, and although modern
gardeners deepen the hues of plants by feeding them judiciously, yet few
attach the requisite importance to color as history. Writers for the
most part pass silently by this great aid to a correct understanding of
past events. Color in costume is no less essential to a true description
or representation than form; in some instances it is more so.

The _color_ of the silken sails of Cleopatra's vessel, as she sailed
down the Cydnus, proclaimed her royalty as no other could have done.

A fairy could not be depicted without her green robe, or young Aurora
unless tinted with