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little and make of them much. There is no better test of your colour
tones being good, than your having made the white in your picture
precious, and the black conspicuous.

I say, first, the white precious. I do not mean merely glittering or
brilliant; it is easy to scratch white seagulls out of black clouds and
dot clumsy foliage with chalky dew; but, when white is well managed, it
ought to be strangely delicious--tender as well as bright--like inlaid
mother of pearl, or white roses washed in milk. The eye ought to seek it
for rest, brilliant though it may be; and to feel it as a space of
strange, heavenly paleness in the midst of the flushing of the colours.
This effect you can only reach by general depth of middle tint, by
absolutely refusing to allow any white to exist except where you need
it, and by keeping the white itself subdued by grey, except at a few
points of chief lustre.

Secondly, you must make the black conspicuous. However small a point of
black may be, it ought to catch the eye, otherwise your work is too
heavy in the shadow. All the ordinary shadows should be of some
_colour_--never black, nor approaching black, they should be evidently
and always of a luminous nature, and the black should look strange among
them; never occurring except in a black object, or in small points
indicative of intense shade in the very centre of masses of shadow.
Shadows of absolutely negative grey, however, may be beautifully used
with white, or with gold; but still though the black thus, in subdued
strength, becomes _spacious_, it should always be _conspicuous_; the
spectator should notice this grey neutrality with some wonder, and
enjoy, all the more intensely on account of it, the gold colour and the
white which it relieves. Of all the great colourists Velasquez is the
greatest master of the black chords. His black is more precious than
most other people's crimson.

It is not, however, only white and black which you must make valuable;
you must give rare worth to every colour you use; but the white and
black ought to separate themselves quaintly from the rest, while the
other colours should be continually passing one into the other, being
all evidently companions in the same gay world; while the white, black,
and neutral grey should stand monkishly aloof in the midst of them. You
may melt your crimson into purple, your purple into blue and your blue
into green, but you must not melt any of them into black. You s