SIGHT.
159
art proper begins. This final stage must be considered in a
later chapter.
We must remember that in all such questions as these
concerning the intrinsic beauty of colours we should
always take as our standard the simple sense of savages,
children, and uneducated adults. In our own time men of
culture, revolted by the preference vulgarly given to strong
stimulants, prefer the more delicate tints, neutral colours,
and pale or subdued primaries, to the staring dyes which
they see around them. But with primitive man the case
is different. Red and purple are to him novelties, and
his coarser organisation is not easily fatigued by their
efFects. Even in modern houses furnished with the most
fastidious taste as to wall-paper and dado, carved oak
and dainty coverings, it will be found that reds and
yellows are far more conspicuous than in external nature.
Nobody has yet succeeded in expelling them from his
conservatory.
Under the present heading we may interpolate the
pleasure derived from lustre ; that is, from the reflected
light of polished surfaces. This pleasure is partly intel¬
lectual, and consists in a recognition of tactual smoothness
in the lustrous object ; but it is also in part immediate, and
is derived from the acute stimulation of total light. By
means of lustre, blackness can be considerably relieved, and
may even become an agreeable rest for the nerves by the
side of the bright surface. Lustre also adds an extra beautv
*
to white and to the brilliant analytic colours. In leaves and
flowers this effect is generally obtained by immediate re-