Good, that is to say, pleasing, beautiful, or even pretty colour
cannot be got by putting patches of pleasing, beautiful or pretty
colour upon one's canvas and, which is a harder matter, leaving them
when they have been put. It is said of money that it is more easily
made than kept and this is true of many things, such as friendship;
and even life itself is more easily got than kept. The same holds
good of colour. It is also true that, as with money, more is made by
saving than in any other way, and the surest way to lose colour is to
play with it inconsiderately, not knowing how to leave well alone. A
touch of pleasing colour should on no account be stirred without
consideration.
That we can see in a natural object more colour than strikes us at a
glance, if we look for it attentively, will not be denied by any who
have tried to look for it. Thus, take a dull, dead, level, grimy old
London wall: at a first glance we can see no colour in it, nothing
but a more or less purplish mass, got, perhaps as nearly as in any
other way, by a tint mixed with black, Indian red and white. If,
however, we look for colour in this, we shall find here and there a
broken brick with a small surface of brilliant crimson, hard by there
will be another with a warm orange hue perceivable through the grime
by one who is on the look out for it, but by no one else.
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