by Grant Allen
The account of Solomon’s Temple shows the same three prevalent colours, and no others, used as pigments. As before, the veil was made “of blue and purple and crimson and fine linen,” under the direction of a half-caste Phœnician, whose father was a man of Tyre, “skilful to work in gold and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber; in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device.” To multiply examples would only prove tedious to the reader, without adding materially to the argument.
I learn from Mr. Cheyne that these words might be more correctly translated blue-purple, red-purple, and crimson. The first two colours were obtained from mollusca, and the third from the cochineal-insect. The derivations of the words meaning blue-purple and red-purple are unknown, but they occur in the same combination in Assyrian; that of the third is from the Hebrew word for “a worm.” The term translated crimson in the Chronicles is a later name for the same colour which is called scarlet in Exodus, and its origin is perhaps Persian.
Furthermore, the allusions to precious stones (whether the words referring to them be correctly translated in every case or otherwise) clearly exhibit the æsthetic standing of the people. The breastplate of judgment contained twelve jewels — sardius, topaz, carbuncle, emerald, sapphire, diamond, ligure, agate, amethyst, beryl, onyx, and jasper. The jewel called sapphire was certainly blue; for the “God of Israel” is described as standing on “a paved work of sapphire stone” — in other words, on the solid firmament. Solomon’s Temple was “garnished with precious stones for beauty,” and other notices of the same sort occur elsewhere.
Besides these directly æsthetic accounts, we find scattered colour terms throughout all the books. In the very early myth of Joseph we read of a “coat of many colours.” “Ribbands of blue” were enjoined on the people in the desert. Rahab agrees with the spies to hang out “scarlet thread” as a signal. Tamar wears a “garment of divers colours, for with such robes were the king’s virgin daughters apparelled.” Aholah, in Ezekiel’s fable, doted on her lovers, the Assyrians, who were “clothed in blue;” and Aholibah on “the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion,” “exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads.” Much doubt hangs over the first and fourth of these renderings; but I give them in the words of the Authorised Version (preserving the traditional belief) for what they may be worth.
Green, however, is never mentioned during the native kingly period as a decorative colour. “Green pastures” in Psalm xxiii. 2, “might be better translated ‘tender grass;’” but we must remember that almost all words for green originally refer to growth or freshness. On the other hand, the “green herb” in Gen. i. 30 (literally “every greenness of herbage”) has the notion of colour original, according to Mr. Cheyne, “or at least early reached by usage.” The corresponding word in Arabic, a leading scholar in that language informs us, means rather grey than green: and this vagueness is exactly paralleled by that of the Greek khlôros. Both cases show, not that green was unperceived, but that it ranked low in æsthetic value.
Yet though green found no place in the decorations of the Tabernacle or the Temple, it is once mentioned in the Authorised Version, among the ornaments of a foreign court, when Ahasuerus the king feasted in Shushan the palace, “where were white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble.” Now, though Mr. Cheyne tells me that modern philology has decided in favour of the translation “cotton” instead of “green,” yet when we examine the peculiar position of this word in the sentence, and then recollect the ancient Persian fondness for green, with the constant appearance of that hue on the Babylonian and Ninevite enamelled bricks, I can scarcely help believing that in this case the traditional rendering closely represents the truth. Mr. Cheyne himself, indeed, inclines to think that though the word means etymologically “cotton,” yet some idea of colour (he suggests “variegated”) is mixed up with it in practice. Perhaps, then, we may have here an analogous advance to that of the Akhaians from red, purple, and yellow decorations to the artistic employment of blue. In any case, we can scarcely doubt that the Hebrews after the Captivity must in great part have adopted the æsthetic standard of their Semitic and Aryan conquerors.
One final example of Mr. Gladstone’s method must be given à propos of the Hebrew colour-sense. Ezekiel describes in glowing language the truly oriental vision in which his poetic eye beheld in imagination the glories of the God of Israel. “Above the firmament,” says the prophet, “was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man upon it. And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it . . . and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about it.” Mr. Gladstone quotes in part this perfectly pellucid passage, and thus comments upon it: “Which cannot be explained but by supposing that, for the eye of the prophet, red was the fundamental, and exclusively prevailing, colour of the rainbow.” Any unprejudiced person would have imagined that the words “could not be explained but by supposing” the prophet to mean exactly what he says — that a halo of every hue in the rainbow surrounded the sapphire throne, where the God of Israel was seated, begirt with amber flames, looking down upon the work which was like unto the colour of a beryl, and planting His foot on the firmament, whose appearance was of terrible crystal. But literal interpretation will sometimes lead men into a strange confusion of the obvious.
As for the Vedas, I shall not attempt to deal with them. That “book with seven seals,” as Professor Max Müller calls it, can be easily made to prove that black is white, or vice versa: and therefore to juggle with its colours is a mere piece of simple conjuring. If the reader believes that the case for Dr. Magnus has broken down so far, he will hardly attach much importance to the doubtful utterances of the Sanskrit Scriptures.
And now that our review is completed, it may, perhaps, appear to some readers that, in combating this “historical development” theory, I have been really doing battle, like Don Quixote, with a perfectly harmless foe. Whereto I would respectfully answer that I seem rather to be performing the less romantic part of Sancho Panza. Sundry learned writers having discovered an imaginary giant, it becomes my humble duty, as a common-sense critic, to point out that the monstrous being is, in fact, nothing more nor less than a windmill. Such a task may be ungrateful and inglorious enough, but it remains none the less necessary for the prevention of further hallucinations on the same subject in future. When an honest and truthful knight solemnly assures us that he has met with a genuine giant, the world at large naturally accepts his statement in good faith, and goes on believing it until some lowly squire comes forward to sift the evidence upon which his assertion is based.
Finally, I hope that besides the negative task of demolition, we have been able, in the course of our argument, to build up some new and positive constructive work, which will throw fresh light both on æsthetic development and on the growth of special vocabularies. This must be my excuse for a digression which might at first sight have appeared to be leading us too far from the central subject, on whose consideration we are here engaged.
CHAPTER XIV.
SUMMARY AND RECAPITULATION.
Now that we have completed our survey of the Origin and Development of the Colour-Sense, we may briefly sum up, in a dogmatic form, the main results to which we have been led in the course of our investigation.
Colour, viewed objectively, consists in the different rapidity and wave-length of various æthereal undulations. These undulations, taken in their totality, are called light; taken in their several component parts, they are called colour.
The earliest animal eyes are cognisant of light and its negation only. Next, proba
bly, came the discrimination of form. Last of all was developed the qualitative perception of colour.
This perception was apparently first aroused in the case of insects by the hues of flowers. The flowers were themselves developed by the action of the insect eyes, and they reacted simultaneously upon the senses of the insects to whose selection they were due.
In simple marine animals, the perception of colour was probably first aroused by the animal organisms in their environment. From them it was handed down to the fishes and reptiles, and more remotely to the birds and mammals. In the latter case, however, the sense may have been quickened and kept alive by its exercise upon coloured fruits, which were produced by the selective action of these great classes themselves.
The general existence of a colour-sense in insects and vertebrates is shown, in some cases, by direct experiment, in other cases by a large number of inferential proofs. It is a hypothesis which explains all the facts in the colouration of organic bodies, and without which the facts become a mere chaos of inexplicable caprices.
The constant employment of the colour-percipient structures in the search for food, amongst the flower-haunting and fruit-eating animals, would ultimately lead to the strengthening of those structures, and, consequently, to the development of a concomitant pleasure. This pleasure shows itself in the form of a taste for colour. Such a taste is found in a large majority of the species so circumstanced. It becomes manifest partly in the selection of bright foods, partly in a general love for brilliant objects, but most of all in the choice of gaily-coloured partners. To this cause we owe the beauty of butterflies, birds, and many other animals.
Besides this direct reaction of the colour-sense upon the external appearance of the creatures which possess it, an indirect reaction is exerted by the constant killing off of those individuals whose colouration specially exposes them to attack, and the survival of those individuals whose colouration affords them any means of protection, either through inconspicuousness, mimicry, or any other mode. In this manner a large number of animals have acquired the hues which they now display.
The quadrumana, being frugivorous animals, possess the colour-sense in a high degree. They show a considerable taste for bright colours, and their own appearance often betrays the action of sexual selection.
Man, the descendant of the frugivorous quadrumana, also possesses a very perfect colour-sense, which is equally evolved in all varieties of the species, from the highest to the lowest. A supposed linguistic proof to the contrary is not countenanced by the other facts of the case. Direct investigations show that all existing men have like colour-perceptions; and historical inquiry shows that the same is true of all earlier races.
Man derives from his frugivorous ancestors, not only the perception, but also the love of colour. This love is shown first in personal decoration, and is afterwards extended to the arts in general. The taste for colour at length affects almost every object of human industry; but it must all be originally referred to the habits of our frugivorous ancestors.
The vocabulary of colour, like all other vocabularies, springs up in proportion to the needs of the various languages.
The arts employ chiefly the colours which are least common in external nature, and which are also those employed by fruits and flowers for the attraction of animals generally. Poetry likewise uses them in the same proportions, but in an ideal form. The most advanced arts, however, use colour in more balanced quantities. But all art, decorative or imitative, retains to the last somewhat of its original character, as a direct stimulant of simple chromatic pleasure.
Thus the colour-sense, in its origin and its results, is seen to be one and continuous throughout. The highest æsthetic products of humanity form only the last link in a chain whose first link began with the insect’s selection of bright-hued blossoms. The whole long series may be briefly summed up in some such formula as the following: —
Insects produce flowers. Flowers produce the colour-sense in insects. The colour-sense produces a taste for colour. The taste for colour produces butterflies and brilliant beetles. Birds and mammals produce fruits. Fruits produce a taste for colour in birds and mammals. The taste for colour produces the external hues of humming-birds, parrots, and monkeys. Man’s frugivorous ancestry produces in him a similar taste; and that taste produces the various final results of human chromatic arts.
What a splendid and a noble prospect for humanity in its future evolutions may we not find in this thought, that from the coarse animal pleasure of beholding food mankind has already developed, through delicate gradations, our modern disinterested love for the glories of sunset and the melting shades of ocean, for the gorgeous pageantry of summer flowers, and the dying beauty of autumn leaves, for the exquisite harmony which reposes on the canvas of Titian, and the golden haze which glimmers over the dreamy visions of Turner! If man, base as he yet is, can nevertheless rise to-day in his highest moments so far above his sensuous self, what may he not hope to achieve hereafter, under the hallowing influence of those chaster and purer aspirations which are welling up within him even now toward the perfect day!
THE END
Anglo-Saxon Britain
CONTENTS
PREFACE.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
PREFACE.
This little book is an attempt to give a brief sketch of Britain under the early English conquerors, rather from the social than from the political point of view. For that purpose not much has been said about the doings of kings and statesmen; but attention has been mainly directed towards the less obvious evidence afforded us by existing monuments as to the life and mode of thought of the people themselves. The principal object throughout has been to estimate the importance of those elements in modern British life which are chiefly due to purely English or Low-Dutch influences.
The original authorities most largely consulted have been, first and above all, the “English Chronicle,” and to an almost equal extent, Bæda’s “Ecclesiastical History.” These have been supplemented, where necessary, by Florence of Worcester and the other Latin writers of later date. I have not thought it needful, however, to repeat any of the gossiping stories from William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and their compeers, which make up the bulk of our early history as told in most modern books. Still less have I paid any attention to the romances of Geoffrey of Monmouth. Gildas, Nennius, and the other Welsh tracts have been sparingly employed, and always with a reference by name. Asser has been used with caution, where his information seems to be really contemporary. I have also derived some occasional hints from the old British bards, from Beowulf, from the laws, and from the charters in the “Codex Diplomaticus.” These written documents have been helped out by some personal study of the actual early English relics preserved in various museums, and by the indirect evidence of local nomenclature.
Among modern books, I owe my acknowledgments in the first and highest degree to Dr. E.A. Freeman, from whose great and just authority, however, I have occasionally ventured to differ in some minor matters. Next, my acknowledgments are due to Canon Stubbs, to Mr. Kemble, and to Mr. J.R. Green. Dr. Guest’s valuable papers in the Transactions of the Archæological Institute have supplied many useful suggestions. To Lappenberg and Sir Francis Palgrave I am also indebted for various details. Professor Rolleston’s contributions to “Archæologia,” as well as his Appendix to Canon Greenwell’s “British Barrows,” have been consulted for anthropologi
cal and antiquarian points; on which also Professor Huxley and Mr. Akerman have published useful papers. Professor Boyd Dawkins’s work on “Early Man in Britain,” as well as the writings of Worsaae and Steenstrup have helped in elucidating the condition of the English at the date of the Conquest. Nor must I forget the aid derived from Mr. Isaac Taylor’s “Words and Places,” from Professor Henry Morley’s “English Literature,” and from Messrs. Haddan and Stubbs’ “Councils.” To Mr. Gomme, Mr. E.B. Tylor, Mr. Sweet, Mr. James Collier, Dr. H. Leo, and perhaps others, I am under various obligations; and if any acknowledgments have been overlooked, I trust the injured person will forgive me when I have had already to quote so many authorities for so small a book. The popular character of the work renders it undesirable to load the pages with footnotes of reference; and scholars will generally see for themselves the source of the information given in the text.
Personally, my thanks are due to my friend, Mr. York Powell, for much valuable aid and assistance, and to the Rev. E. McClure, one of the Society’s secretaries, for his kind revision of the volume in proof, and for several suggestions of which I have gladly availed myself.
