IN PRAISE OF COLOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 275, 21 November 1927, Page 6

IN PRAISE OF COLOUR.

Deep down in the soul of every human creature, however reticently the lips may utter it, however secretly the heart may cherish it, there is a passionate love of colour It is perfectly natural, instinctive love. We see it in the babe of tender months, whose gradually dawning colour-sense makes it desire the brilliant balls and balloons, and ignore the lesser charms of drab "golliwog" or "teddy." Throughout the term of its natural life, i.e., youth, before a cynical world has had time to tarnish the gilding which God gave it, the child continues to satisfy its passion for the gay and gorgeous; to the girl convention and fashion are increasingly kind, but in the case of the boy one wonders what colourful dreams, thoughts and deeds find a grave with the gay clothes and tovs of childhood.

Cp to a few generations ago, man indulged his love of the picturesque in dress into a ripe old age, and as we turn the pages of some ancient journal we are tempted to sigh for the colourful days of the Elizabethans. Modern man has carried his recoil from the gaudy apparel of that day to the extremes of drahness, as a survey of our streets to-day will testify, but modern woman, thanks be! still parades in the i>eacock hues in which her soul delights. On the part of tho younger male generation, however, there are indications of a rebellion against the conventional insistence of a drab wardrobe, and gay shirts, brilliant ties and rainbow-liued hosierv stare boldly at us from shop windows, and accost us, half shyly, half defiantly, on the streets. I have a certain admiration for the modern youth. It takes a great deal of courage to appear dav by daj in a garb which excites the contemptuous comment of the conservative "die-hards" of both sexes, though perhaps youth, wise in its generation, realises that plain, sour envy prompts the greater part of the abuse that is aired so Ireqnently in pulpit and Press. Why should, a love of colour in dress a preference for pale blue "Oxford bags." or a partiality for giddy "plus-fours" immediately briii" down a shower of insulting criticism on a man's head? Chief among the epithets applied to him is that particularly offensive one, "sissy," or effeminate." Why? In the "good old days"— which, bv the way, you will never hear cited in a controversy on this subject—when "iny lord" guzzled his beer and sworo his oath, was he considered less a man because his knee-buckles, his sleeve-ruffles and his peruke were the despair of his valets heart? Beshrew the varlet who so questioned his manly pcrogativc! Only blood could wipe out the insult.

.u TJiere seems to me no reasonable doubt that the Almighty loves colour. Think of the glorious pageantry of the Old Testament. Kings and courticrs, prophets, priests and peoples moved in a brilliant procession through its pages from Genesis to Zechariah, while the temples in which the Holy Spirit dwells are resplendent in furnishings of purple and gold, crimson and blue. And if as we are told, there is a future celestial city! I want that it s streets shall be, not white marble but a glorious mosaic; our robes not snowy but scarlet, and our lialos, if halos there be, of the rainbow.

2SOW, when a certain person sees this article he will be pained. He will speak to me tenderly but seriously, quoting learnedly from Horace and warn.ngly from Holy Writ, while I, in a demure grey gown and a mood to match, will be all confession and contrition. Then there will be a touching little interlude—a rededication of mv life and thought-and pen-to those womanfv ideals which are so essential in the wife and mother, and we shall be very happv in that d.lightfuly delirious—l „, e ,„ fashion. And afterwards I shall go out, and buy me a new flame-coloured frock for Christmas. —JEAN BOS WELL.