in his Reminiscences. Therein he gave a chart of vocal
colours. Patti's voice was a drab, with touches of coral; Mario's was a
beautiful violet; Sims Reeves' was a golden brown ; and so on, with the
voices of twenty other singers famous in their time. More recently
again it has been stated that Melba's voice is " a high blue, splashed
occasionally with purple ; " and that the voice of Mr. Forbes Robertson
is " violet speckled with green."
Charles
Kingsley, writing to his wife from Chagford, in South Devon, September,
1849, (whither he had gone to rest, and for recruital of his health),
addressed her thus :—
" Oh, rose is the colour of love, and youth ;
And green is the colour of faith , and truth'
And brown is the fruitful clay,
The earth is fruitful, and faithful, and young;
And her bridal morn shall rise ere long;
And you shall know what the rocks, and the streams,
And the laughing greenwoods say."
According
to Charles Dickens "such were the exquisite rural beauty, and the
delightful charm of an English lane in the summer time, that even the
heart of that sanctimonious humbug of a Pecksniff could be stirred
thereby to something like a sense of happy innocence, and guileless
joy." Poor old Martin Chuzzlewit who, because of his money, had been
for years subject to the wiles, and snares of needy fortune-hunters,
had at length in his dotage become the easy tool, and plaything of
designing Pecksniff, the " good man" who, " with the happiness of this
conviction painted on his face went forth upon his morning walk." " The
summer weather in his bosom was reflected in the breast of nature.
Through deep green vistas where
