Red has been praised for its nobility as the colour of life. But the
true colour of life is not red. Red is the colour of violence, or of
life broken open, edited, and published. Or if red is indeed the colour
of life, it is so only on condition that it is not seen. Once fully
visible, red is the colour of life violated, and in the act of betrayal
and of waste. Red is the secret of life, and not the manifestation
thereof. It is one of the things the value of which is secrecy, one of
the talents that are to be hidden in a napkin. The true colour of life
is the colour of the body, the colour of the covered red, the implicit
and not explicit red of the living heart and the pulses. It is the
modest colour of the unpublished blood.

So bright, so light, so soft, so mingled, the gentle colour of life is
outdone by all the colours of the world. Its very beauty is that it is
white, but less white than milk; brown, but less brown than earth; red,
but less red than sunset or dawn. It is lucid, but less lucid than the
colour of lilies. It has the hint of gold that is in all fine colour;
but in our latitudes the hint is almost elusive. Under Sicilian skies,
indeed, it is deeper than old ivory; but under the misty blue of the
English zenith, and the warm grey of the London horizon, it is as
delicately flushed as the paler wild roses, out to their utmost, flat as
stars, in the hedges of the end of June.

For months together London does not see the colour of life in any mass.
The human face does not give much of it, what with features, and beards,
and the shadow of the top-hat and _chapeau melon_ of man, and of the
veils of woman. Besides, the colour of the face is subject to a thousand
injuries and accidents. The popular face of the Londoner has soon lost
its gold, its white, and the delicacy of its red and brown. We miss
little beauty by the fact that it is never seen freely in great numbers