The Spectroscope and Its Work (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Spectroscope and Its Work

White is always regarded as the emblem of purity. Ruthless science tears it to pieces and convinces us that it is the most complex of all the colours in Nature.

The red of a tulip, the green flash Of an emerald, the purple of a violet, all seem to give us something more than the whiteness of the lily, such slaves are we to ideas gained from laying on paint. The truth is, they all give us much less. The lily gives back all the light that falls upon it the tulip, the violet, and the emerald, each lighted by the same sunlight, gives back only a small part and suppresses all the rest not one of the three adds anything to the sunlight which makes them visible each abstracts a great deal from it and suppresses it, and shines with but a small part of the light that falls upon it. Hence, in the evening, when the daylight dies away, the white lilies, giving back all the light that falls upon them, seem to stand out visible long after the gayer flowers have dis appeared in the dusk.

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