17. When the Cloud is Transparent

But when the cloud is transparent as well as pure, and can be filled with light through all the body of it, you then can have by the light reflected from its atoms any force conceivable by human mind of the entire group of the golden and ruby colours, from intensely burnished gold colour, through a scarlet for whose brightness there are no words, into any depth and any hue of Tyrian crimson and Byzantine purple. These with full blue breathed between them at the zenith, and green blue nearer the horizon, form the scales and chords of colour possible to the morning and evening sky in pure and fine weather; the keynote of the opposition being vermilion against green blue, both of equal tone, and at such a height and acme of brilliancy that you cannot see the line where their edges pass into each other.