"If Englishmen were white, he thought, then she must be called black; but black she could not in truth be called, rather gold, but then not gold, nor royal purple neither, for when we say colours we see a flatness, as of cloth, but here was flesh that moved and swam on the light's tide, ever changing in hue but always of a richness that could only be termed royal; her colour was royalty."

Anthony Burgess. Nothing Like The Sun. A Story Of Shakespeare's Love-Life(1964). New York: W.W.Norton 1996 p. 57