Colors are the smiles of nature.

In this aphorism Hunt treats color as nature’s expressive “face,” suggesting that hues in flowers, skies, and landscapes are not merely physical properties but signs of vitality and delight. Calling colors “smiles” personifies the natural world in a characteristically Romantic way: nature communicates mood and meaning to the attentive observer. The line also implies that beauty is an active, generous offering—color is how nature welcomes, consoles, and refreshes human perception. Read this way, the quote celebrates sensuous attention and the moral or emotional uplift that Hunt and his contemporaries often associated with encounters with the natural world.