iority.
Some animals are excited to madness by the sight of this color. The bull
and the turkey take it as a signal of defiance, which they rush to meet.
'Come, if you dare,' they read it, and impetuously hasten to the onset.
When the bloody Jeffreys was in his bloodiest humor, he wore into court
a red cap, which was the sure death warrant of those about to be tried.
The death garment of Charlotte Corday was a red chemise--fit emblem of
the ungovernable instincts, the wild rioting in blood of that reign of
terror.
Christ was crucified in a scarlet robe, and in that color of love and
perfection, perfected his offering of love for mankind.
YELLOW.
Anciently symbolized the sun, the goodness of God, marriage, faith, and
fruitfulness. Old paintings of St. Peter represent him in a yellow
mantle. The Venuses were clothed in saffron-colored tunics; Roman brides
of an early day wore a veil of an orange tinge, called the _flameum_, a
flame--a flame which, kindled at Hymen's torch, it is to be hoped was
ever burning, never consuming. As every good has its antipodal evil, so
every color has its bad sense, which is contrary or opposite to its
first or good signification.
In a bad sense, yellow means inconstancy, and the aesthetic Greeks, fully
carrying out this meaning, compelled their public courtesans to
distinguish themselves by mantles of saffron color. The radical sense of
saffron is to fail, to be hollow, to be exhausted. In tracing customs,
it is easy to see the bias unknowingly received from natural
significations, significations which take their rise in the spiritual
world. The _San Benito_ or _auto-da-fe_ dress of the Spanish Inquisition
was yellow, blazoned with a flaming cross; and, as a mark of contempt
for the race, the Jews of Catholic Spain were condemned to wear a yellow
cap. Distinguishing colors in dress have ever been one of the most
common methods of expressing distinction of class and differences of
faith, until thence has arisen the imperative adage: 'Show your colors;'
and he who refuses to do so is despised as a hypocrite or changeling.
Yellow, as a color, finds but few admirers among modern enlightened
nations; it is recognized as the color of shams; but in China, that
country of contrarities, where printing, fish breeding, gas burning, and
artesian wells have been known and stationary for centuries, where
almond-shaped eyes, club feet, and long cues are types of beauty, where
old men lau
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