il 'invest with the purple,' in
the course of ages, comes to mean kingdom, government, power, to rule.
Purple is formed by the union of blue and red, truth and valor. Happy
the people who are truly governed by truth and valor! The Tyrian purple
was famous in Homer's days, and our dreams of Tyre and its splendor are
all colored by this most gorgeous of dyes, the manufacture of which from
a species of shell fish gave this ancient city a celebrity which all its
other arts combined could not equal. This was one of the symbolic colors
with which the high priest's robe was wrought in figures of pomegranates
upon its skirt; and when Solomon sent to Hiram, king of Tyre, for a
cunning workman to assist in building the temple, he did not fail to
require he should be skilled in purple. During the time of the Roman
emperors, the Tyrian purple was valued so highly that a pound of cloth
twice dipped was sold for about one hundred and fifty dollars. Even a
purple border about a robe was a mark of dignity.

VIOLET.

Is a color that has often been worn by martyrs; formed of a union of red
and blue, it signifies love and truth, and their passion and suffering.
It is the court mourning color all over Europe, with the exception of
England. It is the softest of the prismatic colors, and its very name
carries us in thought to the modest sweet flower which is Flora's emblem
of humility.

* * * * *

Of one of the colors of the spectrum I have failed to speak, because
there was so little to say. Orange is a bright, warm color, not quite as
intense as red, still one which the eye does not readily seek. Its
suitableness in dress is confined mainly to children. Upon them our eye
naturally seeks for bright, warm colors, and rests with a kind of
pleasure upon rich hues. There is nothing upon which the public taste
requires more education than upon the arrangement and modification of
colors. Gardeners need it in setting their plants and putting in their
seeds; florists, in the arrangement of their bouquets; furnishers, in
the decoration of apartments; and especially the fashion leaders, who
decide what colors or shades must or must not be worn together.
Sometimes hues are conjoined by them, that, no matter how loudly
proclaimed _au fait_, the height of style, or _a la mode_, are never
artistic, and no _dicta_ can make them so. A fashion framer should needs
be a natural philosopher, and hold the rudiments of all sc