before. Yet with obtuse inconsistency
the garments usually white--in which a change would be really
noticeable--remain white throughout the most poignant grief. How much
more markedly expressed would be the symbolism if during such a period
they wore white outer robes and black body garments. Nevertheless it
cannot be said that they are unmindful of the emblematic influence of
colour, for, unlike the reasonable conviction that red is red and blue
is blue, which has satisfied our great nation from the days of the
legendary Shun, these pale-eyed foreigners have diverged into countless
trifling imaginings, so that when the one who is now expressing his
contempt for the development required a robe of a certain hue, he had to
bend his mouth, before he could be exactly understood, to the degrading
necessity of asking for "Drowned-rat brown," "Sunstroke magenta,"
"Billingsgate purple," "London milk azure," "Settling-day green," or the
like. In the other signs of mourning they do not come within measurable
distance of our pure and uncomfortable standard. "If you are really
sincere in your regret for the one who has Passed Beyond, why do you not
sit upon the floor for seven days and nights, take up all food with your
fingers, and allow your nails to grow untrimmed for three years?" was
a question which I at first instinctively put to lesser ones in their
affliction. In every case save one I received answers of evasive
purport, and even the one stated reason, "Because although I am a poor
widder I ain't a pig," I deemed shallow.

I have already dipped a revealing brush into the subject of names.
Were the practice of applying names in a wrong and illogical sequence
maintained throughout it might indeed raise a dignified smile, but
it would not appear contemptible; but what can be urged when upon an
occasion one name appears first, upon another occasion last? A dignity
is conferred in old age, and it is placed before the family designation
borne by an honoured father and a direct line of seventeen revered
ancestors. Another title is bestowed, and eats up the former like a
revengeful dragon. New distinctions follow, some at one end, others at
another, until a very successful person may be suitably compared to
the ringed oleander snake, which has the power of growing equally
from either the head or the tail. To express the matter by a definite
allusion, how much more graceful and orchideous, even in a condensed
fashion, would appear