110 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



whiteness is emblematic of whatever we regard as 

 high and most worthy of reverence; that it has 

 for us innumerable beautiful and kindly associa- 

 tions. "Yet," he goes on to say, "for all these 

 accumulated associations with whatever is sweet, 

 and honorable, and sublime, there lurks an illusive 

 something in the innermost idea of this hue which 

 strikes more of panic to the soul than the red- 

 ness which affrights in blood." He is no doubt 

 right that there is a mysterious illusive something 

 affecting us in the thought of whiteness ; but, then, 

 so illusive is it, and in most cases so transient in 

 its effect, that only when we are told of it do we 

 look for and recognize its existence in us. And 

 this only with regard to certain things, a distinc- 

 tion which Melville failed to see, this being his 

 first mistake in his attempt to ' ' solve the incanta- 

 tion of whiteness." His second and greatest 

 error is in the assumption that the quality of 

 whiteness, apart from the object it is associated 

 with, has anything extranatural or supernatural 

 to the mind. There is no " supernaturalism in 

 the hue," no " spectralness over the fancy," in the 

 thought of the whiteness of white clouds; of the 

 white horses of the sea; of white sea-birds, and 

 white water-fowl, such as swans, storks, egrets, 

 ibises, and many others ; nor in white beasts, not 

 dangerous to us, wild or domestic, nor in white 

 flowers. These may bloom in such profusion as to 

 whiten whole fields, as with snow, and their white- 

 ness yet be no more to the fancy than the yellows, 



