Snow, and the Quality of Whiteness. 1 1 3 



" Yet," he goes on to say, " for all these accumulated 

 associations with whatever is sweet, and honourable, 

 and sublime, there lurks an illusive something in the 

 innermost idea of this hue which strikes more of 

 panic to the soul than the redness which affrights in 

 blood." He is no doubt right that there is a mys- 

 terious 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 cer- 

 tain things, a distinction which Melville failed to 

 see, this being his first mistake in his attempt to 

 " solve the incantation 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 super- 



