MALLERY.] COLOR SYMBOLISM. 635 
spirits, a curious parallel to the colloquial English phrase “has the 
blues” and wholly opposite to the poetical symbol of blue for hope. 
The notes above collected on the general topic of color symbolism 
might be indefinitely extended. Those presented, however, are typical 
and perhaps sufficient for the scope of the present work. In regarding 
ideography of colors the first object is to expunge from consideration 
all merely arbitrary or fanciful decorations, which is by no means easy, 
as ancient customs, even in their decadence or merely traditional, 
preserve a long influence. But as a generalization it seems that all 
common colors have been used in historic times for nearly all varieties 
of ideographic expression by the several divisions of men, and that they 
have differed fundamentally in the application of those colors. Yet 
there was an intelligent origin in each one of those applications of color. 
With regard to mourning the color black is now considered to be that 
of gloom. It was still earlier expressed by casting ashes or earth over 
the head and frame, and possibly the somber paint was adopted for 
cleanliness, the concept being preserved and indeed intensified by 
durable blackness instead of the mere transient dinginess of dirt, 
although the actual defilement by the latter is thereby only symbolized. 
This gloom is the expression of the misery of the survivors, perhaps of 
their despair as not expecting any happiness to the dead or any hope 
of a meeting in another world. Other lines of thought are shown by 
blue, considered as the supposed sky or heavenly home of the future, 
and by green, as suggesting renewal or resurrection, and those concepts 
determine the mourning color of some peoples. Red or yellow may 
only refer to the conceptions of the colors of flames, and therefore might 
simply be an objective representation of the disposition of the corpse, 
which very often was by cremation. But sometimes these colors are 
employed as decoration and display to proclaim that the dead go to 
glory. White, used as frequently by the populations of the world as 
other funeral colors, may have been only to assert the purity and inno- 
cence of the departed, an anticipation of the flattering obituary notices 
or epitaphs now. conventional in civilized lands, 
With regard to the color red, it may be admitted that it originally 
represents blood; but it may be, and in fact is, used for the contradictory 
concepts of war and peace. Itis used for war as suggesting the blood 
of the enemy, for peace and friendship to signify the blood relation or 
blood covenant, the strongest tie of love and friendship. 
So it would seem that, while colors have been used ideographically, 
the ideas which determined them were very diverse and sometimes 
their application has become wholly conventional and arbitrary. A 
modern military example may be in point which has no connection with 
the well-known squib of an English humorist. One of the officers of the 
U.S. Army of the last generation when traveling in Europe was much 
disgusted to observe that a green uniform was used in some of the 
armies for the corps of engineers and for branches of the service other 
