Anciently symbolized the sun, the goodness of God, marriage, faith, and
fruitfulness. Old paintings of St. Peter represent him in a yellow
mantle. The Venuses were clothed in saffron-colored tunics; Roman brides
of an early day wore a veil of an orange tinge, called the _flameum_, a
flame--a flame which, kindled at Hymen's torch, it is to be hoped was
ever burning, never consuming. As every good has its antipodal evil, so
every color has its bad sense, which is contrary or opposite to its
first or good signification.
In a bad sense, yellow means inconstancy, and the æsthetic Greeks, fully
carrying out this meaning, compelled their public courtesans to
distinguish themselves by mantles of saffron color. The radical sense of
saffron is to fail, to be hollow, to be exhausted. In tracing customs,
it is easy to see the bias unknowingly received from natural
significations, significations which take their rise in the spiritual
world. The _San Benito_ or _auto-da-fe_ dress of the Spanish Inquisition
was yellow, blazoned with a flaming cross; and, as a mark of contempt
for the race, the Jews of Catholic Spain were condemned to wear a yellow
cap. Distinguishing colors in dress have ever been one of the most
common methods of expressing distinction of class and differences of
faith, until thence has arisen the imperative adage: 'Show your colors;'
and he who refuses to do so is despised as a hypocrite or changeling.
Yellow, as a color, finds but few admirers among modern enlightened
nations; it is recognized as the color of shams; but in China, that
country of contrarities, where printing, fish breeding, gas burning, and
artesian wells have been known and stationary for centuries, where
almond-shaped eyes, club feet, and long cues are types of beauty, where
old men laughingly fly kites, and little boys look gravely on, where
white is mourning, and everything is different from elsewhere--there
yellow is the most admired of colors, restricted to the use of royalty
alone under penalty of death.
Yellow is the most searching of colors, as indeed it should be from its
correspondence with light. It is gaudy, and does not inspire respect,
for it brings into view every imperfection. Every defect in form or
manner is rendered conspicuous by it, and we involuntarily scan the
whole person of the unfortunate and tasteless wearer of it.