John, white robes are given to the redeemed,
and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before
the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there
white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations,
with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet
lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue,
which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which
affrights in blood.
This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness,
when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled
with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror
to the furthest bounds. Witness the white bear of the poles,
and the white shark of the tropics; what but their smooth,
flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are?
That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an abhorrent mildness,
even more loathsome than terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect.
So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can
so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or shark.*
*With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him who
would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not the whiteness,
separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable hideousness of
that brute; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness, it might be said,
only rises from the circumstance, that the irresponsible ferociousness
of the creature stands invested in the fleece of celestial innocence
and love; and hence, by bringing together two such opposite emotions
in our minds, the Polar bear frightens us with so unnatural a contrast.
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