Wilton, Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton: The Book of costume or, Annals of fashion: from the earliest period to the present time (London: Henry Colburn, Publisher, 1847)

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INTRODUCTION.

size of the garments allowed to the nobility, as well as
to those of the lower orders.
The following explanation has been given of the
cause of the adoption of different colours for the
symbol of mourning :—
White is the emblem of purity ; celestial blue in-
dicates the space where the soul ranges after death ;
yellow (or dead leaf) exhibits death as the end of
hope, and man falling like the leaf in autumn ; grey is
the colour of the earth, our common mother ; black,
the colour of mourning now general throughout Eu-
rope, indicates eternal night. “ Black,” says Rabelais,
“ is the sign of mourning, because it is the colour of
darkness, which is melancholy, and the opposite to
white, which is the colour of light, of joy, and of
happiness.”