The principle covers, however, the whole of modern life.
Morris and the merely aesthetic mediaevalists always indicated
that a crowd in the time of Chaucer would have been brightly
clad and glittering, compared with a crowd in the time of
Queen Victoria. I am not so sure that the real distinction
is here. There would be brown frocks of friars in the first
scene as well as brown bowlers of clerks in the second.
There would be purple plumes of factory girls in the second
scene as well as purple lenten vestments in the first.
There would be white waistcoats against white ermine; gold watch
chains against gold lions. The real difference is this:
that the brown earth-color of the monk"s coat was instinctively
chosen to express labor and humility, whereas the brown color
of the clerk"s hat was not chosen to express anything.
The monk did mean to say that he robed himself in dust.
I am sure the clerk does not mean to say that he crowns
himself with clay. He is not putting dust on his head,
as the only diadem of man. Purple, at once rich and somber,
does suggest a triumph temporarily eclipsed by a tragedy.
But the factory girl does not intend her hat to express a triumph
temporarily eclipsed by a tragedy; far from it. White ermine
was meant to express moral purity; white waistcoats were not.
Gold lions do suggest a flaming magnanimity; gold watch chains do not.
The point is not that we have lost the material hues, but that we
have lost the trick of turning them to the best advantage.
We are not like children who have lost their paint box and
are left alone with a gray lead-pencil. We are like children
who have mixed all the colors in the paint-box together
and lost the paper of instructions. Even then (I do not deny)
one has some fun.
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