In August, the April of the Argentine poets, we had some piercingly cold weather, followed by a fall of snow. Heaven be praised for it! for never again, perhaps, shall I see earth transfigured by the breath of antarctic winter. I had spent the night in the village, and it was a strange and weirdly beautiful sight when, on rising next morning, I beheld roads, housetops, trees, and the adjacent hills white with a surpassing unfamiliar whiteness. The morning was mild, with a dull leaden sky; and suddenly, as I stood in the street, the snow began to fall again, and continued for about an hour. Most of that time I spent standing motionless, gazing up into the air, peopled with innumerable large slow-descending flakes: only those of my English readers who, like Kingsley, have longed for a sight of tropical vegetation and scenery, and have AT LAST had their longing gratified, can appreciate my sensations on first beholding snow.
My visit to Patagonia so far had been rich in experiences. One of the first, just before touching its shores, but after the ship had struck on the hidden rocks, was the effect of whiteness as seen in a tumultuous milky sea; and now, after several months there came this snow-fall, and a vaster and stranger whiteness. My uppermost feeling at the time was one of delight at seeing what I had been hoping for months to see, but had now, when winter was so nearly over, ceased to hope for. This pleasure was purely intellectual; but when I ask myself if there was anything besides, a deeper, undefinable feeling, I can only answer, I think not: my first experience of snow does not lead me to believe that there is any instinctive feeling in us related to it; that the feeling which so many, perhaps a majority of persons, experience on seeing the earth whitened by the breath of winter, must be accounted for in some other way.
In Herman Melville’s romance of ‘Moby Dick, or the White Whale’, there is a long dissertation, perhaps the finest thing in the book, on whiteness in nature, and its effect on the mind. It is an interesting and somewhat obscure subject; and, as Melville is the only writer I know who has dealt with it, and something remains to be said, I may look to be pardoned for dwelling on it at some length in this place.
Melville recalls the fact that in numberless natural objects whiteness enhances beauty, as if it imparted some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, pearls; that the quality of whiteness is emblematic of whatever we regard as high and most worthy of reverence; that it has for us innumerable beautiful and kindly associations. “Yet,” he goes on to say, “for all these accumulated associations with whatever is sweet, and honourable, and sublime, there lurks an illusive something in the innermost idea of this hue which strikes more of panic to the soul than the redness which affrights in blood.” He is no doubt right that there is a mysterious illusive SOMETHING affecting us in the thought of whiteness; but, then, so illusive is it, and in most cases so transient in its effect, that only when we are told of it do we look for and recognise its existence in us. And this only with regard to certain things, a distinction which Melville failed to see, this being his first mistake in his attempt to “solve the incantation of whiteness.” His second and greatest error is in the assumption that the quality of whiteness, apart from the object it is associated with, has anything extranatural or supernatural to the mind. There is no “supernaturalism in the hue,” no “spectralness over the fancy,” in the thought of the whiteness of white clouds; of the white horses of the sea; of white sea-birds, and white water-fowl, such as swans, storks, egrets, ibises, and many others; nor in white beasts, not dangerous to us, wild or domestic, nor in white flowers. These may bloom in such profusion as to whiten whole fields, as with snow, and their whiteness yet be no more to the fancy than the yellows, purples, and reds of other kinds. In the same way the whiteness of the largest masses of white clouds has no more of supernaturalness to the mind than the blueness of the sky and the greenness of vegetation. Again, on still hot days on the pampas the level earth is often seen glittering with the silver whiteness of the mirage; and this is also a common natural appearance to the mind, like the whiteness of summer clouds, of sea foam, and of flowers.
From all these examples, and many others might be added, it seems evident that the “illusive something” which Melville found in the innermost idea of this hue — a something that strikes more of panic to the soul than the redness which affrights in blood — does not reside in the quality of whiteness itself.
After making this initial mistake, he proceeds to name all those natural objects which, being white, produce in us the various sensations he mentions, mysterious and ghostly, and in various ways unpleasant and painful. What is it, he asks, that in the albino so peculiarly repels and shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin? He has a great deal to say of the polar bear, and the white shark of the tropical seas, and concludes that it is their whiteness that makes them so much more terrible to us than other savage rapacious creatures that are dangerous to man. He speaks of the muffled rolling of a milky sea; the rustlings of the festooned frost of mountains; the desolate shiftings of the windrowed snows of prairies. Finally, he asks, whence, in peculiar moods, comes that gigantic phantom over the soul at the bare mention of a White Sea, a White Squall, White Mountains, etc., etc.?
He assumes all along that the cause of the feeling, however it may differ in degree and otherwise, according to the nature and magnitude of the subject, is one and the same in all cases, that the cause is in the whiteness, and not in the object with which that quality is associated.
The albino case need not detain us long; and here Melville’s seafaring experiences might have suggested a better explanation. Sailors, I am convinced from observation, are very primitive in their impulses, and hate, and often unite in persecuting, a companion who, owing to failing strength or some physical defect, is not able to do his share of the work. Savages and semi-barbarous people often cherish a strong animosity against a constantly ailing, crippled, or otherwise defective member of the community: and albinism is associated with weakness of vision, and other defects, which might be a sufficient cause of the aversion. Even among the highly civilised and humane, the sight of sickness is probably always, in some measure, repulsive and shocking, especially in cases in which the skin loses its natural colour, such as anaemia, consumption, chlorosis, and jaundice. This natural and universal cause of dislike of the albino would be strengthened among pure savages by the superstitious element — the belief that the abnormal paleness of the individual was supernatural, that want of colour signified absence of soul.
As to the white shark of the tropics, the simplest explanation of the greater terror inspired by this creature would be that, being white, and therefore conspicuous above all other dangerous creatures, the sight would be more attracted to it, its image would become more fixed, and look larger and more formidable in the mind, and it would be more often thought about apprehensively, with the result that there would be a predisposition to regard it with a fear exceeding that inspired by other creatures equally or even more dangerous to human life, but inconspicuously coloured, hence not so vividly seen, and creating no such distinct and persistent mental image. Let us consider what would be the effect of the appearance of a warrior, habited in snowy white, or shining gold, or vivid scarlet, or flame-colour, among a host of contending men, fighting in the old fashion with sword and spear and battle-axe, all clothed and armoured in dull neutral or sombre colours. Wherever he appeared every eye would be attracted to him; his movements and actions would be followed with intense interest by all, and by his antagonists with keen apprehension; every time he parried a blow aimed at his life he would appear invulnerable to the lookers-on, and whenever an enemy went down before him it would seem that a supernatural energy nerved his arm, that the gods were fighting on his side. So great is the effect of mere conspicuousness! Any white savage beast would, because of its whiteness, or conspicuousness, seem more dangerous than another; and a Chillingham bull, no doubt, inspires more fear in a person exposed to attack than a red or black bull. On the other hand, sheep and lambs, although their washed fleeces look whiter than snow, are regarded as indifferently as rabbits and fawns, and their whiteness is nothing to us.
Something more remains to be said about whiteness in animals, which must come later. It will be more in order to speak first of the whiteness of snow, and the whiteness of a seething ocean. We are all capable of experiencing something of that feeling, so powerfully described by Melvi............