For you know well enough that all people, and all languages and nations, except the ancient Syracusans and certain Argives, who had cross and thwarting souls, when they mean outwardly to give evidence of their sorrow, go in black; and all mourning is done with black.

Which general consent is not without some argument and reason in nature, the which every man may by himself very suddenly comprehend, without the instruction of any--and this we call the law of nature.

By virtue of the same natural instinct we know that by white all the world hath understood joy, gladness, mirth, pleasure, and delight.

In former times the Thracians and Cretans did mark their good, propitious, and fortunate days with white stones, and their sad, dismal, and unfortunate ones with black.

Is not the night mournful, sad, and melancholic?
It is black and dark by the privation of light.