PURPLE.
Is the type of monarchical enlightenment. With Caucasian nations it has been the symbolic color of royalty, until 'invest with the purple,' in the course of ages, comes to mean kingdom, government, power, to rule. Purple is formed by the union of blue and red, truth and valor. Happy the people who are truly governed by truth and valor! The Tyrian purple was famous in Homer's days, and our dreams of Tyre and its splendor are all colored by this most gorgeous of dyes, the manufacture of which from a species of shell fish gave this ancient city a celebrity which all its other arts combined could not equal. This was one of the symbolic colors with which the high priest's robe was wrought in figures of pomegranates upon its skirt; and when Solomon sent to Hiram, king of Tyre, for a cunning workman to assist in building the temple, he did not fail to require he should be skilled in purple. During the time of the Roman emperors, the Tyrian purple was valued so highly that a pound of cloth twice dipped was sold for about one hundred and fifty dollars. Even a purple border about a robe was a mark of dignity.