White. . . is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black. . . God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white.
It takes the wool from your eyes about how the world works, to show you that nothing's necessarily fair, and that you might have a hard life.