crape-knots

Updated: May 7, 2025

This happened in the French division of the place, which, of course, was decorated to the utmost ability of the people in honor of the fête: and so palpable was the gloom cast over all by the circumstance, that the bright flannels flaunting from the cordons stretched across the way seemed to darken into palls, and the gay red streamers must have appeared to the subdued carnival spirits as warning crape-knots on the door-handle of death.

Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 41, March, 1861