Elemental Color Symbolism

When you think about it, clouds are white, the hottest flames are white, there's whitewater (often but not exclusively rafted), and as for earth, well, depending on the rock or clay, you see how it is. Great! Everything has been simplified nicely.

The Font of Elevation

One day, the Horrelfot Geyser sprayed gold instead of water. The margrave, thinking of the costs of his current and contemplated entanglements, sent men to dig there, whether for gold or more likely some item strange in its properties.
A few yards of pit later, the men unearthed the cause of it, which was a gnome holding a mass gold. He explained that he realized recently he had neglected to wash his bedding for a few hundred years and nothing less powerful than the geyser would do. The bundle, unrolled, proved to be thick sheets far too heavy for any one of the helpful diggers to lift even when they agreed to assist with the washing.
One among them, not content to suppress his curiosity even when dealing with creatures from whom no sense could be expected, asked the gnome if he would not prefer softer sheets, linen perhaps. The conversation revealed the ignorance gnomes have of comforts. A trade was arranged so that the gnome went away with the softest sheets in the county which were the margrave's own, and his bed too, and his pillows.
The margrave prospered after that, nor did he forget to bestow upon his able servant lands and honors. The new vassal's emblem became a golden sheet in commemoration of that incident, and not because "nobody could think of anything meaningful for that undistinguished family," as you alleged in your scandalous publication. Now that this court has instructed you better, an apology is expected and will reduce the fine from devastating to instructive.
Finis

Perilous Symbolism

"Oh king, once, there was a wondrous egg! And when it hatched, three hundred sixty-five soldiers emerged from it, in full panoply!" The king considered. "There doesn't seem to be much of a point to that story."
"Oh king, it symbolizes—"
"We know what it symbolizes. Everyone knows what it symbolizes. Symbolism isn't substance. We have decided. Make us a soldier-hatching egg that we may defend our holdings the more effectively."
"But sire . . ."
And lo, the kingdom did not develop eggs capable of hatching three hundred sixty-five soldiers, but they did have armor in them, which was a great boon both militarily and economically. Literarily, the kingdom's writers moved away from empty symbolism for fear of being assigned an impossible task, another improvement.
Finis