CONCERNING SHADOWS

Evening Star, Issue 18021, 15 July 1922, Page 2

CONCERNING SHADOWS

What . a singular fascination shadows exorcise upon everybody. It begins with the earliest years. Next to sunlight shadows are the wonder of childhood, and also its dread. De Quincey tells of a certain celebrated' man who, when he was a little boy, used' to angrily hunt his shadow, and how delighted he was to make the discovery one day that it had no. real existence—that it was merely the hindering of the sun’s light by his own body. Everyone will remember Stevenson’s whimsical little poem on ‘My Shadow ’ i I have a little shadow that goes in. and out with me, And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. He is very, very like me, from the heels up to the head; And I see him jump before me when I jump into bea. But in another poem he (tells how’ his little heart goes beating like a drum when all round the candle the crooked shadows come, and The shadow of the balusters, the shadow of the lamp ; The shadow of the. child that goes to bed— All the wicked shadows coming tramp, tramp, tramp, With the black night overhead, «• # « » •And as with the child, so with the childhood! of the race. As far back as wo can get, we find our grey forefathers trying to finger and find out the meaning of their shadows. There is nothing else in the world that so lends itself to parables that run into mysticism as shadows. A. little toy of five said to his teacher: “Wouldn’t it be funny if wo were dreaming?” “Yes.” Then more explicitly; “Andsupnosing everybody in the world was dreaming, wouldn’t that ho funny? They might be. mightn’t they?”. And a little girl of about the same age said: “Perhaps the world’s a fancy.” Well, hero, as in so much else, the child is father to tire man, for that is just the “ fancy " indulged in by tho childhood of the race. It recalls Plato’s famous description of our position in the world. Ho likens it to men in a cave, with their backs to the light, looking unon tho wall in front of of them, and deriving all their knowledge from study-

ing tho shadows of things cast upon it. And long before Plato’s day his ancestors away in India had worked out a similar conclusion-—a conclusion that holds them to this hour. To them the visible world is a dream, a fancy; a shadow, an unreality. As Shelley says: In this life , * Of error, ignorance, and strife, Where nothing is but all things seem, And wo tho shadows of the dream. Tho idea has been illustrated somewhat like this : Suppose a long room with a fire burning at one end and hundreds of mirrors. Each mirror will record a separate fire. Yet there is hut one ■ real fire. All tho others are illusions; shadows of it. They have no existence apart from it. That is the doctrine of Brahmanism regarding Gcd's relation to the world, except that tho mirror itself would bo ah illusion. How, then, are we to get rid of the shadow ? Death will not do it. If 1 we die loving tho shadows wo will still bo held by them. Wo must realise that tho world is a shadow, and then wo must cease to desire it, cease to love it. In that way only can we escape from delusion and unhappiness. But if the world is a dream, there must bo a dreamer. If it is a shadow,^ it is the shadow of some reality. The mist dings about tho mountain. It hides it, but it docs not make the mountain. The mountain makes the mist. And so there, is a great truth at the heart of the Hindu philosophy. It is tho truth that behind or within this visible, unsubstantial world there is a Something or Someone of Whom it is the expression. So men in all ages have felt. They .give varied names to this Eternal One. Their ideas of His nature and relation to tho world were endlessly diverse. This has led some to suppose that it is man who creates his God, and not God man. Tho famous Brocken spectre has been used to illustrate it. Visitors often notice during an autumn sunrise "shadows of their own figures, enormously dilated, confronting them from a great distance, bowing as they bow, kneeling as they kneel, mocking them in all their gestures, and finally disappearing as the sun rises higher in the sky.” So in the early dawn of human intelligence man was deluded by a Brocken shadow of himself, to which, ho attributed an independent existence. Feuerbach, whose hook ‘ The Essence of Christianity ’ carried George Eliot off her religious feet, was probably the ablest advocate of this theory. And it has been done into poetry—of a kind—by one of our poet-laureates, whom few, we suspect, read now—Alfred Austin. He says Man will be 'great w T hen ho lias no gods, Or owns these creatures of his own begetting,

And loves, but fears them not. We need not discuss the question here. It is enough to say just now that Mr Austin’s contention is neither history nor common sense. It rests on the assump-

tion that sensation is the only conceivable evidence of independent existence. That would dismiss to the limbo of the/ unreal gravity, ether, the velocity of light, and dozens of other universally accepted truths. As thf. present writer pens these words he sees the reflections of the sky on the surface of the hay. They are only shadows? Yes, but the shadow dbes not make itself. There is a substance somewhere. “ The spiritual in man is a sure pledge of the spiritual outside him.” It is a greater countryman of Feuerbach’s who formulates the truth of the matter for us, Jacob Boebme: “The heart of man is ever in quest of the fatherland from whence it has strayed away, and covets evermore a perpetual resting place. It is always demands ing whore the fair homeland is, where death enters not. It cannot ho as this world', else it would have been lit on long ago.” And so we return to our parable of the shadow'. We begin by pointing out that the position of 6 the shadow is determined by our attitude towards the sum When we face the sun the shadow lies behind us. That is true in the mental and moral sphere as well. As we confront the light there it deepens the shadows. They increase behind us. In the old picture of Bunyan’s Pilgrim forging his way towards tho Celestial City, we see him with a burden on his back. It is his past that be is carrying behind him. -As mental and spiritual illumination increases the consciousness of ill-dOsert increases, too. This is the reason why the saints feel sin most. The most poignant expressions of repentance. of sorrow for the past, do not come from the worst of men; they come from the best of them. For wrong-doing puts blood on the spiritual retina and sears the conscience. This is probably the significance of that singular story of Chamisso’s about the man Peter Schkmihl, who sold his shadow. When he made what seemed a lucky dfeal with the Devil, that tihrewd purchaser quietly rolled up his victim’s shadow and put it in his pocket. So also when Michael Scott, in the completion of his education at Padua, had mastered certain intricacies of the black art, it was observed/ that His form no darkening shadow cast Athwart the sunny wall So, again, when the Black Dwarf’s neighbors insisted that there was always a shadowy person along with him, helping him in his work, Earuscliff suggested that it was the Dwarf’s shadow. “ Do’il a shadow has he,” retorted Hobhic Elliott; “ lie’s ower far in wi’ the nuld ane to have a shadow.” Again, Shelley’s Wandering Jew is described as “ whose unessential figure oast no,shadow upon the golden floor.” The experience of King Richard on the night before the Battle of Bosworth Field is further confirmation of our truth. His conscience had become illuminated, and tho past lies heavy on him: By the Apostle Paul shadows to-night Have struck more terror into the soul of Richard Than could tbe substance of ten thousand soldiers Armed all in proof and led by shallow Richmond.

Thus a man’s position relative to the light determines tho character and location of his shadow. » ■» « We arrive at tho same conclusion when wc reverse our attitude. When we face away from the sun the shadow comes' round to the front of us. Those who turn tho back upon the light may not be bothered by the past, but the future will have its shadows for them, # Wo need not enter into details. Sooner or latex they must meet one which there is no cßdging. George Meredith says of one of his characters in ‘ Diana of the Crossways': “ She was running a race with a shadow. She did not know what it was; it ran in a shroud.” There is only one runner dressed like that. It is “ tho Shadow feared of man, ’ and in particular of tho man who turns his back on tho light and loves tho darkness. This echoed through the midmost core of mirth Since mortal mirth began; Hearing, wo know that all the feast is dearth And all red roses wan. But on that threadbare theme of moralists no more need bo said. a * * » Is there any place where there are no shadows? Yes, when tho sun is directly over our heads, then the shadows disappear —or perhaps wo should say are under our feet. It is only a further confirmation of what wo have been writing. Hie shadow varies with our position to the sun. With our back to tho sun it stalks in front of us. When tho light falls more or less slantingly on our figure tho shadow creeps behind and looks over the shoulder of the sunshine. But when we are directly under tho full light in its meridian splendor, then the shadows disappear altoI getlior. In his third canto of ‘ Purgatory ’ Dante is overcome with apprehension that his guide has deserted him, for he sees no shadow save that of Ills own body. But Virgil explains ha once Jiad a body, but it was loft at Naples, and his spiritual : body casts no shadow. And when we pass from Purgatory to Paradise it is recorded that the vast flights of angels cast no shade, “ for through the universe celestial light glides freely, and no obstacle prevents.” Or, as Milton has it, in 1 Paradise Lost, 1 for surveying light finds “nor shade, but all sunshine.” And there wo may rest for the present.