Shade (spirit)

“ No shadow but mine own Hath screened thee from the sight Of Heaven, whose love alone Hath led me to thy light. Whereof—as shade to shade Is wedded in the sun— A moment's glance hath made Our souls forever one. ”

“ Since Princes, in their stately arbours green, Account of shade, as trees which fruit adorn; Because from heat they welcome shelters been. The Shadow shields, 'gainst sun, your beauty fair; Which else his scorching heat would much impair.
Then though a Shadow without fruit I be; And scarce yield leaves to cover this my bark: Accept these leaves, thy Beauty's Shade, of me! Where wealth doth ebb, goodwill doth flow from heart. Deign me, for all my love, but Shadow thine! Thy Substance 's too too high for fortune mine. ”

“ MEN OF SHADE All the candles are passing out, one by one. They have evaporated their brightness, overpowered limpid cracks in their own flames, seized the outpouring air with hesitant breath to brave a flicker of new hearth while knocking holes against the warm men decorating fireside shade. ”

“ And he remained in death what he had been in life: a being visible only at twilight, silent and intangible as a shade.
Amid the murk of life, where hapless mankind gropes its way along, where some persons smash into obstacles, and others fall into a chasm, and where no one knows a sure path, where superstition-beset man is prey to ill fortune, misery, and hatred – still, in those dark trackless places in life, lamplighters bustle. Each carries a little flame over his head, each kindles light along his path, lives unknown, labors inestimable, then vanishes like a shade... ”

“ And even as I wondered
At the following, haunting shadow,
(That was cast by nothing living, the shadow of a shade.)
I saw it was a woman's,
The shadow of a woman,
Of the woman who is dead,
And then I understood. ”

“ When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed. ⁠4
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! ”

“ But the shade that seemed not a shadow, went on and regarded me not. Then I also turned again towards the moaning of the sea and went on. And lo! the shade which had gone before until it seemed but as a vapour among the stars, was again by my side walking. And I said, and stood not, but walked on: Thou shade that art not a shadow, seeing there shineth no sun or moon, and the stars are many, and the one slayeth the shadow of the other, what art thou, and wherefore goest thou by my side? ”

“ Now—and this is no secret for thee, worthiness—this shade, the Ka, is like a man, but looks as though made of most delicate mist. The shade has a head, hands, body, it can walk, speak, throw things or carry them, it dresses like a man, and even, especially during a few hundred of the earlier years after death, must take some food at intervals. But the shade obtains its main strength from the body which remains on the earth here. Therefore if we throw a body into a grave it spoils quickly and the shade must satisfy itself with dust and decay. ”

“ These sun-shadows are useful in showing us the principle of light and shade, and so also are the shadows cast by artificial light; but they are only the beginning of that beautiful study, that exquisite art of tone or chiaro-oscuro, which is infinite in its variety, is full of the deepest mystery, and is the true poetry of art. ”

“ But if I were the Dark and owned the stars, and the potion which quickens conscience, and the sense of the great Spirit brooding, brooding, I do not know that I would exchange and be the Light. Still, the Light has rainbows and toil and the sun and laughter.... After all, it is best to be a human being and to have both Light and Darkness for one's own. ”

“ The way by light and shade is, on the contrary, taken by men of the highest powers of thought, and most earnest desire for truth; they long for light, and for knowledge of all that light can show. But seeking for light, they perceive also darkness; seeking for truth and substance, they find vanity. They look for form in the earth,--for dawn in the sky; and seeking these, they find formlessness in the earth, and night in the sky. ”

“ It is undoubtedly true that the shade is always imbued with a sentiment of profound sadness. The circumstances under which it is produced, and the emotions and desires which call it into being, are necessarily of such a character as to project a profoundly sad thought. And this fact is another evidence of its being an embodied thought, rather than a human soul. ”

“ For all harmony depends, first, on the fixed proportion of the color of the light to that of the relative shadow; and therefore if I fasten my color, I must fasten my shade. But on a round surface the shadow changes at every hour of the day ”

“ The smaller Stains and Blemishes may die away and disappear amidst the Brightness that surrounds them; but a Blot of a deeper Nature casts a Shade on all the other Beauties, and darkens the whole Character. ”

“ We know one of the purest sources of beauty may be traced to the godliness of light and its ancillaries—shade and colour. Even slightly serated or rough parts on the face will intercept the effect of light and shade, thereby evincing how subtle and delicate is the influence. ”

“ If you cannot then catch your shadow, wait till the same day on the following month and renew the attempt. Sooner or later you will succeed, and, as you stand there in the brilliance of the moonlight, you will see that you have drawn your shadow into yourself, and your body will never again cast a shade. ”

“ Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?—But, referred to the sun, it is widest at its base, which is no greater than his own opacity. The divine light is diffused almost entirely around us, and by means of the refraction of light, or else by a certain self-luminousness, or, as some will have it, transparency, if we preserve ourselves untarnished, we are able to enlighten our shaded side. ”

“ Nature, indeed, by throwing out the shade of the eyelashes before the glaring rays, brings to the eyes themselves a weaker light, and so the sunlight becomes tolerable to us, mingling as it does, in quantities proportionate to our need, with the shadows which the lashes cast. ”

“ I believe I shall be perfectly well able to prove, in following parts of the work, that "mere natural light and shade" is the only fit and faithful attendant of the highest art; and that all tricks—all visible, intended arrangement—all extended shadows and narrow lights—everything in fact, in the least degree artificial, or tending to make the mind dwell upon light and shade as such, is an injury, instead of an aid, to conceptions of high ideal dignity. ”

“ But—a wonderful thing—the shade of an inanimate object is not dead, it possesses life, moves, goes from place to place, it even thinks and expresses thought through various signs, most frequently through knocking.
“When a man dies his shade lives and shows itself to people. ”

“ It is from the vantage-ground of this perception that we are able to discern how the mysterious beauty revealed in apparently "inhuman" arrangements of line and colour and light and shade is really a thing springing from the depths of some personal and individual vision. ”

“ And the worst of all is, that while these forms are difficult enough to draw on any terms, especially considering that they never stay quiet, they must be drawn also at greater disadvantage of light and shade than any others, the force of light in clouds being wholly unattainable by art; so that if we put shade enough to express their form as positively as it is expressed in reality, we must make them painfully too dark on the dark sides. ”

“ Forth from this maze of mingling tints, indefinite in shade and sunbeams, lean earnest, saintly faces—ineffably pure—adoring, pitying, pleading; raising their eyes in ecstasy to heaven, or turning them in ruth toward earth. ”

“ The human soul seems to me an imprisoned essence, striving after somewhat divine. There is strength in it, as of suffocated flame, finding vent now through poetry, now in painting, now in music, sculpture, or architecture; various are the crevices and fissures, but the flame is one.
Shadow.
What a curious kind of thing shadow is,—that invisible veil, falling so evenly and so [47] lightly over all things, bringing with it such thoughts of calmness and rest. I wonder the old Greeks did not build temples to Shadow, and call her the sister of Thought and Peace. ”

“ But because the light is above and the darkness below and the spirit between them, the light, like a ray of the sun on high, shines on the underlying darkness, and the fragrance of the spirit holding the middle place is borne and spread abroad as the odour of incense on the fire is borne. And as the power of the triply divided is such, the power of the spirit and the light together are below in the darkness beneath. But, they say, the darkness is a fearful water into which the light is drawn down with the spirit and changed into a similar nature. ”

“ A voice replied; and at his side he saw A form, half shadow and half substance, stand, Or, rather, rest; for on the solid earth It had no footing, more than some dense mist That waves o'er the surface of the ground It scarcely touches. With a reverent look The shadow's waste and wretched face was bent Above the picture; as though greater awe Subdued its awful being, and appalled, With memories of terrible delight And fearful wonder, its devouring gaze. "You make what God makes,—beauty," said the shape. "And might not this, this second Eve, console The emptiest heart? ”

“ He painted the ABSOLUTE VALUES of objects IN SHADE on a sunny day, which of course demands the brightest possibilities of the palette, and got the lighted objects themselves as nearly as he could,—thus destroying the relative values, but getting an extraordinary joyous and glowing effect; and one, too, of unexpected verisimilitude, for it would seem that in a sunlit scene we are really attentive to the shaded objects alone, and what becomes of the others does not so much matter. ”

“ The foreground of the picture is all in shadow, and in the depths of that shadow kneels one prostrate form in an abandon of anxiety or grief. Behind it, unseen, stands a wondrous, pitying, strongly supporting figure with hand outstretched, an aura of light about it, love and understanding emanating from it. ”

“ Although the figures we have been drawing show the principles on which sun-shadows are shaped, still there are so many more laws to be considered in the great art of light and shade that it is better to observe them in Nature herself or under the teaching of the real sun. ”

“ Then, in that supreme moment, gathered about him the memories of light and darkness, and they became the lips through which eternal powers spake to him in a tongue unlike the speech of men. The spirit of light was behind the visions of mystical beauty: the spirit of darkness arrayed itself in the desires of clay. ”

“ So every day we live, a day we die.
FOLLOW THY FAIR SUN FOLLOW thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!
Though thou be black as night
And she made all of light,
Yet follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow!
Follow her, whose light thy light depriveth!
Though here thou liv'st disgraced,
And she in heaven is placed,
Yet follow her whose light the world reviveth!
Follow those pure beams, whose beauty burneth,
That so have scorchèd thee
As thou still black must be
Till her kind beams thy black to brightness turneth.
Follow her, while yet her glory shineth! ”

“ And thus, far from good draughtsmen darkening the lines which turn away from the light, the tendency with them is rather to darken them towards the light, for it is there in general that shade will ultimately enclose them. The best example of this treatment that I know is Raphael's sketch, in the Louvre, of the head of the angel pursuing Heliodorus, the one that shows part of the left eye; where the dark strong lines which terminate the nose and forehead towards the light are opposed to tender and light ones behind the ear, and in other places towards the shade. ”

“ But to give it grace, roundness, and effect, those dark shades are always attended by reflexes, or else they would either cut too hard upon the ground, or stick to it, by the similarity of shade, and relieve the less as the ground is darker ”

“ If that which you so wonder at is but shadow, how great must that be whose very shadow you wonder at. See now
what happened in the case of the fathers was shadow: “They drank, it is said, of that Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were done in a figure concerning us.” [6] You recognize now which are the more excellent, for light is better than shadow, truth than a figure, the Body of its Giver than the manna from heaven. ”

“ The light was a welcome visitor to the hyacinths and roses, obliged to hide in torturing silence in the still green-house, pouring out their passionate dumb life in intensity of fragrance. A life just hovering on the borders of the world, and yet forbidden to enter! But, bathed in the glowing effulgence of the light, this invisible fragrance could be born, and enter the visible world as color. For the fragrance is the unborn soul of the flower; color, that soul arrested in its restless wanderings,—embodied fragrance. ”

“ The resemblance and the relation of the shadow to the body is so strangely like that of the body to the soul, that it is very possible that it first suggested the latter. It is born of light, yet is in itself a portion of the mystery of darkness; it is the facsimile of man in every outline, but in outline alone; filled in with uniform sombre tint, it imitates our every action as if in mockery, which of itself suggests a goblin or sprite, while in it all there is something of self, darkling and dream-like, yet never leaving us. ”