Shadow

“ Till far to-morrow, fare you well!
2. Shadow March
All around the house is the jet-black night;
It stares through the window-pane;
It crawls in the corners, hiding from the light,
And it moves with the moving flame.
Now my little heart goes a beating like a drum,
With the breath of the Bogies in my hair;
And all around the candle the crooked shadows come,
And go marching along up the stair.
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. ”

“ May the shadow, if shadow there must be, lie ever black across my life and leave hers in the sunshine. I have just come back from them, feeling a new man. With her by my side I think that I could show a bold face to any thing which life might send. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And her face in the starlight far paler
Than women who weep.
A mist on the deep; and the ghostly
White moon in the deep of the night;
And a light that is neither; that mostly
Is shadow not light. ”

“ When the night came again and shadows moved
As the moon through the ice-flower stared and roved,
And that unyielding Shadow came again.
That Shadow came again unseen and caught
The children as they sat listening in vain,
Their starved hearts failing ere the Shadow removed.
And when the new morn stepped from the same cold East
They lay unawakening in the barren light,
Their song and their imaginations bright,
Their pains and fears and all bewilderment ceased.... ”

“ Too brilliant a light gives not good shadows; wherefore be wary of it. Observe the tenderness and charm on the faces of men and women as they pass along the shadowed street between the dark walls of the houses under twilight on clouded days. This is the most perfect light; your shadow, gradually vanishing into the light, will fade like smoke—like a soft music. Remember that between the light and the dark there is something which participates in both; a bright shadow or a dark light. Seek for it, O painter! ”

“ I reflected in a moment, that if this were indeed a shadow, it was useless to look for the object that cast it in any other direction than between the shadow and the moon. I looked, and peered, and intensified my vision, all to no purpose. I could see nothing of that kind, not even an ash-tree in the neighbourhood. Still the shadow remained; not steady, but moving to and fro, and once I saw the fingers close, and grind themselves close, like the claws of a wild animal, as if in uncontrollable longing for some anticipated prey. ”

“ Out on the hills, the still dawn must be stepping softly so as not to waken the world too soon ... soft, sandalled feet among the snow-set flowers....
The mere thought of it was sufficient to rouse him thoroughly. He rose, passed to the window, and thrust his young body into the chill air of dawn. All shadow! A deeper shadow in the valley, a lighter shadow in the encircling hills, and above it all the clear, grey, pellucid shadow of the sky. ”

“ That shadowy form, standing in the air, now vanishing, and then reappearing with every flash of sunlight, seemed no inapt image of human life, a thing of shadow, floating in a cloud, and hovering over an abyss! ”

“ Nothing now was left but the Shadow, and on that my eyes were intently fixed, till again eyes grew out of the Shadow,—malignant, serpent eyes. And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disordered, irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new. ”

“ 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! ”

“ And as I sit there with eyes fixed on that luminous space, I feel that something else, also terrible, is about to happen. Surely some one is moving in the darkness behind us? Even in that black silence I am conscious of a shadow blacker still. ”

“ Only in the cruel serenity of the sky, under the merciless brilliance of the sun, the dazzled eye misses the delicate detail, sees only the strong outlines, while the colours, in the steady light, seem crude and-without shadow. ”

“ A shadow had just fallen upon the surface of the queen of night, slowly if spread over it until the face of the great luminary was covered, and it hung in the cloudless heavens an orb of roseate hue, its radiance all gone. ”

“ Bright like a sun,—
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose slowly, slowly,
Dimming,
Hiding,
The light of my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky,—
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow. ”

“ Three things are, indeed, needed to form a shadow: light, a body, a dark place. The shadow of heaven forms the darkness of the world. Understand, I pray you, what I mean, by a simple example—by raising for yourself at midday a tent of some compact and impenetrable material, you shut yourself up in sudden darkness. ”

“ So true are his shadows,—equally free from coldness, opacity, or false glare;—so clear, so broken, so airy, and yet so deep, that if you hold your hand so as to cast a shadow on any part of the flesh which is in the light, this part, so shaded, will present exactly the same appearance which the painter has given to the shadowed part of the picture. ”

“ Sun and shadow flit across it, changing every moment dark to light and light to dark, so that the general emphasis and expression of the scene constantly vary, like the expression of a human face, as we watch it. ”

“ A shadow, a living shadow is in quantity and design and distribution. A regretted shadow is in organisation and distribution and retribution. Any shadow is famous and any face is soon painting. Any heroism is hard limited and any line is fabulous, and the church any church is taken when there are windows and a winter waiting, any likelihood shows that red. ”

“ What shadow there is inside the earth. What swarming on the surface. Absent that shadow, you wouldn’t have swarming. That blossoming of images and forms has its roots in all the mysteries. Those flowers prove the depth. ”

“ Life is a passing shadow, says the Scripture. Is it the shadow of a tower, of a tree? A shadow that prevails for a while? No, it is the shadow of a bird in his flight; away flies the bird, and there is neither bird nor shadow. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Shadow is the diminution alike of light and of darkness, and stands between darkness and light. ”

“ 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? ”

“ And his mother had explained to him once, in that sympathetic understanding way of hers which could beautifully account for anything, that it takes shadows to make the world a real place, a livable place, because, when you see a shadow, you know by that shadow's very presence, that there is something real and true, that you can lay your hands upon, which makes the shadow. ”

“ The faint blurred shadows of the delicately budded trees in spring! the crisp sure ones of the winter; sunlight-shadows, and moonlight-shadows; and, above all, oh, yes, and dearer than all, the firelight shadows! And all the things that shadows do! The quaintness, and fidelity of them; and the grotesquerie of them! The way they run when you run, and stand still on the very instant that you stand still! A nimble people, so that their following of you is nearly like a game and it is impossible to catch them napping. ”

“ Darkness, then, is the strongest degree of shadow and light is its least. Therefore, O Painter, make your shadow darkest close to the object that casts it, and make the end of it fading into light, seeming to have no end. ”

“ Every one knows the changed aspect of the whole material world, when one of the lights that radiated the inner self has merged into shadow, leaving us to grope our way in darkness, until the radiance of a new light, emerging from ourselves, shall penetrate the shadow and shine with the combined brightness of both. ”

“ THE SUN-DIAL AT WELLS COLLEGE FOR THE CLASS OF 1904 The shadow by my finger cast
Divides the future from the past:
Before it, sleeps the unborn hour,
In darkness, and beyond thy power:
Behind its unreturning line,
The vanished hour, no longer thine:
One hour alone is in thy hands,—
The NOW on which the shadow stands. ”

“ And lo! from among those sable draperies where the sounds of the song departed, there came forth a dark and undefined shadow- a shadow such as the moon, when low in heaven, might fashion from the figure of a man: but it was the shadow neither of man nor of God, nor of any familiar thing. And quivering awhile among the draperies of the room, it at length rested in full view upon the surface of the door of brass. But the shadow was vague, and formless, and indefinite, and was the shadow neither of man nor of God- neither God of Greece, nor God of Chaldaea, nor any Egyptian God. ”

“ The shadow is long or short, clear-cut or vague, dark or light, blue or purple, violet or black. Each phase of it has a special [Pg 181] significance. It presages luck or ill-luck on the chase, sickness and death in the future, the presence or unrest of the souls of parted friends. Even the souls of the living sometimes get mixed. Then there is love or intrigue. All the passions of wild life can be read from the shadows. ”

“ And the shadow answered, "I am Shadow, and my dwelling is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian canal." And then did we, the seven, start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling, and shuddering, and aghast: for the tones in the voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and varying in their cadences from syllable to syllable, fell duskily upon our ears in the well remembered and familiar accents of many thousand departed friends. ”

“ Everything casts a shadow, and if you see a shadow you may be sure there is some body to cast it, though the shape and size of the shadow may be wholly unlike and out of proportion to the object which throws it. A tree casts a shadow, a house casts a shadow, a needle casts a shadow, even a hair—where the shadow is, there is some substance to fling it; where great blame is cast, there is some occasion for it. ”

“ However, out of the cloud comes lightning--from the depths of night bursts forth the sun; all bright things are preceded by darkness; and the shadow that is upon me may give place to light. Even here, perhaps, I may be enabled to do more for the cause I have undertaken than if I had reached France. ”

“ There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock) ,
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. ”

“ No shadows! Nothing real! No assurance of reality! only the dark—unbroken, formless, fearful; the dark which like grief, and forgetfulness, and selfishness, fives for itself only, without regard for the pain or joy or suffering of others; all the world else shut out; a fearful, shadowless thing in which all the beautiful realities of life are lost and blotted out. ”

“ Yes, but open your eyes again and you will see it in the same place, in the same form, doing the same work. A most persistent nothing, a most powerful nothing! Not the shadow cast by the good, but the cloud that hides the sun and casts the shadow. ”

“ And the beautiful soft shadows rested there on that rosy and golden light, some like the shadow of a beautiful and sorrowful memory, a restin’ down and reposin’ on a divine hope, an infinite sweetness. ”

“ Then observe this optic phenomenon of the greatest darkness with the greatest light. The shadow is the deeper, the brighter the light that casts it. One characteristic of Truth is that it makes the bad worse and the good better. ”

“ This shadow is valuable as completing the encasement of the subject on the bottom and in starting the eye well into the picture toward its subject.
Our natural vision always seeks the light. Shadows are the carum cushions from which the sight recoils in its quest for this. Letting the eye into the picture over a foreground of subdued interest, or better still, of no interest is one of the most time-honored articles of the picture-maker's creed. ”