FLEETING SHADOWS.
Job xiv. 2.
As man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble; as he is said to come forth like a flower, only to be cut down, so is it further said of him, that “he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.” His days are like a shadow that declineth. He himself is gone as a shadow that fleeteth away. For man is vanity, his days are as a shadow, saith the psalmist. And the preacher, whose text is vanity of vanities, all is vanity, finds vexation of spirit in meditations on man, all the days of whose vain life he spendeth as a shadow.
What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue! The exclamation was that of a great statesman, amid the excitement and the contests of public life, when there reached him news of the sudden death of a fellow-candidate and colleague. Shadow-hunted shadows. The pursued and the pursuers—the game and the sportsmen—shadows all. Burke’s exclamation was often in the mind of the late Sir James Graham, and, towards the close of his life, not unfrequently on his lips.
“Ὁρῶ γὰρ ἡμᾶς οὐδὲν ὄντας ἄλλο, πλὴν
Εἰδωλ’, ὅσοιπερ ζῶμεν, ἤ κούφην ΣΚΙΑΝ.”
O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane! Men were ever of old, and they are found to be now, the willing victims of illusion in all stages of life: children, youths, adults, and old men, all, as Emerson puts it, are led by one bauble or another. “There are as many pillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm. We wake from one dream into another dream. The toys, to be sure, are various, and are graduated in refinement to the quality of the dupe.” For instance, the intellectual man requires a fine bait, while the sots are easily amused. “But everybody is drugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with music and banner and badge.” Shadows before, and shadows behind, and all fleeting. False glozing pleasures, to adopt George Herbert’s diction, are the shadowy lure,
... “casks of happiness,
Foolish night-fires, women’s and children’s wishes,