Article January 15, 1979 Issue

"The ghost of materiality"

DOROTHEA T. LEAMY

I was passing my favorite spot in the park, but this time it was well past dusk. The lamplights were on, and a misty rain was falling. In the artificial light everything had an eerie, mysterious, shadowy look. Grotesque figures loomed in the distance. Even the trees in the rainy darkness looked so different that I hardly recognized my special place.

Next day dawned clear and lovely. There were no ghostly figures and weird shapes, only statues of historical personages and some trees. The light of day had banished the ghosts of darkness, and the park was as it had always been—open, picturesque, and beautiful.

Imagination relates ghosts to illusion, phantom shadows, mystery, demons. We are all familiar with such optical illusions as sea and sky meeting, and railroad tracks coming together in the distance. But these only seem true to the unenlightened. Illusion, then, is that which seems to be true but isn't

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