Observations placeholder
Shackleton, Sir Ernest
Identifier
001081
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
In the other observation for Shackleton on this site he wrote, “it seemed to me often that we were four, not three.” Shackleton had the unmistakable sense of being guided by an unseen presence.
I thought it might be interesting to know that his experience supplied the inspiration for a passage from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land:
A description of the experience
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle,
hooded I do not know whether a man or a woman –
But who is that on the other side of you?