TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
he was—Mr. Ramsay—advancing towards them,
swinging, careless, oblivious, remote. A bit of
a hypocrite? she repeated. Oh no—the most
sincere of men, the truest (here he was), the best;
but, looking down, she thought, he is absorbed
in himself, he is tyrannical, he is unjust; and kept
looking down, purposely, for only so could she
keep steady, staying with the Ramsays. Directly
one looked up and saw them, what she called
“ being in love” flooded them. They became
part of that unreal but penetrating and exciting
universe which is the world seen through the
eyes of love. The sky stuck to them; the birds
sang through them. And, what was even more
exciting, she felt, too, as she saw Mr. Ramsay
bearing down and retreating, and Mrs. Ramsay
sitting with James in the window and the cloud
moving and the tree bending, how life, from being
made up of little separate incidents which one
lived one by one, became curled and whole like
a wave which bore one up with it and threw one
down with it, there, with a dash on the beach.
Mr. Bankes expected her to answer. And
she was about to say something criticising Mrs.
Ramsay, how she was alarming, too, in her
way, high-handed, or words to that effect, when
Mr. Bankes made it entirely unnecessary for
her to speak by his rapture. For such it was
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