TO THE LIGHTHOUSE
to see pictures: they only made one hopelessly
discontented with one’s own work. Mr. Bankes
thought one could carry that point of view too far.
We can’t all be Titians and we can’t all be
Darwins, he said; at the same time he doubted
whether you could have your Darwin and your
Titian if it weren’t for humble people like ourselves.
 Lily would have liked to pay him a
compliment; you're not humble, Mr. Bankes,
she would have liked to have said. But he did
not want compliments (most men do, she thought),
and she was a little ashamed of her impulse and
said nothing while he remarked that perhaps
what he was saying did not apply to pictures.
Anyhow, said Lily, tossing off her little insincerity,
 she would always go on painting, because
it interested her. Yes, said Mr. Bankes, he was
sure she would, and as they reached the end of
the lawn he was asking her whether she had
difficulty in finding subjects in London when
they turned and saw the Ramsays. So that is
marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman
looking at a girl throwing a ball. That is what
Mrs. Ramsay tried to tell me the other night,
she thought. For she was wearing a green
shawl, and they were standing close together
watching Prue and Jasper throwing catches. And
suddenly the meaning which, for no reason at all,
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