Slide to View Image: Opacity 0%
TO THE LIGHTHOUSEthat comfort over, to deprecate it, as if to be caughthappy in a world of misery was for an honest manthe most despicable of crimes. It was true; he wasfor the most part happy; he had his wife; he hadhis children; he had promised in six weeks’ timeto talk "some nonsense" to the young men of Cardiffabout Locke, Hume, Berkeley, and the causes ofthe French Revolution. But this and his pleasurein it, his glory in the phrases he made, in the ardourof youth, in his wife’s beauty, in the tributes thatreached him from Swansea, Cardiff, Exeter, South-ampton, Kidderminster, Oxford, Cambridge—allhad to be deprecated and concealed under the phrase"talking nonsense," because, in effect, he had notdone the thing he might have done. It was a dis-guise; it was the refuge of a man afraid to own hisown feelings, who could not say, This is what Ilike—this is what I am; and rather pitiable and dis-tasteful to William Bankes and Lily Briscoe, whowondered why such concealments should be neces-sary; why he needed always praise; why so brave aman in thought should be so timid in life; howstrangely he was venerable and laughable at oneand the same time.Teaching and preaching is beyond human power,Lily suspected. (She was putting away her things.)If you are exalted you must somehow come a crop-70
