TO THE LIGHTHOUSEmind to the story of the Fisherman and his Wifeand so pacify that bundle of sensitiveness (none ofher children was as sensitive as he was) her son James.
‘The man’s heart grew heavy,’ she read aloud,‘and he would not go. He said to himself, "It is notright," and yet he went. And when he came to thesea the water was quite purple and dark blue, andgrey and thick, and no longer so green and yellow,but it was still quiet. And he stood there and said —'
Mrs. Ramsay could have wished that her husbandhad not chosen that moment to stop. Why had henot gone as he said to watch the children playingcricket? But he did not speak; he looked; he nodded;he approved; he went on. He slipped, seeing beforehim that hedge which had over and over again round-ed some pause, signified some conclusion, seeing hiswife and child, seeing again the urns with the trailingred geraniums which had so often decorated pro-cesses of thought, and bore, written up among theirleaves, as if they were scraps of paper on which onescribbles notes in the rush of reading — he slipped,seeing all this, smoothly into speculation suggested byan article in The Times about the number of Ameri-cans who visit Shakespeare’s house every year. IfShakespeare had never existed, he asked, would theworld have differed much from what it is to-day?Does the progress of civilisation depend upon greatmen? Is the lot of the average human being betternow than in the time of the Pharoahs? Is the lot ofthe average human being, however, he asked him-self, the criterion by which we judge the measure ofcivilisation? Possibly not. Possibly the greatest goodrequires the existence of a slave class. The liftman in52