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THE LIGHTHOUSEthose habitual currents which after a certain timeforms experience in the mind, so that one repeatswords without being aware any longer who originallyspoke them.

Can’t paint, can’t write, she murmured monoton-ously, anxiously considering what her plan of attackshould be. For the mass loomed before her; it pro-truded; she felt it pressing on her eyeballs. Then, as ifsome juice necessary for the lubrication of her facul-ties were spontaneously squirted, she began precar-iously dipping among the blues and umbers, movingher brush hither and thither, but it was now heavierand went slower, as if it had fallen in with some rhythmwhich was dictated to her (she kept looking at thehedge, at the canvas) by what she saw, so that whileher hand quivered with life, this rhythm was strongenough to bear her along with it on its current. Cer-tainly she was losing consciousness of outer things.And as she lost consciousness of outer things, and hername and her personality and her appearance, andwhether Mr. Carmichael was there or not, her mindkept throwing up from its depths, scenes, and names,and sayings, and memories and ideas, like a fountainspurting over that glaring, hideously difficult whitespace, while she modelled it with greens and blues.

Charles Tansley used to say that, she remembered,women can’t paint, can’t write. Coming up behind herhe had stood close beside her, a thing she hated, asshe painted here on this very spot. ‘Shag tobacco,’ hesaid, ‘fivepence an ounce,’ parading his poverty, hisprinciples. (But the war had drawn the sting of herfemininity. Poor devils, one thought, poor devils ofboth sexes, getting into such messes.) He was always185