29end of the table her husband was saying about - was it squareroots, cubes, the numbers on tickets? AndMrs. Ramsay did not know to this day what that it meant:but her husband did. Her sons did too. She leant on their strengthCubes & square roots & y x x plus y;P Talleyrand &theFrenchPrincesse de Ligne;Voltaire, Madame de Stael & theequallingsomethingelseRevolution; howshe let itall uphold her, & sustain her,this admirable fabric ofbeautiful masculine intelligencewhich ran up & down,like iron girders which, withoutcrossed this way & that, upheld the world:Until so that shecould trust herself to it utterly, &even shut her eyes,or blink them&dreamingbe lost for a moment, like a child blinking up from itspillows at myriad ?layers of the leaves of a tree; & then, waking,she would there it was be in still being fabricated.FornowWilliam Bankes was giving his opinion of the pre ?prasing;Waverley novels; & springing to his feet, metaphorically,rejoicing at this chance of assering his existence, Charles Tansleywhose father was a chemist, whose grandfather was ain his ?ownboat fisherman, was denouncing with how if they asked him,had C English literaturewas denouncing them.Being a the son of a working man he was of course he washe approached literature from a different point of view.he saidLiterature is not a mere pastime for idle hours.So manypeople at the table had enjoyed some books occasionally thatthey felt uncomfortable.If only Prue would be decently kindto him, Mrs. Ramsay thought, he would not say these things.But for though William Bankes would never be rude,unkind, she could judge what he was thinking - impertinentpuppy,like that && all the rest of it. And he was not,(for he sending hislittle sister to a good school, &