Slide to View Image: Opacity 0%
TO THE LIGHTHOUSEAmong them, must be one that was stone blindto her beauty. One wanted most some secretsense, fine as air, with which to steal throughkeyholes and surround her where she sat knitting,talking, sitting silent in the window alone; whichtook to itself and treasured up like the air whichheld the smoke of the steamer, her thoughts, herimaginations, her desires. What did the hedgemean to her, what did the garden mean toher, what did it mean to her when a wavebroke? (Lily looked up, as she had seen Mrs.Ramsay look up; she too heard a wave falling onthe beach.) And then what stirred and trembledin her mind when the children cried, "How’sthat? How’s that?" cricketing? She would stopknitting for a second. She would look intent.Then she would lapse again, and suddenly Mr.Ramsay stopped dead in his pacing in front of her.And what was thecurious shock thatpassedthrough her and seemed to rock her in profoundagitation on its breast whenstopping there he stoodover her, looked down at her, and said “Well!”?He stretched out his hand and raised her fromher chair. It seemed somehow as if he had doneit before; as if he had once bent in the same wayand raised her from a boat which, lying a fewinches off some island, had required that the ladiesshould thus be helped on shore by the gentlemen.306
