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Here's a basic question about a well-known passage from <i>To the
Lighthouse</i>. Passage first:<br>
<br>
<font color="#ff0000">Often she found herself sitting and looking,
sitting and looking, with her work in her hands until she became
the thing she looked at -- that light, for example. And it would
lift up on it some little phrase or other which had been lying in
her mind like that --"Children don’t forget, children don’t
forget" -- which she would repeat and begin adding to it, It will
end, it will end, she said. It will come, it will come, when
suddenly she added, We are in the hands of the Lord.<br>
But instantly she was annoyed with herself for saying that.
Who had said it? Not she; she had been trapped into saying
something she did not mean. <br>
. . .<br>
What brought her to say that: "We are in the hands of the
Lord?" she wondered. The insincerity slipping in among the truths
roused her, annoyed her. She returned to her knitting again. How
could any Lord have made this world? she asked.</font><br>
<br>
Now the question. Are we to assume that Mrs Ramsay actually speaks
these words out loud, or are the "saying" and the "asking" purely
mental operations? For a long while I have assumed that it is the
latter, that Mrs Ramsay speaks these words to herself, silently. But
now I am less sure. <br>
<br>
Any thoughts?<br>
<br>
Jeremy H<br>
<br>
<br>
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