[Vwoolf] Fw: in the hands of the Lord

[Jeremy Hawthorn]

Yes, I think on balance that I agree, Stuart. The fact that there are no 
quotation marks round the comment the first time ties in with what I 
recall is a larger Woolfian convention following which spoken utterances 
are enclosed in quotation marks and silent thoughts are not.

If so, this would suggest that the self, or subject, can have at least 
three different sorts of relationship to words in the head. First, 
phrases "lying in the mind" can be "lifted up" by some external stimulus 
and as it were presented to the self. Second, the self can be "trapped" 
into mentally saying something that it does not mean. And third, the 
self can utter words mentally, while in full control of their force - 
"How could any Lord have made this world? she asked."

This accords with what introspection tells me.

Jeremy


Den 03.06.2014 13:35, skrev Stuart N. Clarke:
> *From:* Stuart N. Clarke <mailto:stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 03, 2014 12:35 PM
> *To:* Jeremy Hawthorn <mailto:jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no>
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] in the hands of the Lord
> I may be wrong, but I take them as purely mental statements and 
> questions.  If aloud, is she speaking to herself?  Or to whom?  To 
> James?  To anyone who happens to overhear?
> I can't seem to find this passage in the MS.
> Although I haven't read it since 1970, I recommend Mitchell Leaska's 
> rather neglected "Virginia Woolf's Lighthouse" (Hogarth Press, 1970).
> Stuart
> *From:* Jeremy Hawthorn <mailto:jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 03, 2014 12:10 PM
> *To:* vwoolf at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu 
> <mailto:vwoolf at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> *Subject:* [Vwoolf] in the hands of the Lord
> Here's a basic question about a well-known passage from /To the 
> Lighthouse/. Passage first:
>
> 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.
>     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.
> . . .
>     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.
>
> 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.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Jeremy H

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