peter walsh peter walsh peter walsh peter walsh

“He had been sent down from Oxford—true. He had been a Socialist, in some sense a failure—true. Still the future of civilisation lies, he thought, in the hands of young men like that; of young men such as he was, thirty years ago; with their love of abstract principles; getting books sent out to them all the way from London to a peak in the Himalayas; reading science; reading philosophy. The future lies in the hands of young men like that, he thought.”

- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway 

Still, the sun was hot. Still, one got over things.

“She did not move. “Tell me the truth, tell me the truth,” he kept on saying. He felt as if his forehead would burst. She seemed contracted, petrified. She did not move. “Tell me the truth,” he repeated, when suddenly that old man Breitkopf popped his head in carrying the Times; stared at them; gaped; and went away. “Tell me the truth,” he repeated. He felt that he was grinding against something physically hard; she was unyielding. She was like iron, like flint, rigid up the backbone. And when she said “It’s no use. It’s no use. This is the end” - after he had spoken for hours, it seemed, with the tears running down his cheeks - it was as if she had hit him in the face. She turned, she left him, went away.

“Clarissa!” he cried. “Clarissa!” But she never came back. It was over. He went away that night. He never saw her again.

It was awful, he cried, awful, awful!

Still, the sun was hot. Still, one got over things. Still, life had a way of adding day to day.”

- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway