TO   THE   LIGHTHOUSE
energy, a column of spray, looking at the same
time animated and alive as if all her energies were
being fused into force, burning and illuminating
(quietly though she sat, taking up her stocking
again),   and into  this  delicious   fecundity, this
fountain and spray of life, the fatal sterility of the
male plunged itself, like a beak of brass, barren
and bare.    He wanted sympathy.    He was a
failure,   he   said.    Mrs,   Ramsay   flashed   her
needles.    Mr. Ramsay repeated, never taking his
eyes from her face, that he was a failure.    She blew
the words back at him.    " Charles Tansley , . . "
she said.    But he must have more than that,
It was- sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his
genius, first of all, and then to be taken within
the circle of life, warmed and soothed, to have"
his senses restored to him, his barrenness made
fertile, and all the rooms of the house made full
of life—the drawing-room;  behind the drawing:
room the kitchen; above the kitchen the bedrooms;
and beyond them the nurseries;   they must be
furnished, they must be filled with life.
Charles Tansley thought  him  the  greatest
metaphysician of the time,  she  said.    But he
must  have \more  than   that.    He   must   have
sympathy.    h£ must be assured that he too lived;
in the heart of life;  was needed; not here only,
but all over the Vorld.    Flashing herTneedL
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