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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