TO THB LIGHTHOUSE

Labour Party, they had gone up on to the bridge
of the ship and were taking their barings; i
change from poetry to politics struck her like
that; so Mr. Bankes and Charles Tansley v/eat
off while the others stood looking at Mrs,
Ramsay going upstairs in the lamplight alone,
Where, Lily wondered, was she going so quickly!
Not that she did in fact run or hurry; she went
indeed rather slowly. She felt rather inclined just
for a moment to stand still after all that chatter,
and pick out one particular thing; the thing that
mattered; to detach it; separate it off; dean it
of all the emotions and odds and ends of things,
and so hold it before her, and bring it to the
tribunal where, ranged about in conclave, sat the
judges she had set up to decide these things. Is
it good, is it bad, is it right or wrong? Where
are we going to? and so on. So she righted
herself after the shock of the event, and quite un-
consciously and incongruously, used the branches
of the elm trees outside to help her to stabilise
her position. Her world was changing; they
were still. The event had given her a sense of
movement. All must be in order. She must get
that right and that right, she thought, insensibly
approving of the dignity of the trees' stillness, and
now again of the superb upward rise (like the
beak of a ship up a wave) of the elm branches as

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