TIME PASSES

ours always. But alas, divine goodness, twitching
the cord, draws the curtain; it does not please
him; he covers his treasures in a drench of hail,
and so breaks them, so confuses them that it
seems impossible that their calm should ever
return or that we should ever compose from their
fragments a perfect whole or read in the littered
pieces the clear words of truth. For our penitence
deserves a glimpse only; our toil respite only.

The nights now are full of wind and destruc-
tion; the trees plunge and bend and their leaves
fly helter skelter until the lawn is plastered with
them and they lie packed in gutters and choke
rain pipes and scatter damp paths. Also the sea
tosses itself and breaks itself, and should any
sleeper fancying that he might find on the beach
an answer to his doubts, a sharer of his solitude,
throw off his bedclothes and go down by himself
to walk on the sand, no image with semblance of
serving and divine promptitude comes readily to
hand bringing the night to order and making the
world reflect the compass of the soul. The hand
dwindles in his hand; the voice bellows in his ear.
Almost it would appear that it is useless in such
confusion to ask the night those questions as to
what, and why, and wherefore, which tempt the
sleeper from his bed to seek an answer.

[Mr, Ramsay stumbling along a passage

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