"'Why, look,' said Neville, 'at the clock ticking on the mantelpiece? Time passes, yes. And we grow old. But to sit with you, alone with you, here in London, in this firelit room, you there, I here, is all. The world ransacked to its uttermost ends, and all its heights stripped and gathered of their flowers, holds no more. Look at the firelight running up and down the gold thread in the curtain. The fruit it circles droops heavy. It falls on the toe of your boot, it gives your face a red rim--I think it is the firelight and not your face; I think those are books against the wall, and that a curtain, and that perhaps an armchair. But when you come everything changes. The cups and saucers changed when you came in this morning. There can be no doubt, I thought, pushing aside the newspaper, that our mean lives, unsightly as they are, put on splendour and have meaning only under the eyes of love."
VIEW 16 of 16 COMMENTS
phoenix:
I'm reading The Waves right now and I love it! After reading some of her diary I feel as though I'm reading Waves through the lens of her own experience of writing it, as if she is narrating it to me and including footnotes.
annalee:
@phoenix I'm so glad you are reading and enjoying Woolf. I quite often think of you when I read her prose, so much about nature and flowers and beauty. I really recommend her letters too, so different from the novels, so funny and critical and sharp. I hope you are doing well and having a lovely winter xx