TO THE LIGHTHOUSELabour Party, they had gone up on to the bridgeof the ship and were taking their bearings; thechange from poetry to politics struck her likethat; so Mr. Bankes and Charles Tansley wentoff, 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 wentindeed rather slowly. She felt rather inclined justfor a moment to stand still after all that chatter,and pick out one particular thing; the thing thatmattered; to detach it; separate it off; clean itof all the emotions and odds and ends of things,and so hold it before her, and bring it to thetribunal where, ranged about in conclave, sat thejudges she had set up to decide these things. Isit good, is it bad, is it right or wrong? Whereare we going to? and so on. So she rightedherself after the shock of the event, and quite un-consciously and incongruously, used the branchesof the elm trees outside to help her to stabiliseher position. Her world was changing: theywere still. The event had given her a sense ofmovement. All must be in order. She must getthat right and that right, she thought, insensiblyapproving of the dignity of the trees’ stillness, andnow again of the superb upward rise (like thebeak of a ship up a wave) of the elm branches as174
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