TO THE LIGHTHOUSEfrailty, so that his mother, watching him guide hisscissors neatly round the refrigerator, imagined himall red and ermine on the Bench or directing a sternand momentous enterprise in some crisis of publicaffairs.

'But,' said his father, stopping in front of the draw-ing-room window, 'it won't be fine.'

Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or anyweapon that would have gashed a hole in his father'sbreast and killed him, there and then, James wouldhave seized it. Such were the extremes of emotionthat Mr. Ramsay excited in his children's breasts byhis mere presence; standing, as now, lean as a knife,narrow as the blade of one, grinning sarcastically, notonly with the pleasure of disillusioning his son andcasting ridicule upon his wife, who was ten thousandtimes better in every way than he was (James thought),but also with some secret conceit at his own accuracyof judgement. What he said was true. It was alwaystrue. He was incapable of untruth; never tamperedwith a fact; never altered a disagreeable word tosuit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal being,least of all of his own children, who, sprung from hisloins, should be aware from childhood that life isdifficult; facts uncompromising; and the passage tothat fabled land where our brightest hopes are ex-tinguished, our frail barks founder in darkness (hereMr. Ramsay would straighten his back and narrowhis little blue eyes upon the horizon), one that needs,above all, courage, truth, and the power to endure.

'But it may be fine — I expect it will be fine,' saidMrs. Ramsay, making some little twist of the reddish-brown stocking she was knitting, impatiently. If she8
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