THE WINDOWbefore him that he was disposed to slur that comfortover, to deprecate it, as if to be caught happy in aworld of misery was for an honest man the most des-picable of crimes. It was true; he was for the mostpart happy; he had his wife; he had his children; hehad promised in six weeks’ time to talk ‘some non-sense' to the young men of Cardiff about Locke,Hume, Berkeley, and the causes of the French Re-volution.

But this and his pleasure in it, in the phrases hemade, in the ardour of youth, in his wife’s beauty,in the tributes that reached him from Swansea, Car-diff, Exeter, Southampton, Kidderminster, Oxford,Cambridge — all had to be deprecated and concealedunder the phrase ‘talking nonsense’, because, in effect,he had not done the thing he might have done. Itwas a disguise; it was the refuge of a man afraid toown his own feelings, who could not say, This is whatI like — this is what I am; and rather pitiable anddistasteful to William Bankes and Lily Briscoe, whowondered why such concealments should be neces-sary; why he needed always praise; why so brave aman in thought should be so timid in life; how strange-ly he was venerable and laughable at one and thesame time.

Teaching and preaching is beyond human power,Lily suspected. (She was putting away her things).If you are exalted you must somehow come a cropper.Mrs. Ramsay gave him what he asked too easily.Then the change must be so upsetting, Lily said. Hecomes in from his books and finds us all playinggames and talking nonsense. Imagine what a changefrom the things he thinks about, she said.55
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