Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the gloves herself.
Big Ben was striking as she stepped out into the street. It was eleven o'clock and the unused hour was fresh as if issued to children on a beach. But there was something solemn in the deliberate swing of the repeated strokes; something stirring in the murmur of wheels and the shuffle of footsteps.
No doubt they were not all bound on errands of happiness. There is much more to be said about us than that we walk the streets of Westminster. Big Ben too is nothing but steel rods consumed by rust were it not for the care of H.M.'s Office of Works. Only for Mrs Dalloway the moment was complete; for Mrs Dalloway June was fresh. A happy childhood—and it was not to his daughters only that Justin Parry had seemed a fine fellow (weak of course on the Bench); flowers at evening, smoke rising; the caw of rooks falling from ever so high, down down through the October air—there is nothing to take the place of childhood. A leaf of mint brings it back: or a cup with a blue ring.
Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the gloves herself.
Big Ben was striking as she stepped out into the street. It was eleven o'clock and the unused hour was fresh as if issued to children on a beach. But there was something solemn in the deliberate swing of the repeated strokes; something stirring in the murmur of wheels and the shuffle of footsteps.
No doubt they were not all bound on errands of happiness. There is much more to be said about us than that we walk the streets of Westminster. Big Ben too is nothing but steel rods consumed by rust were it not for the care of H.M.'s Office of Works. Only for Mrs Dalloway the moment was complete; for Mrs Dalloway June was fresh. A happy childhood—and it was not to his daughters only that Justin Parry had seemed a fine fellow (weak of course on the Bench); flowers at evening, smoke rising; the caw of rooks falling from ever so high, down down through the October air—there is nothing to take the place of childhood. A leaf of mint brings it back: or a cup with a blue ring.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) växte upp i en bildad övre medelklassfamilj med fyra halv- och tre helsyskon, av vilka systern Vanessa (sedermera berömd konstnär, gift Bell) förblev hennes nära vän livet ut. Woolf och systrarna fick ingen formell utbildning utan undervisades av fadern i hemmet. År 1912 gifte hon sig med Leonard Woolf och tillsammans startade de det Londonbaserade förlaget Hogarth Press 1917, där Woolfs böcker och flera betydande verk av unga samtida författare kom att publiceras. Förutom makarna Woolf hörde bland andra Victoria Sackville-West, Lytton Strachey, E.M. Forster och ekonomen John Maynard Keynes till Bloomsburygruppen. I denna krets diskuterades samtidens mest aktuella tankegångar inom olika ämnen och bland annat tog gruppen kritisk ställning mot det senviktorianska Englands konventioner och levnadssätt. Dessa diskussioner kom att sätta spår i Woolfs författarskap som kom att bli ett av de viktigaste under 1900-talet. Vid ett flertal tillfällen vårdades Woolf för psykisk ohälsa och 1941, på höjden av sin litterära karriär, begick hon självmord.
