Mrs. Dalloway

for a spark between them--she laughed at the sight of him, he smiled
good-humouredly, considering the problem of the female vagrant; not
that they would ever speak. But he would tell Clarissa that he loved
her, in so many words. He had, once upon a time, been jealous of Peter
Walsh; jealous of him and Clarissa. But she had often said to him that
she had been right not to marry Peter Walsh; which, knowing Clarissa,
was obviously true; she wanted support. Not that she was weak; but she
wanted support.

As for Buckingham Palace (like an old prima donna facing the audience
all in white) you can’t deny it a certain dignity, he considered, nor
despise what does, after all, stand to millions of people (a little
crowd was waiting at the gate to see the King drive out) for a symbol,
absurd though it is; a child with a box of bricks could have done
better, he thought; looking at the memorial to Queen Victoria (whom he
could remember in her horn spectacles driving through Kensington), its
white mound, its billowing motherliness; but he liked being ruled by
the descendant of Horsa; he liked continuity; and the sense of handing
on the traditions of the past. It was a great age in which to have