Mrs. Dalloway

private, to Lady Bruton as she passed. She stopped. She wagged her fine
old head. She was thanking him presumably for some piece of servility.
She had her toadies, minor officials in Government offices who ran
about putting through little jobs on her behalf, in return for which
she gave them luncheon. But she derived from the eighteenth century.
She was all right.

And now Clarissa escorted her Prime Minister down the room, prancing,
sparkling, with the stateliness of her grey hair. She wore ear-rings,
and a silver-green mermaid’s dress. Lolloping on the waves and braiding
her tresses she seemed, having that gift still; to be; to exist; to
sum it all up in the moment as she passed; turned, caught her scarf
in some other woman’s dress, unhitched it, laughed, all with the most
perfect ease and air of a creature floating in its element. But age had
brushed her; even as a mermaid might behold in her glass the setting
sun on some very clear evening over the waves. There was a breath of
tenderness; her severity, her prudery, her woodenness were all warmed
through now, and she had about her as she said good-bye to the thick
gold-laced man who was doing his best, and good luck to him, to look