Mrs. Dalloway

thinks as he advances down the forest ride) all this fever of living
were simplicity itself; and myriads of things merged in one thing;
and this figure, made of sky and branches as it is, had risen from
the troubled sea (he is elderly, past fifty now) as a shape might be
sucked up out of the waves to shower down from her magnificent hands
compassion, comprehension, absolution. So, he thinks, may I never go
back to the lamplight; to the sitting-room; never finish my book; never
knock out my pipe; never ring for Mrs. Turner to clear away; rather
let me walk straight on to this great figure, who will, with a toss of
her head, mount me on her streamers and let me blow to nothingness with
the rest.

Such are the visions. The solitary traveller is soon beyond the wood;
and there, coming to the door with shaded eyes, possibly to look for
his return, with hands raised, with white apron blowing, is an elderly
woman who seems (so powerful is this infirmity) to seek, over a desert,
a lost son; to search for a rider destroyed; to be the figure of the
mother whose sons have been killed in the battles of the world. So,
as the solitary traveller advances down the village street where