ā€œThere’ll be no landing at the Lighthouse tomorrow,ā€ said Charles Tansley, clapping his hands together as he stood at the window with her husband. Surely, he had said enough. She wished they would both leave her and James alone and go on talking. She looked at him. He was such a miserable specimen, the children said, all humps and hollows. He couldn’t play cricket; he poked; he shuffled. He was a sarcastic brute, Andrew said. They knew what he liked best⁠—to be forever walking up and down, up and down, with Mr. Ramsay, and saying who had won this, who had won that, who was a ā€œfirst-rate manā€ at Latin verses, who was ā€œbrilliant but I think fundamentally unsound,ā€ who was undoubtedly the ā€œablest fellow in Balliol,ā€ who had buried his light temporarily at Bristol or Bedford, but was bound to be heard of later when his Prolegomena, of which Mr. Tansley had the first pages in proof with him if Mr. Ramsay would like to see them, to some branch of mathematics or philosophy saw the light of day. That was what they talked about.

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