Gertrude Himmelfarb
MR. STEPHEN AND MR. RAMSAY:
THE VICTORIAN AS INTELLECTUAL
Virginia Woolf's novel,
To the Lighthouse,
opens brightly:
" 'Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow,' said Mrs. Ramsay. 'But you'll
have to be up with the lark.' " To her six-year-old son, "these words
conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were settled, the expedition
to the lighthouse were bound to take place, and the wonder to which
he had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a
night's darkness and a day's sail, within touch." For some lines, the
radiance of the child's world prevails; and then: "'But,' said his
father, stopping in front of the drawing-room window, 'it won't be
fine.' "
Had there been an axe handy, or a poker, any weapon that would
have gashed a hole in his father's breast and kiIIed him, there and then,
J ames would have seized it. Such were the extremes of emotion that Mr.
Ramsay excited in his children's breasts by his mere presence; standing,
as now, lean as a knife, narrow as the blade of one, grinning sarcastic–
aIly, not only with the pleasure of disiIIusioning his son and casting ridi–
cule upon his wife, who was ten thousand times better in every way
than he was (James thought) , but also with some secret conceit at his
own accuracy of judgment. What he said was true. It was always true.
He was incapable of untruth; never tampered with a fact; never altered
a disagreeable word to suit the pleasure or convenience of any mortal
being, least of alI his own children, who, sprung from his loins, should
be aware from childhood that life is difficult ; facts uncompromising;
and the passage to that fabled land where our brightest hopes are ex–
tinguished, . .. one that needs, above all, courage, truth, and the power
to endure.
This is our first introduction to Mr. Ramsay, that egotistical,
tyrannical, petty, and most disagreeable Victorian paterfamilias. It
