NATURE AND TIME

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23205, 1 June 1937, Page 15

NATURE AND TIME

One of the foremost women writers in the world at the present time is Virginia Woolf, author of amumber of books which are said to be intelligible only to the highbrows, but which actually are for everybody who cares to take time to read them. She has the modern ability of describing simultaneously scenes and their psychological effect on people, and manages to make the most vivid impressions on her readers. Here is a description from her latest book “ The Years “ The wind seemed to rise as she walked under the trees. It sang in their tops, but it was silent beneath. The dead leaves crackled under foot; among them sprang up the pale spring flowers, the loveliest of the year—blue flowers and white flowers, trembling on cushions of green moss. Spring was sad always, she thought; it brought back memories. All passes, all changes, she thought, as she climbed up the little path between the trees. Nothing of this belonged to her; her son would inherit: his wife would walk here after her. She broke off a twig; she picked a flower and put it to her lips. But she was in the prime of life; she was vigorous. She strode on. The ground rose sharply; her muscles felt strong and flexible as she pressed her thick-soled shoes to the ground. She threw away her flower. The trees thinned as she strode higher and higher. Suddenly she saw the sky between two striped tree trunks extraordinarily blue. She came out on the top. “ The wind ceased; the country spread wide all round her. Her body seemed to shrink; her eyes to widen. She threw herself on the ground, and looked over the billowing land that went rising and falling, away and away, until somewhere off it reached the sea. Uncultivated, uninhabited, existing by itself, for itself, without towns and houses, it looked from this height. Dark wedges of shadow, bright breadths of light lay side by side. Then, as she watched, light moved and dark moved; light and shadow went travelling over the hills and over the valleys. A deep murmur sang in her ears —the land itself, singing to itself, a chorus, alone. She lay there listening. She was happy, completely. Time had ceased.”