Section 8: Peter Walsh in Regent’s Park
1. Peter, now back from India, sees the little things is society “things stand out as if one had
never seen them before”. He notices “lovers squabbling under a tree; the domestic family
life of the parks.” He has a larger admiration for civilisation.
In his absence, London has changed in his perspective. He believes that “even the poorest
dressed better than five years ago”, he also believes that “there was design, art, everywhere;
a change of some sort had undoubtedly taken place.”
2. Sally from Peter’s perspective: “the last person in the world one would expect to marry a rich
man and love in a large house near Manchester”, “the wild, the daring, the romantic Sally!”
Hugh from Peter’s perspective: “He ought to have been a Duke”, “Hugh had the most
extraordinary, the most natural, the most sublime respect for the British aristocracy of any
human being he had come across”, “the admirable Hugh”
Richard from Peter’s perspective: “He was a thorough good sort; a bit limited; a bit thick in
the head; yes; but a thorough good sort.” “Whatever he took up he did in the same matter-
of-fact sensible way; without a touch of imagination, without a spark of brilliancy, but with
the inexplicable niceness of his type.”
3. Peter admires Clarissa for the way she carries herself, but he recognises that her surface and
depth are contrasting – that being a limitation. “Her emotions were all on the surface.
Beneath, she was very shrewd”.
“She said they had a kind of courage which the older she grew the more she respected.”
Peter admired Clarissa’s sceptical philosophy - “she thought there were no Gods; no one was
to blame; and so, she evolved this atheist’s religion of doing good for the sake of goodness.”
4. “The compensation of growing old, Peter Walsh thought … was simply this; the passions
remain as strong as ever, but one has gained — at last! — the power which adds the
supreme flavour to existence — the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it round,
slowly, in the light.”
5. The enigmatic homeless woman singing:
a. The purpose of expanding the novel’s timeframe to pre-history is that it demonstrates
songs as natural and that it is undying. “the voice of an ancient spring spouting from the
earth.”
b. Her song relates to Peter’s reflections on love and time as through it all his love never
changed. “Through all ages – when the pavement was grass, when it was swamp,
through the age of tusk and mammoth, through the age of silent sunrise, the battered
woman – for she wore a skirt – with her right hand exposed, her left clutching at her
side, stood singing of love – love which has lasted a million years.”
c. The song inspires Rezia. “this old woman singing in the street “if someone should see,
what matter they?” made her suddenly quite sure that everything was going to be
right.”
Section 9: Septimus, Rezia and Dr Holmes
1. The narrator likening Septimus to “a clerk” conveys the normality in British society.
2. Woolf mocks “half educated, self-educated men”. Woolf criticises the waste of a system that
restricts the range of individual human achievement by raising the insurmountable barrier of
class.
