with innumerable
frills, and wrapping her feet in a rug, sat down with a writing-pad on
her knee. Already this cramped little cabin was the dressing room of
a lady of quality. There were bottles containing liquids; there were
trays, boxes, brushes, pins. Evidently not an inch of her person lacked
its proper instrument. The scent which had intoxicated Rachel pervaded
the air. Thus established, Mrs. Dalloway began to write. A pen in her
hands became a thing one caressed paper with, and she might have been
stroking and tickling a kitten as she wrote:

Picture us, my dear, afloat in the very oddest ship you can imagine.
It's not the ship, so much as the people. One does come across queer
sorts as one travels. I must say I find it hugely amusing. There's the
manager of the line--called Vinrace--a nice big Englishman, doesn't say
much--you know the sort. As for the rest--they might have come trailing
out of an old number of _Punch_. They're like people playing croquet
in the 'sixties. How long they've all been shut up in this ship I don't
know--years and years I should say--but one feels as though one had
boarded a little separate world, and they'd never been on shore, or
done ordinary things in their lives. It's what I've always said about
literary people--they're far the hardest of any to get on with. The
worst of it is, these people--a man and his wife and a niece--might have
been, one feels, just like everybody else, if they hadn't got swallowed
up by Oxford or Cambridge or some such place, and been made cranks of.
The man's really delightful (if he'd cut his nails), and the woman has
quite a fine face, only she dresses, of course, in a potato sack, and
wears her hair like a Liberty shopgirl's. They talk about art, and think
us such poops for dressing in the evening. However, I can't help that;
I'd rather die than come in to dinner without changing--wouldn't you? It
matters ever so much more than the soup. (It's odd how things like that
_do_ matter so much more than what's generally supposed to matter.
I'd rather have my head cut off than wear flannel next the skin.) Then
there's a nice shy girl--poor thing--I wish one could rake her out
before it's too late. She has quite nice eyes and hair, only, of course,
she'll get funny too. We ought to start a society for broadening the
minds of the young--much more useful than missionaries, Hester! Oh, I'd
forgotten there's a dreadful little thing called Pepper. He's just like