“The wheelbarrow, the lawnmower, the sound of poplar trees, leaves whitening before rain, rooks cawing, brooms knocking, dresses rustling—all these were so coloured and distinguished in his mind that he had already his private code, his secret language, though he appeared the image of stark and uncompromising severity, with his high forehead and his fierce blue eyes, impeccably candid and pure, frowning slightly at the sight of human frailty, so that his mother, watching him guide his scissors neatly round the refrigerator, imagined him all red and ermine on the Bench or directing a stern and momentous enterprise in some crisis of public affair. ”
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by hand_me_my_shovel
1 Comment
The Bench here refers to the courts, so the ending is about a mother imagining her son having a very serious legal career or one involved in “public affairs.” Really it’s a reflection of a child’s rich intellectual life (even while engaging in a mindless activity – cutting out pictures from magazines) pivoting in Woolf’s iconic style into another character’s reflection as a kind of coda.