"Plato," he said, laying one finger on the first of a row of small
dark books, "and Jorrocks next door, which is wrong. Sophocles, Swift.
You don't care for German commentators, I presume. French, then. You
read French? You should read Balzac. Then we come to Wordsworth and
Coleridge, Pope, Johnson, Addison, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats. One thing
leads to another. Why is Marlowe here? Mrs. Chailey, I presume. But
what's the use of reading if you don't read Greek? After all, if you
read Greek, you need never read anything else, pure waste of time--pure
waste of time," thus speaking half to himself, with quick movements
of his hands; they had come round again to the circle of books on the
floor, and their progress was stopped.
"Well," he demanded, "which shall it be?"
"Balzac," said Rachel, "or have you the _Speech_ _on_ _the_ _American_
_Revolution_, Uncle Ridley?"
"_The_ _Speech_ _on_ _the_ _American_ _Revolution_?" he asked. He looked
at her very keenly again. "Another young man at the dance?"
"No. That was Mr. Dalloway," she confessed.
"Good Lord!" he flung back his head in recollection of Mr. Dalloway.
She chose for herself a volume at random, submitted it to her uncle,
who, seeing that it was _La_ _Cousine_ _bette_, bade her throw it
away if she found it too horrible, and was about to leave him when he
demanded whether she had enjoyed her dance?
He then wanted to know what people did at dances, seeing that he had
only been to one thirty-five years ago, when nothing had seemed to him
more meaningless and idiotic.
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