To the Lighthouse: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions)

by Virginia Woolf

“I’m the only woman in England free to write what I like.”

‘Subject and object and the nature of reality,’ Andrew had said.” These terms prove too abstract for Lily. “ ‘Think of a kitchen table then,’ he told her, ‘when you’re not there’ ” (20).

To make our difficulties plain, let us concentrate attention on the table. To the eye it is oblong, brown and shiny, to the touch it is smooth and cool and hard; when I tap it, it gives out a wooden sound. Any one else who sees and feels and hears the table will agree

It follows that if several people are looking at the table at the same moment, no two of them will see exactly the same distribution of colours, because no two can see it from exactly the same point of view, and any change in the point of view makes some change in the way the light is reflected.

For most practical purposes these differences are unimportant, but to the painter they are all-important: the painter has to unlearn the habit of thinking that things seem to have the colour which common sense says they “really” have, and to learn the habit of seeing things as they appear. Here we have already the beginning of one of the distinctions that cause most trouble in philosophy—the distinction between “appearance” and “reality.” * * *