The passing of time

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Section

“[Clarissa] felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on.”

1

“As they looked the whole world became perfectly silent, and a flight of gulls crossed the sky, first one gull leading, then another, and in this extraordinary silence and peace, in this pallor, in this purity, bells struck eleven times, the sound fading up there among the gulls.”

2

“But [Clarissa] feared time itself, and read on Lady Bruton’s face, as if it had been a dial cut in impassive stone, the dwindling of life; how year by year her share was sliced.”

3

“The word "time" split its husk; poured its riches over [Septimus]; and from his lips fell like shells, like shavings from a plane.”

6

“It was precisely twelve o’clock; twelve by Big Ben; whose stroke was wafted over the northern part of London; blent with that of other clocks, mixed in a thin ethereal way with the clouds and wisps of smoke, and died up there among the seagulls.”

7

“The sound of Big Ben flooded Clarissa’s drawing-room.”

8

“Volubly, troublously, the late clock sounded.”

9