...of solitude

"Drop upon drop," said Bernard, "silence falls. It forms on the roof of the mind and falls into pools beneath. For ever alone, alone, alone, - hear silence fall and sweep its rings to the farthest edges. Gorged and replete, solid with middle - aged, content, I, whom loneliness destroys, let silence fall, drop by drop.

But now silence falling pits my face, wastes my nose like a snowman stood out in a yard in the rain. As silence falls I am dissolved utterly and become featureless and scarcely to be distinguished from another. It does not matter. What matters?..."

[The Waves, Woolf, V.]