The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: with anxieties for Ridley, for her children, for far-off things,
such as old age and poverty and death. Hirst, too, was depressed.
He had been looking forward to this expedition as to a holiday, for,
once away from the hotel, surely wonderful things would happen,
instead of which nothing happened, and here they were as uncomfortable,
as restrained, as self-conscious as ever. That, of course, was what
came of looking forward to anything; one was always disappointed.
He blamed Wilfrid Flushing, who was so well dressed and so formal;
he blamed Hewet and Rachel. Why didn't they talk? He looked at
them sitting silent and self-absorbed, and the sight annoyed him.
He supposed that they were engaged, or about to become engaged,
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