Mrs. Dalloway

Dr. Bradshaw himself lives by his philosophy of healing: “Proportion, divine proportion” (92). The principles of all of the doctors in the area appear reflected in the clocks on Harley Street, which “pointed out in chorus the supreme advantages of a sense of proportion” (95).

As the clocks chime, Hugh Whitbread lingers in front of a nearby shop window before going to Lady Bruton’s for lunch with a handful of red carnations. At Lady Bruton’s luncheon, Richard Dalloway also partakes in the “casseroles [where] severed chickens swim” (97). Lady Bruton asks after Clarissa, which reminds her that Peter Walsh is in town, and “[t]hey all smiled” (99) and “remembered the same thing—how passionately Peter had been in love” (99). Richard decides that as soon as he gets home that afternoon, he will locate his wife and tell her “in so many words, that he loved her” (99). While waiting for coffee after the lunch service, Lady Bruton thinks of her impulse to write, though “one letter to the Times […] cost her more than to organize an expedition to South Africa (which she had done in the war)” (101). She consults Hugh, who has a particular talent for writing letters to newspapers “until, finally, [Hugh] read out the draft of the letter which Lady Bruton felt certain was a masterpiece” (103).