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Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
page 55 of 208 (26%)

Gulls rode gently swaying in little companies of two or three quite near
the boat; the cormorant, as if following his long strained neck in
eternal pursuit, skimmed an inch above the water to the next rock; and
the drone of the tide in the caves came across the water, low,
monotonous, like the voice of some one talking to himself.

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee,"

sang Jacob.

Like the blunt tooth of some monster, a rock broke the surface; brown;
overflown with perpetual waterfalls.

"Rock of Ages,"

Jacob sang, lying on his back, looking up into the sky at midday, from
which every shred of cloud had been withdrawn, so that it was like
something permanently displayed with the cover off.

By six o'clock a breeze blew in off an icefield; and by seven the water
was more purple than blue; and by half-past seven there was a patch of
rough gold-beater's skin round the Scilly Isles, and Durrant's face, as
he sat steering, was of the colour of a red lacquer box polished for
generations. By nine all the fire and confusion had gone out of the sky,
leaving wedges of apple-green and plates of pale yellow; and by ten the
lanterns on the boat were making twisted colours upon the waves,
elongated or squat, as the waves stretched or humped themselves. The
beam from the lighthouse strode rapidly across the water. Infinite
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