An Intellectual Foray

2. Woolf presents a different sort of journey in buying a pencil, and one that occurs mentally rather than physically or spiritually. Just as the mind constantly strays along tangental paths, the author moves from thought to thought during a broader, overarching shopping trip ("But what was it? Ah, we remember, it was a pencil." [2]). In fact, the narrator's true adventure occurs in thinking about the relation between intellectual and real existence. He or she moves from materialism and impressionability by beauty ("the eye is sportive and generous; it creates; it adorns; it enhances." [5]) to considering that "nothing of this [imaginative] sort matters… so that we sport with the moment… lightly," then back to escaping reality by books, which have "a seat in the warm corner of the mind's inglenook," until finally deciding he or she is happy with familiar and personal ideas ("it is comforting to feel the old possessions, the old prejuidices… and the self" [9]). (5,6) Woolf's short story does not attempt to convey some tangible experience but, rather, the meandering, inner workings of a mind that gradually approach an abstract conviction about "the insecurity of life." (8) The narrator stuggles against the impediment that is "duty" until he or she finally accepts it is impossible to "put off buying the pencil" (i.e. disregard duty), because that dreamy, past, and ideal situation is all but unattainable in reality, and "we [should] be not again as we were." (8) Or, in other words, the narrator claims that we cannot re-choose something that has already been decided, nor ignore this decided duty of buying a pencil, as it is now the chasis for our entire, present excursion. This extraordinary mental realization reveals to her that "the future is even now invading our peace. It is only when we look at the past and take from it the element of uncertainty that we can enjoy perfect peace," an insightful conclusion to the narrator's long series of thoughts, which wander from one rumination to the next and blossom outward in much the same manner as a progressive protagonist's character would develop (e.g. Siddhartha, from the eponymous novel). (8) Street Haunting: A London Adventure is a journey, to be sure, however atypical an example it may be.

—Joseph Conrad

P.S. On another note, it is perfectly possible that the true journey here occurs in this story's organic development toward an irrelevant end, specific thoughts, memories, and experiences along the way notwithstanding. Put another way, the The reader is forced to appreciate the process, rather than final aim, of the narrator's trip into town.