Quote 7
What a lark! What a plunge! For so it had always seemed to her, when, with a little squeak of the hinges, which she could hear now, she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air. (1.2)
In this moment, the mere sound of a squeaky hinge transports Clarissa back in time. It makes her recall her youth at Bourton, her family’s country home.
Quote 8
For having lived in Westminster – how many years now? over twenty, – one feels even in the midst of the traffic, or waking at night, Clarissa was positive, a particular hush, or solemnity; an indescribable pause; a suspense (but that might be her heart, affected, they said, by influenza) before Big Ben strikes. There! Out it boomed. First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. (1.5)
Part of Clarissa’s everyday life is the sound of Big Ben. She has come to anticipate (and be comforted while also disturbed by) the chiming of the bells.
Quote 9
[…] perhaps at midnight, when all boundaries are lost, the country reverts to its ancient shape, as the Romans saw it, lying cloudy, when they landed, and the hills had no names and rivers wound they knew not where – such was her darkness. (1.69)
For all of its tradition, England also has something timeless to it. Clarissa imagines that at night, all of London’s busy streets disappear and the city looks like it did way back during the Roman Empire.