"her strange severity, her extreme courtesy" vs. "the image of stark and uncomprimising severity"

Spotlight on James:
"Since he belonged, even at the age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling seperate from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows, cloud what is actually at hand... he appeared the image of stark and uncomprimising severity, with his high forehead and his fierce blue eyes, impeccably candid and pure, frowning slightly at the sight of human frailty"

Spotlight on Mrs. Ramsay:
"She was now formidable to behold, and it was only in silence, looking up from their plates, after she had spoken so severely about Charles Tansley... her strange severity, her extreme courtesy, like a Queen's raising from the mud to wash a beggar's dirty foot, when thus she admonished them so very severely about that wretched atheist who had chased them--or speaking accurately, been invited to stay with them--in the Isles of Skye."

OED on Severity: 1. Strictness or sternness in dealing with others; stern or rigorous disposition or behaviour; rigour in treatment, discipline, punishment, or the like.

In the opening passages of To the Lighthouse, the concept of 'severity' is placed between Mr. Ramsay, his wife, and his son James, and this placement creates interesting spectra and paradoxes.

Mrs. Ramsay exemplifies the first kind of severity mentioned in the OED.  She strictly adheres to English customs, making sure always to display chivalry by allowing many of her husbands fans to stay over.   She likewise keeps a tight hold on her daughters so that they will receive and reflect this English severity.  Her strict adherence to custom paradoxically leads her towards circumstances of high judgement and criticism; hence, she judges Tansley severely, though her customs bid her keep him at her guest house.  Thus we may read 'severity' through Mrs. Ramsay as pure and almost fanatical attachment to chivalrous tradition, even when this attachment is contradictory.

James Ramsay exemplifies severity from the opposite spectrum.  At his young age, he yet displays childish wisdom by belonging to that 'great clan' of young wizards.  They understand, sans accuracy, that 'the moment at hand' is fleeting and cannot ever quite be captured, and that it is the prospect for the future that will always shade the present moment.  He frowns severely in his judgement upon the frail figures of the recent past--his father, the analytic philosopher--for attempting to capture reality exactingly and with public language.  Thus he exemplifies the third kind of severity mentioned in the OED, and he hopes to punish--with a hot poker perhaps--those calculating souls who are 'stern or rigorous in disposition or behavior.'