Complete Works of Virginia Woolf

by Virginia Woolf

  Wednesday, August 16th.

  I should be reading Ulysses, and fabricating my case for and against. I have read 200 pages so far - not a third; and have been amused, stimulated, charmed, interested, by the first 2 or 3 chapters - to the end of the cemetery scene; and then puzzled, bored, irritated and disillusioned by a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples. And Tom, great Tom, thinks this on a par with War and Peace! An illiterate, underbred book it seems to me; the book of a self taught working man, and we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking, and ultimately nauseating. When one can have the cooked flesh, why have the raw? But I think if you are anaemic, as Tom is, there is a glory in blood. Being fairly normal myself I am soon ready for the classics again. I may revise this later. I do not compromise my critical sagacity. I plant a stick in the ground to mark page 200.

  For my own part I am laboriously dredging my mind for Mrs Dalloway and bringing up light buckets. I don’t like the feeling. I’m writing too quickly. I must press it together. I wrote 4 thousand words of Reading in record time, 10 days; but then it was merely a quick sketch of Pastons, supplied by books. Now I break off, according to my quick change theory, to write Mrs D. (who ushers in a host of others, I begin to perceive). Then I do Chaucer; and finish the first chapter early in September. By that time, I have my Greek beginning perhaps, in my head; and so the future is all pegged out; and when Jacob is rejected in America and ignored in England, I shall be philosophically driving my plough fields away. They are cutting the corn all over the country, which supplies that metaphor, and perhaps excuses it. But I need no excuses, since I am not writing for the Lit. Sup. Shall I ever write for them again?

  Tuesday, August 22nd.

  “The way to rock oneself back into writing is this. First gentle exercise in the air. Second the reading of good literature. It is a mistake to think that literature can be produced from the raw. One must get out of life - yes, that’s why I disliked so much the irruption of Sydney - one must become externalized; very, very concentrated, all at one point, not having to draw upon the scattered parts of one’s character, living in the brain. Sydney comes and I’m Virginia; when I write I’m merely a sensibility. Sometimes I like being Virginia, but only when I’m scattered and various and gregarious. Now, so long as we are here, I’d like to be only a sensibility. By the way, Thackeray is good reading, very vivacious, with ‘touches’ as they call them over the way at the Shanks’, of astonishing insight.

  Monday, August 28th.

  I am beginning Greek again, and must really make out some plan: today 28th: Mrs Dalloway finished on Saturday 2nd Sept: Sunday 3rd to Friday 8th; start Chaucer. Chaucer - that chapter, I mean, should be finished by Sept. 22nd. And then? Shall I write the next chapter of Mrs D. - if she is to have a next chapter; and shall it be The Prime Minister? which will last till the week after we get back - say October 12th. Then I must be ready to start my Greek chapter. So I have from today, 28th, till 12th - which is just over 6 weeks - but I must allow for some interruptions. Now what have I to read? Some Homer: one Greek play: some Plato: Zimmern: Sheppard, as textbook: Bentley’s Life: if done thoroughly, this will be enough. But which Greek play? and how much Homer, and what Plato? Then there’s the Anthology. All to end upon the Odyssey because of the Elizabethans. And I must read a little Ibsen to compare with Euripides - Racine with Sophocles - perhaps Marlowe with Aeschylus. Sounds very learned; but really might amuse me; and if it doesn’t, no need to go on.

  Wednesday, September 6th.

  My proofs come every other day and I could depress myself adequately if I went into that. The thing now reads thin and pointless; the words scarcely dint the paper; and I expect to be told I’ve written a graceful fantasy, without much bearing upon real life. Can one tell? Anyhow, nature obligingly supplies me with the illusion that I am about to write something good; something rich and deep and fluent, and hard as nails, while bright as diamonds.

  I finished Ulysses and think it a mis-fire. Genius it has, I think; but of the inferior water. The book is diffuse. It is brackish. It is pretentious. It is underbred, not only in the obvious sense, but in the literary sense. A first rate writer, I mean, respects writing too much to be tricky; startling; doing stunts. I’m reminded all the time of some callow board school boy, full of wits and powers, but so self-conscious and egotistical that he loses his head, becomes extravagant, mannered, uproarious, ill at ease, makes kindly people feel sorry for him and stern ones merely annoyed; and one hopes he’ll grow out of it; but as Joyce is 40 this scarcely seems likely. I have not read it carefully; and only once; and it is very obscure; so no doubt I have scamped the virtue of it more than is fair. I feel that myriads of tiny bullets pepper one and spatter one; but one does not get one deadly wound straight in the face - as from Tolstoy, for instance; but it is entirely absurd to compare him with Tolstoy.

  Thursday, September 7th.

  Having written this, L. put into my hands a very intelligent review of Ulysses, in the American Nation; which, for the first time, analyses the meaning; and certainly makes it very much more impressive than I judged. Still I think there is virtue and some lasting truth in first impressions; so I don’t cancel mine. I must read some of the chapters again. Probably the final beauty of writing is never felt by contemporaries; but they ought, I think, to be bowled over; and this I was not. Then again, I had my back up on purpose; then again I was over stimulated by Tom’s praises.

  Thursday, September 26th.

  Wittering. Morgan came on Friday; Tom on Saturday. My talk with Tom deserves writing down, but won’t get it for the light is fading; and we cannot write talk down either, as was agreed at Charleston the other day. There was a good deal of talk about Ulysses. Tom said, ‘He is a purely literary writer. He is founded upon Walter Pater with a dash of Newman.’ I said he was virile - a he-goat; but didn’t expect Tom to agree. Tom did though; and said he left out many things that were important. The book would be a landmark, because it destroyed the whole of the 19th Century. It left Joyce himself with nothing to write another book on. It showed up the futility of all the J English styles. He thought some of the writing beautiful. But there was no ‘great conception’; that was not Joyce’s intention. He thought that Joyce did completely what he meant to do. But he did not think that he gave a new insight into human nature - said nothing new like Tolstoy. Bloom told one nothing. Indeed, he said, this new method of giving the psychology proves to my mind that it doesn’t work. It doesn’t tell as much as some casual glance from outside often tells. I said I had found Pendennis more illuminating in this way. (The horses are now cropping near my window; the little owl calling, and so I write nonsense.) So we got on to S. Sitwell, who merely explores his sensibility - one of the deadly crimes as Tom thinks: to Dostoievsky - the ruin of English literature, we agreed; Singe a fake; present state disastrous, because the form don’t fit; to his mind not even promising well; he said that one must now be a very first rate poet to be a poet at all: When there were great poets, the little ones caught some of the glow, and were not worthless. Now there’s no great poet. When was the last? I asked, and he said none that interested him since the time of Johnson. Browning he said was lazy: they are all lazy he said. And Macaulay spoilt English prose. We agreed that people are now afraid of the English language. He said it came of being bookish, but not reading books enough. One should read all styles thoroughly. He thought D. H. Lawrence came off occasionally, especially in Aaron’s Rod, the last book; had great moments; but was a most incompetent writer. He could cling tight to his conviction though. (Light now fails - 7.10 after a bad rainy day.)

  Wednesday, October 4th.

  I am a little uppish, though, and self assertive, because Brace wrote to me yesterday, ‘We think Jacob’s Room an extraordinarily distinguished and beautiful work. You have, of course, your own method, and it is not easy to foretell how many readers it will have; surely it will have enthusiastic ones, and we delight in publishing it’, or words to tha
t effect. As this is my first testimony from an impartial person I am pleased. For one thing it must make some impression, as a whole; and cannot be wholly frigid fireworks. We think of publishing on October 27th. I daresay Duckworth is a little cross with me. I snuff my freedom. It is I think true, soberly and not artificially for the public, that I shall go on unconcernedly whatever people say. At last, I like reading my own writing. It seems to me to fit me closer than it did before. I have done my task here better than I expected. Mrs Dalloway and the Chaucer chapter are finished: I have read 5 books of the Odyssey; Ulysses; and now begin Proust. I also read Chaucer and the Pastons. So evidently my plan of the two books running side by side is practicable and certainly I enjoy my reading with a purpose. I am committed to only one Supt. article - on essays - and that at my own time; so I am free. I shall read Greek now steadily and begin The Prime Minister on Friday morning. I shall read the Trilogy and some Sophocles and Euripides and a Plato dialogue: also the lives of Bentley and Jebb. At forty I am beginning to | learn the mechanism of my own brain - how to get the greatest amount of pleasure and work out of it. The secret is I think always so to contrive that work is pleasant.

  Saturday, October 14th.

  I have had two letters, from Lytton and Carrington, about Jacob’s Room, and written I don’t know how many envelopes; and here we are on the verge of publication. I must sit for my portrait to John 0’ London’s on Monday. Richmond writes to ask that date of publication may be put ahead, so that they may notice it on Thursday. My sensations? they remain calm. Yet how could Lytton have praised me more highly? prophesies immortality for it is as poetry; is afraid of my romance; but the beauty of the writing etc. Lytton praises me too highly for it to give me exquisite pleasure; or perhaps that nerve grows dulled. I want to be through the splash and swimming in calm water again. I want to be writing unobserved. Mrs Dalloway has branched into a book; and I adumbrate here a study of insanity and suicide; the world seen by the sane and the insane side by side - something like that. Septimus Smith? is that a good name? and to be more close to the fact than Jacob: but I think Jacob was a necessary step, for me, in working free. And now I must use this benignant page for making out a scheme of work.

  I must get on with my reading for the Greek chapter. I shall finish The Prime Minister in another week - say 21st. Then I must be ready to start my Essay article for The Times: say on the 23rd. That will take say till 2nd November. Therefore I must now concentrate on Essays: with some Aeschylus, and I think begin Zimmern, making rather a hasty end of Bentley, who is not really much to my purpose. I think that clears the matter up - though how to read Aeschylus I don’t quite know: quickly, is my desire, but that, I see, is an illusion.

  As for my views about the success of Jacob, what are they? I think we shall sell 500; it will then go slowly and reach 800 by June. It will be highly praised in some places for ‘beauty’; will be crabbed by people who want human character. The only review I am anxious about is the one in the Supt.: not that it will be the most intelligent, but it will be the most read and I can’t bear people to see me clowned in public. The W.G. will be hostile; so, very likely, the Nation. But I am perfectly serious in saying that nothing budges me from my determination to go on, or alters my pleasure; so whatever happens, though the surface may be agitated, the centre is secure.

  Tuesday, October 17th.

  As this is to be a chart of my progress I enter hastily here: one, a letter from Desmond who is halfway through says ‘You have never written so well... I marvel and am puzzled’ - or words to that effect: two, Bunny rings up enthusiastic; says it is superb, far my best, has great vitality and importance: also he takes 36 copies, and says people already ‘clamour’. This is not confirmed by the bookshops, visited by Ralph. I have sold under 50 today; but the libraries remain and Simpkin Marshall.

  Sunday, October 29th.

  Miss Mary Butts being gone, and my head too stupid for reading, I may as well write here, for my amusement later perhaps. I mean I’m too riddled with talk and harassed with the usual worry of people who like and people who don’t like J.R. to concentrate. There was The Times review on Thursday - long, a little tepid, I think - saying that one can’t make characters in this way; flattering enough. Of course, I had a letter from Morgan in the opposite sense - the letter I’ve liked best of all. We have sold 650, I think; and have ordered a second edition. My sensations? as usual - mixed. I shall never write a book that is an entire success. This time the reviews are against me and the private people enthusiastic. Either I am a great writer or a nincompoop. ‘An elderly sensualist,’ the Daily News calls me. Tall Mall passes me over as negligible. I expect to be neglected and sneered at. And what will be the fate of our second thousand then? So far of course the success is much more than we expected. I think I am better pleased so far than I have ever been. Morgan, Lytton, Bunny, Violet, Logan, Philip, have all written enthusiastically. But I want to be quit of all this. It hangs about me like Mary Butts’ scent. I don’t want to be totting up compliments, and comparing reviews. I want to think out Mrs Dalloway. I want to foresee this book better than the others and get the utmost out of it. I expect I could have screwed Jacob up tighter, if I had foreseen; but I had to make my path as I went.

  1923.

  Monday, June 4th.

  I’m over peevish in private, partly in order to assert myself. I am a great deal interested suddenly in my book. I want to bring in the despicableness of people like Ott. I want to give the slipperiness of the soul. I have been too tolerant often. The truth is people scarcely care for each other. They have this insane instinct for life. But they never become attached to anything outside themselves. Puff said he loved his family and had nothing whatever to knock over. He disliked cold indecency. So did Lord David. This must be a phrase in their set. Puff said - I don’t quite know what. I walked round the vegetable garden with him, passing Lytton flirting on a green seat; and round the field with Sackville West, who said he was better, and was writing a better novel, and round the lake with Menasseh (?) an Egyptian Jew, who said he liked his family and they were mad and talked like books; and he said that they quoted my writings (the Oxford youth) and wanted me to go and speak; and then there was Mrs Asquith. I was impressed. She is stone white; with the brown veiled eyes of an aged falcon; and in them more depth and scrutiny than I expected; a character, with her friendliness and ease and decision. Oh if we could have had Shelley’s poems; and not Shelley the man! she said. Shelley was quite intolerable, she pronounced; she is a rigid frigid puritan; and in spite of spending thousands on dress. She rides life, if you like; and has picked up a thing or two, which I should like to plunder and never shall. She led Lytton off and plucked his arm, and hurried - and thought ‘people’ pursued her; yet was very affable with ‘people’ when she had to be, and sat on the window sill talking to a black shabby embroideress, to whom Ott. is being kind. That’s one of her horrors - she’s always being kind in order to say to herself at night, then Ottoline invites the poor little embroideress to her party and so to round off her own picture of herself. To sneer like this has a physical discomfort in it. She told me I looked wonderfully well, which I disliked. Why? I wonder. Because I had had a headache perhaps, partly. But to be well and use strength to get more out of life is, surely, the greatest fun in the world. What I dislike is feeling that I’m always taking care, or being taken care of. Never mind - work, work. Lytton says we have still 20 years before us. Mrs Asquith said she loved Scott.

  Wednesday, June 13th.

  There was Lady Colefax in her hat with the green ribbons. Did I say that I lunched with her last week? That was Derby Day and it rained, and all the light was brown and cold and she went on talking, talking, in consecutive sentences like the shavings that come from planes, artificial, but unbroken. It was not a successful party, Clive and Lytton and me. For Clive’s back; and he dined here with Leo Myers the other night; and then I went to Golders Green and sat with Mary Sheepshanks in her garden and beat up the waters of
talk, as I do so courageously, so that life mayn’t be wasted. The fresh breeze went brushing all the” thick hedges which divide the gardens. Somehow, extraordinary emotions possessed me. I forget now what. Often now I have to control my excitement - as if I were pushing through a screen; or as if something beat fiercely close to me. What this portends I don’t know. It is a general sense of the poetry of existence that overcomes me. Often it is connected with the sea and St Ives. Going to 46 continues to excite. The sight of two coffins in the Underground luggage office I daresay constricts all my feelings. I have the sense of the flight of time; and this shores up my emotions.

  Tuesday, June 19th.

  I took up this book with a kind of idea that I might say something about my writing - which was prompted by glancing at what K. M. said about her writing in The Dove’s Nest. But I only glanced. She said a good deal about feeling things deeply: also about being pure, which I won’t criticize, though of course I very well could. But now what do I feel about my writing? - this book, that is, The Hours, if that’s its name? One must write from deep feeling, said Dostoievsky. And do I? Or do I fabricate with words, loving them as I do? No, I think not. In this book I have almost too many ideas. I want to give life and death, sanity and insanity; I want to criticize the social system, and to show it at work, at its most intense. But here I may be posing. I heard from Ka this morning that she doesn’t like In the Orchard. At once I feel refreshed. I become anonymous, a person who writes for the love of it. She takes away the motive of praise, and lets me feel that without any praise I should be content to go on. This is what Duncan said of his painting the other night. I feel as if I slipped off all my ball dresses and stood naked - which as I remember was a very pleasant thing to do. But to go on. Am I writing The Hours from deep emotion? Of course the mad part tries me so much, makes my mind squirt so badly that I can hardly face spending the next weeks at it. It’s a question though of these characters. People, like Arnold Bennett, say I can’t create, or didn’t in Jacob’s Room, characters that survive. My answer is - but I leave that to the Nation: it’s only the old argument that character is dissipated into shreds now; the old post-Dostoievsky argument. I daresay it’s true, however, that I haven’t that ‘reality’ gift. I insubstantize, wilfully to some extent, distrusting reality - its cheapness. But to get further. Have I the power of conveying the true reality? Or do I write essays about myself? Answer these questions as I may, in the uncomplimentary sense, and still there remains this excitement. To get to the bones, now I’m writing fiction again I feel my force glow straight from me at its fullest. After a dose of criticism I feel that I’m writing sideways, using only an angle of my mind. This is justification; for free use of the faculties means happiness. I’m better company, more of a human being. Nevertheless, I think it most important in this book to go for the central things. Even though they don’t submit, as they should, however, to’ beautification in language. No, I don’t nail my crest to the Murrys, who work in my flesh after the manner of the jigger insect. It’s annoying, indeed degrading, to have these bitternesses. Still, think of the 18th Century. But then they were overt, not covert, as now.