Complete Works of Virginia Woolf

by Virginia Woolf

  Wednesday, June 23rd.

  It’s ill writing after reading Love lor Love - a masterpiece. I never knew how good it is. And what exhilaration there is in reading these masterpieces. This superb hard English! Yes, always keep the classics at hand to prevent flop. I can’t write out my feeling, though; must decant it tomorrow in an article. But neither can I settle to read poor Rosemary’s verses, as I should with a view to this evening. How could L. S. in D.N.B. deny C. feeling, pain - more in that one play than in all Thackeray: and the indecency often honesty. But enough - I went shopping, whitebait hunting, to Selfridges yesterday and it grew roasting hot and I was in black - such astonishing chops and changes this summer - often one’s caught in a storm, frozen or roasted. As I reached 52, a long trail of fugitives - like a caravan in a desert - came through the square: Spaniards flying from Bilbao, which has fallen, I suppose. Somehow brought tears to my eyes, though no one seemed surprised. Children trudging along; women in London cheap jackets with gay handkerchiefs on their heads, young men, and all carrying either cheap cases, and bright blue enamel kettles, very large, and canisters, fitted I suppose with gifts from some charity - a shuffling trudging procession, flying - impelled by machine gun in Spanish fields to trudge through Tavistock Square, along Gordon Square, then where? - clasping their enamel kettles. A strange spectacle. They went on, knowing which way: I suppose someone directed them. One boy was chatting, the others absorbed, like people on the trek. A reason why we can’t write like Congreve I suppose.

  Sunday, July 11th.

  A gap: not in life, but in comment. I have been in full flood every morning with Three Guineas. Whether I shall finish by August becomes doubtful. But I am in the middle of my magic bubble. Had I time I would like to describe the curious glance of the world - the pale disillusioned world - that I get so violently now and then, when the wall thins - either I’m tired or interrupted. Then I think of Julian near Madrid: and so on. Margaret L. Davies writes that Janet is dying, and will I write on her for The Times - a curious thought, rather: as if it mattered who wrote, or not. But this flooded me with the idea of Janet yesterday. I think writing, my writing, is a species of mediumship. I become the person.

  Monday, July 19th.

  Just back from M.H. but I can’t and won’t write anything - too bothered and dithered. Also, I screwed my head tight - too tight - knocking together a little obituary of Janet for The Times. And couldn’t make it take the folds well: too stiff and mannered. She died. Three notes from Emphie this morning. She died on Thursday, shut her eyes and ‘looks so beautiful’. Today they are cremating her, and she had had printed a little funeral service - with the death day left blank. No words: an adagio from Beethoven and a text about gentleness and faith which I would have included had I known. But what does my writing matter? There is something fitting and complete about the memory of her, thus consummated. Dear old harum scarum Emphie will have her solitary moments to herself. To us she will always be a scatterbrain; yet to me very touching and I remember that phrase in her letter, how she ran into Janet’s room at midnight, and they had a nice little time together. She was always running in. Janet was the steadfast contemplative one, anchored in some private faith which didn’t correspond with the world’s. But she was oddly inarticulate. No hand for words. Her letters, save that the last began ‘My beloved Virginia’, always cool and casual. And how I loved her, at Hyde Park Gate: and how I went hot and cold going to Windmill Hill: and how great a visionary part she has played in my life, till the visionary became a part of the fictitious, not of the real life.

  Friday, August 6th.

  Will another novel ever swim up? If so, how? The only hint I have towards it is that it’s to be dialogue: and poetry: and prose; all quite distinct. No more long closely written books. But I have no impulse; and shall wait; and shan’t mind if the impulse never formulates; though I suspect one of these days I shall get that old rapture. I don’t want to write more fiction. I want to explore a new criticism. One thing I think proved, I shall never write to ‘please’, to convert; now am entirely and for ever my own mistress.

  Tuesday, August 17th.

  Not much to say. It’s true, the only life this summer is in the brain. I get excited writing. Three hours pass like 10 minutes. This morning I had a moment of the old rapture - think of it! - over copying The Duchess and the Jeweller for Chambrun, N.Y. I had to send a synopsis. I expect he’ll regret the synopsis. But there was the old excitement, even in that little extravagant flash - more than in criticism I think.

  Happily - if that’s the word - I get these electric shocks - Cables asking me to write. Chambrun offer £500 for a 9,000 word story. And I at once begin making up adventures - ten days of adventures - a man rowing with black knitted stockings on his arms. Do I ever write, even here, for my own eye? If not, for whose eye? An interesting question, rather.

  Tuesday, October 12th. London

  Yes, we are back at Tavistock Square; and I’ve never written a word since September 27th. That shows how every morning was crammed to the margin with Three Guineas. This is the first morning I write, because at 12, ten minutes ago, I wrote what I think is the last page of Three Guineas. Oh how violently I have been galloping through these mornings! It has pressed and spurted out of me. If that’s any proof of virtue, like a physical volcano. And my brain feels cool and quiet after the expulsion. I’ve had it sizzling now since - well I was thinking of it at Delphi I remember. And then I forced myself to put it into fiction first. No, the fiction came first. The Years. And how I held myself back, all through the terrible depression, and refused, save for some frantic notes, to tap it until The Years - that awful burden - was off me. So that I have deserved this gallop. And taken time and thought too. But whether it is good or bad, how can I tell? I must now add the bibliography and notes. And have a week’s respite.

  Tuesday, October 19th.

  It came over me suddenly last night as I was reading The Shooting Tarty - the story that I’m to send to America, H. B. - that I saw the form of a new novel. It’s to be first the statement of the theme: then the restatement: and so on: repeating the same story: singling out this and then that, until the central idea is stated.

  This might also lend itself to my book of criticism. But how I don’t know, being very jaded in the brain, try to discover. What happened was this: when I finished the S.P., I thought, now that the woman has called a taxi; I will go on to meet, say, Christabel, at T. Square who tells the story again: or I will expatiate upon my own idea in telling the story; or I will find some other person at the S.T. whose life I will tell: but all the scenes must be controlled and radiate to a centre. I think this is a possible idea; and would admit of doing it in short bursts: could be a concentrated small book: could contain many varieties of mood. And possibly criticism. I must keep the idea at the back of my mind for a year or two, while I do Roger etc.

  1938.

  Sunday, January 9th.

  Yes, I will force myself to begin this cursed year. For one thing I have ‘finished’ the last chapter of Three Guineas and for the first time since I don’t know when have stopped writing in the middle of the morning.

  Friday, February 4th.

  A ten minutes spin here. L. gravely approves Three Guineas. Thinks it an extremely clear analysis. On the whole I’m content. One can’t expect emotion, for as he says, it’s not on a par with the novels. Yet I think it may have more practical value. But I’m much more indifferent, that’s true: feel it a good piece of donkey work, and don’t think it affects me either way as the novels do.

  Tuesday, April 11th.

  Anyhow, on April 1st I think, I started Roger: and with the help of his memoirs have covered the time till Clifton. Much of it donkey work; and I suppose to be re-written. Still there is 20 pages put down, after being so long put off. And it is an immense solace to have this sober drudgery to take to instantly and so tide over the horrid anticlimax of Three Guineas. I didn’t get so much praise from L. as I hoped. He had to s
wallow the notes at a gulp though. And I suspect I shall find the page proofs (due tomorrow) a chill bath of disillusionment. But I wanted - how violently - how persistently, pressingly, compulsorily I can’t say - to write this book: and have a quiet composed feeling: as if I had said my say: take it or leave it: I’m quit of that: free for fresh adventures - at the age of 56. Last night I began making up again: summer’s night: a complete whole: that’s my idea. Roger surrounds me: and then to M.H. on Thursday, and that infernal bundle of proofs. Am I right though in thinking that it has some importance - Three Guineas - as a point of view: shows industry; fertility; and is here and there, as ‘well written’ (considering the technical problems - quotations, arguments etc.) as any of my rather skimble skamble works! I think there’s more to it than to a Room: which, on re-reading, seems to me a little egotistic, flaunting, sketchy: but has its brilliance - its speed. I’m suspicious of the vulgarity of the notes of a certain insistence.

  Tuesday, April 26th.

  We had our Easter at M.H.: but as for the sun, it never shone; was colder than Christmas; a grudging lead-coloured sky; razor wind; winter clothes; proofs; much acute despair; curbed however by the aid of divine philosophy; a joy in discovering Mandeville’s Bees (this really a fruitful book; the very book I want). Then Q. rings up; to warn you: Have you had a letter from Pipsy? Ottoline is dead. They told her P. might die, and the shock killed her: and he’s asking you to write about her (with Mr Wicks and Mr Mussell exploring the attics for the new room). So I had to write; and the horrid little pellet screwed my brain; leaves it giddy. Yet in spite of that here am I sketching out a new book; only don’t please impose that huge burden on me again, I implore. Let it be random and tentative: something I can blow of a morning, to relieve myself of Roger: don’t, I implore, lay down a scheme; call in all the cosmic immensities; and force my tired and diffident brain to embrace another whole - all parts contributing - not yet awhile. But to amuse myself, let me note: Why not Voyntzet Hall: a centre: all literature discussed in connection with real little incongruous living humour: and anything that comes into my head; but T rejected: ‘We’ substituted: to whom at the end there shall be an invocation? ‘We’... the composed of many different things... we all life, all art, all waifs and strays - a rambling capricious but somehow unified whole - the present state of mind? And English country; and a scenic old house - and a terrace where nursemaids walk - and people passing - and a perpetual variety and change from intensity to prose, and facts - and notes; and - but eno’! I must read Roger: and go to Ott’s memorial service, representing also T. S. Eliot at his absurd command. 2.30 at Martin’s in the Fields.

  Ottoline’s burial service. Oh dear, oh dear the lack of intensity; the wailing and mumbling; the fumbling with bags; the shuffling; the vast brown mass of respectable old South Kensington ladies. And then the hymns; and the clergyman with a bar of medals across his surplice; and the orange and blue windows; and a toy Union Jack sticking from a cranny. What all this had to do with Ottoline, or our feelings? Save that the address was to the point: a critical study, written presumably by Philip and delivered, very resonantly, by Mr Speaight the actor: a sober, and secular speech, which made one at least think of a human being, though the reference to her beautiful voice caused one to think of that queer nasal moan: however that too was to the good in deflating immensities. P.’s secretary buttonholed me and told me to sit high up. The pew was blocked by a vast furred lady who said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t move’ - as indeed seemed the fact. So I stationed myself rather behind: near enough though to see the very well set up back of P. in his thick coat; and his red ram’s head turned now and then looking along the ranks; also I pressed his hand, simulated, I fear, more emotion than I felt when he asked me, had I liked the address? and so slowly moved out to the steps - past Jack and Mary, Sturge Moores, Molly etc: Gertler having tears in his eyes; various household staffs: was then pounced on and pinioned by Lady Oxford: who was hard as whipcord; upright; a little vacant in the eye, in spite of make up which made it shine. She said she had expostulated with Ott. about the voice; Mere affectation. But a wonderful woman. Tell me, though, why did her friends quarrel with her? Pause. She was exigeante, Duncan volunteered at last. And so Margot refused to ask further; and modulated into stories of Symonds and Jowett, when I bantered her on her obituary. Mine, of Ott. for The Times, has not appeared, nor do I much regret...

  Walked in Dulwich yesterday and lost my brooch by way of a freshener when confronted with the final proofs just today (April 28th) done: and to be sent this afternoon: a book I shall never look at again. But I now feel entirely free. Why? Have committed myself, am afraid of nothing. Can do anything I like. No longer famous, no longer on a pedestal: no longer hawked in by societies: on my own, forever. That’s my feeling: a sense of expansion, like putting on slippers. Why this should be so, why I feel myself enfranchised till death, and quit of all humbug, when I daresay it’s not a good book and will excite nothing but mild sneers; and how very inconsequent and egotistical V. W. is - why, why I can’t analyse: being fluttered this morning.

  The difficulty is that I get so absorbed in this fantastic Poyntz Hall I can’t attend to Roger. So what am I to do? This however is only my first day of freedom: and I have been rendered self-conscious by a notice of Three Guineas on the front page of the new bloated T.L.S. Well it can’t be helped; and I must cling to my ‘freedom’ - that mysterious hand that was reached out to me about four years ago.

  Tuesday, May 5th.

  Pouring now; the drought broken; the worst spring on record; my pens diseased, even the new box; my eyes ache with Roger and I’m a little appalled at the prospect of the grind this book will be. I must somehow shorten and loosen; I can’t (remember) stretch it to a long painstaking literal book: later I must generalize and let fly. But then, what about all the letters? How can one cut loose from facts, when there they are, contradicting my theories? A problem. But I’m convinced I can’t, physically, strain after an R.A. portrait. What was I going to say with this defective nib?

  Friday, May 20th.

  Time and again I have meant to write down my expectations, dreads and so on, waiting the publication on - I think June 2nd - of Three Guineas: but haven’t, because what with living in the solid world of Roger and then (again this morning) in the airy world of Voyntz Hall I feel extremely little. And don’t want to rouse feeling. What I’m afraid of is the taunt charm and emptiness. The book I wrote with such violent feeling to relieve that immense pressure will not dimple the surface. That is my fear. Also I’m uneasy at taking this role in the public eye - afraid of autobiography in public. But the fears are entirely outbalanced (this is honest) by the immense relief and peace I have gained and enjoy this moment. Now I am quit of that poison and excitement. Nor is that all. For having spat it out, my mind is made up. I need never recur or repeat. I am an outsider. I can take my way: experiment with my own imagination in my own way. The pack may howl, but it shall never catch me. And even if the pack - reviewers, friends, enemies - pays me no attention or sneers, still I’m free. This is the actual result of that spiritual conversion (I can’t bother to get the right words) in the autumn of 1933 or 4 - when I rushed through London buying, I remember, a great magnifying glass, from sheer ecstasy, near Blackfriars: when I gave the man who played the harp half a crown for talking to me about his life in the tube station. The omens are mixed: L. is less excited than I hoped: Nessa highly ambiguous: Miss Hepworth and Mrs Nicolls say, ‘Women owe a great deal to Mrs Woolf and I have promised Pippa to supply books. Now for R’s letter. Monk’s House at the moment windy and cold.

  Tuesday, May 17th.

  I’m pleased this morning because Lady Rhondda writes that she is profoundly excited and moved by Three Guineas. Theo Bosanquet who has a review copy read her extracts. And she thinks it may have a great effect, and signs herself my grateful outsider. A good omen; because this shows that certain people will be stirred; will think; will discuss; it won’t altogether be fritte
red away. Of course Lady R. is already partly on my side; but again as she’s highly patriotic and citizenlike she might have been roused to object. It’s on the cards that it will make more splash among the inkpots than I thought - feeling very dim and cold these last weeks, and indifferent too; and oblivious of the great excitement and intensity with which (certainly) I wrote. But as the whole of Europe may be in flames - it’s on the cards. One more shot at a policeman and the Germans, Czechs, French will begin the old horror. The 4th of August may come next week. At the moment there is a lull. L. says K. Martin says we say (The P.M.) that we will fight this time. Hitler therefore is chewing his little bristling moustache. But the whole thing trembles: and my book may be like a moth dancing over a bonfire - consumed in less than one second.