Complete Works of Virginia Woolf

by Virginia Woolf

  Monday, August 19th.

  Yesterday, 18th, Sunday, there was a roar. Right on top of us they came. I looked at the plane, like a minnow at a roaring shark. Over they flashed - three I think. Olive green. Then pop pop pop - German? Again pop pop pop, over Kingston. Said to be five bombers hedge hopping on their way to London. The closest shave so far. 144 brought down - no that was last time. And no raid (so far) today. Rehearsal. I cannot read Remorse. Why not say so?

  Friday, August 23rd.

  Book flopped. Sales down to 15 a day since air raid on London. Is that the reason? Will it pick up?

  Wednesday, August 28th.

  How I should like to write poetry all day long - that’s the gift to me of poor X, who never reads poetry because she hated it at school. She stayed from Tuesday to Sunday night, to be exact: and almost had me down. Why? Because (partly) she has the artist’s temperament without being an artist. She’s temperamental, but has no outlet. I find her charming: individual: honest and somehow pathetic. Her curious obtusity, her staleness of mind, is perceptible to her. And she hesitates. Ought one to make up? Y. says yes - I say no. The truth is she has no instinct for colour: no more than for music or pictures. A great deal of force and spirit and yet always at the leap something balks her. I can imagine her crying herself to sleep. So, having brought no rations, or books, she floundered on here. I called her, to mitigate her burden. My good dog. My Afghan hound - with her long too thick legs and her long body; and the shock of wild unbrushed hair on top. I’m glad I’m so nice looking, she said. And she is. But well, it taught me, that week of unintermittent interruptions, bowls, tea parties, droppings in, what public school is like - no privacy. A good rub with a coarse towel for my old mind, no doubt. And Judith and Leslie are about to play bowls. This is why, my first solitary morning, after London and the protracted air raid - from 9.30 to 4 a.m. - I was so light, so free, so happy I wrote what I call P.H. poetry. Is it good? I suppose not, very. I should say, to placate V. W. when she wishes to know what was happening in August, 1940 - that the air raids are now at their prelude. Invasion, if it comes, must come within three weeks. The harrying of the public is now in full swing. The air saws: the wasps drone; the siren - it’s now Weeping Willie in the papers - is as punctual as the vespers... We’ve not had our raid yet, we say. Two in London. One caught me in the London Library. There I saw reading in Scrutiny that Mrs W. after all was better than the young. At this I was pleased. John Buchan - ‘V. W. is our best critic since M. Arnold and wiser and juster ‘ also pleased me. I must write to Pamela. Sales a little better.

  P.S. to the last page. We went out on to the terrace; began playing. A large two decker plane came heavily and slowly. L. said a Wellesley something. A training plane said Leslie. Suddenly there was pop pop from behind the church. Practising we said. The plane circled slowly out over the marsh and back, very close to the ground and to us. Then a whole volley of pops (like bags burst) came together. The plane swung off, slow and heavy and circling towards Lewes. We looked. Leslie saw the German black cross. All the workmen were looking. It’s a German: that dawned. It was the enemy. It dipped among the fir trees over Lewes and did not rise. Then we heard the drone. Looked up and saw two planes very high. They made for us. We started to shelter in the lodge. But they wheeled and Leslie saw the English sign. So we watched - they side slipped, glided, swooped and roared for about five minutes round the fallen plane as if identifying and making sure. Then made off towards London. Our version is that it was a wounded plane, looking for a landing. ‘It was a Jerry sure enough,’ the men said: the men who are making a gun hiding by the gate. It would have been a peaceful matter of fact death to be popped off on the terrace playing bowls this very fine cool sunny August evening.

  Saturday, August 31st.

  Now we are in the war. England is being attacked. I got this feeling for the first time completely yesterday; the feeling of pressure, danger, horror. The feeling is that a battle is going on - fierce battle. May last four weeks. Am I afraid? Intermittently. The worst of it is one’s mind won’t work with a spring next morning. Of course this may be the beginning of invasion. A sense of pressure. Endless local stories. No - it’s no good trying to capture the feeling of England being in a battle. I daresay if I write fiction and Coleridge and not that infernal bomb article for U.S.A. I shall swim into quiet water.

  Monday, September 2nd.

  There might be no war, the past two days. Only one raid warning. Perfectly quiet nights. A lull after the attacks on London.

  Thursday, September 5th.

  Hot, hot, hot. Record heat wave, record summer if we kept records this summer. At 2.30 a plane zooms: 10 minutes later air raid sounds; 20 later, all clear. Hot, I repeat; and doubt if I’m a poet. H. P. hard labour. Brain w — no, I can’t think of the word - yes, wilts. An idea. All writers are unhappy. The picture of the world in books is thus too dark. The wordless are the happy: women in cottage gardens: Mrs Chavasse. Not a true picture of the world; only a writer’s picture. Are musicians, painters, happy? Is their world happier?

  Tuesday, September 10th.

  Back from half a day in London - perhaps our strangest visit. When we got to Gower Street a barrier with diversion on it. No sign of damage. But coming to Doughty Street a crowd. Then Miss Perkins at the window. Meek. S. roped off. Wardens there. Not allowed in. The house about 30 yards from ours struck at one in the morning by a bomb. Completely ruined. Another bomb in the square still unexploded. We walked round the back. Stood by Jane Harrison’s house. The house was still smouldering. That is a great pile of bricks. Underneath all the people who had gone down to their shelter. Scraps of cloth hanging to the bare walls at the side still standing. A looking glass I think swinging. Like a tooth knocked out - a clean cut. Our house undamaged. No windows yet broken - perhaps the bomb has now broken them. We saw Bernai with an arm band jumping on top of the bricks. Who lived there? I suppose the casual young men and women I used to see from my window; the flat dwellers who used to have flower pots and sit in the balcony. All now blown to bits. The garage man at the back - blear eyed and jerky - told us he had been blown out of his bed by the explosion: made to take shelter in a church. ‘A hard cold seat,’ he said, ‘and a small boy lying in my arms. I cheered when the all clear sounded. I’m aching all over.’ He said the Jerries had been over for three nights ‘ trying to bomb King’s Cross. They had destroyed half Argyll Street, also shops in Grays Inn Road. Then Mr Pritchard ambled up. Took the news as calm as a grig. They actually have the impertinence to say this will make us accept peace...! ‘ he said: he watches raids from his flat roof and sleeps like a hog. So, after talking to Miss Perkins, Mrs Jackson - but both serene - Miss P. had slept on a camp bed in her shelter - we went on to Grays Inn. Left the car and saw Holborn. A vast gap at the top of Chancery Lane. Smoking still. Some great shop entirely destroyed: the hotel opposite like a shell. In a wine shop there were no windows left. People standing at the tables - I think drink being served. Heaps of blue green glass in the road at Chancery Lane. Men breaking off fragments left in the frames. Glass falling. Then into Lincoln’s Inn. To the NS. office: windows broken, but house untouched. We went over it. Deserted. Wet passages. Glass on stairs. Doors locked. So back to the car. A great block of traffic. The Cinema behind Madame Tussaud’s torn open: the stage visible; some decoration swinging. All the R. Park houses with broken windows, but undamaged. And then miles and miles of orderly ordinary streets - all Bayswater, and Sussex Square as usual - streets empty - faces set and eyes bleared. In Chancery Lane I saw a man with a barrow of music books. My typist’s office destroyed. Then at Wimbledon a siren: people began running. We drove, through almost empty streets, as fast as possible. Horses taken out of the shafts. Cars pulled up. Then the all clear. The people I think of now are the very grimy lodging house keepers, say in Heathcote Street: with another night to face: old wretched women standing at their doors; dirty, miserable. Well - as Nessa said on the phone, it’s coming very near. I had though
t myself a coward for suggesting that we should not sleep two nights at 37. I was greatly relieved when Miss P. telephoned advising us not to stay, and L. agreed.

  Wednesday, September 11th.

  Churchill has just spoken. A clear, measured, robust, speech. Says the invasion is being prepared. It’s for the next two weeks apparently if at all. Ships and barges massing at French ports. The bombing of London of course preparatory to invasion. Our majestic City - etc., which touches me, for I feel London majestic. Our courage etc. Another raid last night on London. Time bomb struck the Palace. John rang up. He was in Mecklenburgh Square the night of the raid: wants the Press moved at once. L. is to go up on Friday. Our windows are broken, John says. He is lodging out somewhere. Mecklenburgh Square evacuated. A plane shot down before our eyes just before tea: over the racecourse; a scuffle; a swerve; then a plunge; and a burst of thick black smoke. Percy says the pilot baled out We count now on an air raid about 8.30. Anyhow, whether or not, we hear the sinister sawing noise about then, which loudens and fades; then a pause; then another comes. ‘They’re at it again’ we say as we sit, I doing my work. L. making cigarettes. Now and then there’s a thud. The windows shake. So we know London is raided again.

  Thursday, September 12th.

  A gale has risen. Weather broken. Armada weather. No sound of planes today, only wind. Terrific air traffic last night. But the raid beaten off by new London barrage. This is cheering. If we can hold out this week - next week - week after - if the weather’s turned - if the force of the raids on London is broken - we go up tomorrow to see John about moving Press; to patch the windows, rescue valuables and get letters - if, that is, we’re allowed in the Square. Oh, blackberrying I conceived, or re-moulded, an idea for a Common History book - to read from one end of literature including biography; and range at will, consecutively.

  Friday, September 13th.

  A strong feeling of invasion in the air. Roads crowded with army wagons, soldiers. Just back from hard day in London. Raid, unheard by us, started outside Wimbledon. A sudden stagnation. People vanished. Yet some cars went on. We decided to visit lavatory on the hill: shut. So L. made use of tree. Pouring. Guns in the distance. Saw a pink brick shelter. That was the only interest of our journey - our talk with the man, woman and child who were living there. They had been bombed at Clapham. Their house unsafe; so they hiked to Wimbledon. Preferred this unfinished gun emplacement to a refugee overcrowded house. They had a roadman’s lamp; a saucepan and could boil tea. The night watchman wouldn’t accept their tea; had his own; someone gave them a bath. In one of the Wimbledon houses there was only a caretaker. Of course they couldn’t house us. But she was very nice - gave them a sit down. We all talked. Middle class smartish lady on her way to Epsom regretted she couldn’t have the child. But we wouldn’t part with her, they said - the man a voluble emotional Kelt, the woman placid Saxon. As long as she’s all right we don’t mind. They sleep on some shavings. Bombs had dropped on the Common. He a house-painter. Very friendly and hospitable. They liked having people in to talk. What will they do? The man thought Hitler would soon be over. The lady in the cocks hat said Never. Twice we left: more guns: came back. At last started, keeping an eye on shelters and people’s behaviour. Reached Russell Hotel. No John. Loud gunfire. We sheltered. Started for Mecklenburgh Square; met John, who said the Square still closed; so lunched in the hotel: decided the Press emergency - to employ Garden City Press - in 20 minutes. Raid still on. Walked to Mecklenburgh Square.

  Saturday, September 14th.

  A sense of invasion - that is lorries of soldiers and machines - like cranes - walloping along to Newhaven. An air raid is on. A little pop rattle which I take to be machine gun, just gone off. Planes roaring and roaring. Percy and L. say some are English. Mabel comes out and looks: asks if we want fish fried or boiled.

  The great advantage of this page is that it gives me a fidget ground. Fidgets: caused by losing at bowls and invasion: caused by another howling banshee, by having no book I must read: and so on. I am reading Sévigné: how recuperative last week; gone stale a little with that mannered and sterile Burney now: even through the centuries his acid dandified somehow supercilious well what? - can’t find the word - this manner of his, this character penetrates; and moreover reminds me of someone I dislike. Is it Logan? There’s a ceremony in him that reminds me of Tom. There’s a parched artificial cruelty and - oh the word! the word! Am I over-I suggest sensitive to character in writing? I think we supercilious. moderns lack love. Our torture makes us writhe.

  But I can’t go into that - a phrase that brings in Old Rose, to whom I mean to write. One always thinks there’s a landing place coming. But there ain’t. A stage, a branch, an end. I dislike writing letters of thanks about Roger. I’ve said it so many times. I think I will begin my new book by reading for Evans, 6d. Penguin.

  Monday, September 16th.

  Well, we’re alone in our ship. A very wet stormy day. Mabel stumped off, with her bunions, carrying her bags at 10. Thank you for all your kindness; she said the same to us both. Also would I give her a reference? ‘I hope we shall meet again,’ I said. She said ‘Oh no doubt’ thinking I referred to death. So that 5 years’ uneasy mute but very passive and calm relation is over: a heavy unsunned pear dropped from a twig. And we’re freer, alone. No responsibility: for her. The house solution is to have no residents. But I’m stupid; have been dallying with Mr Williamson’s confessions, appalled by his egocentricity.

  Are all writers as magnified in their own eyes? He can’t move an inch from the glare of his own personality - his fame. And I’ve never read one of those immortal works. To Charleston this afternoon, after provisioning for our siege in Lewes. Last night we saw tinsel sparks here and there in the sky over the flat. L. thought they were shells bursting from the London barrage. Great air traffic all night. Some loud explosions. I listened for church bells, thinking largely, I admit, of finding ourselves prisoned here with Mabel. She thought the same. Said that if one is to be killed one will be killed. Prefers death in a Holloway shelter playing cards - naturally - to death here.

  Tuesday, September 17th.

  No invasion. High wind. Yesterday in the Public Library I took down a book of X.’s criticism. This turned me against writing my book. London Library atmosphere effused. Turned me against all literary criticism: these so clever, so airless, so fleshless ingenuities and attempts to prove - that T. S. Eliot for example is a worse critic than X. Is all literary criticism that kind of exhausted air? - book dust, London Library, air. Or is it only that X. is a second hand, frozen fingered, university specialist, don trying to be creative, don all stuffed with books, writer? Would one say the same of the Common Reader? I dipped for five minutes and put the book back depressed. The man asked ‘What do you want, Mrs Woolf?’ I said a history of English literature. But was so sickened I couldn’t look. There were so many. Nor could I remember the name of Stopford Brooke.

  I continue, after winning two games of bowls. Our island is a desert island. No letters from Meek. No coffee. Papers between 3 and 4. Can’t get on to Meek, when we ring up. Some letters take 5 days coming. Trains uncertain. One must get out at Croydon. Angelica goes to Hilton via Oxford. So we, L. and I, are almost cut off. We found a young soldier in the garden last night, coming back. ‘Can I speak to Mr Woolf?’ I thought it meant billeting for certain. No. Could we lend a typewriter? Officer on hill had gone and taken his. So we produced my portable. Then he said: ‘Pardon sir, Do you play chess?’ He plays chess with passion. So we asked him to tea on Saturday to play. He is with the anti-aircraft searchlight on the hill. Finds it dull. Can’t get a bath. A straight good natured young man. Professional soldier? I think the son, say of an estate agent, or small shopkeeper. Not public school. Not lower class. But I shall investigate. ‘Sorry to break into your private life’ he said. Also that on Saturday he went to the pictures in Lewes.

  Wednesday, September 18th.

  ‘We have need of all our courage’ are the words
that come to the surface this morning: on hearing that all our windows are broken, ceilings down, and most of our china smashed at Mecklenburgh Square. The bomb exploded. Why did we ever leave Tavistock? What’s the good of thinking that? We were about to start for London, when we got on to Miss Perkins who told us. The Press - what remains - is to be moved to Letchworth. A grim morning. How can one settle into Michelet and Coleridge? As I say, we have need of courage. A very bad raid last night on London - waiting for the wireless. But I did forge ahead with P.H. all the same.

  Thursday, September 19th.

  Less need of courage today. I suppose the impression of Miss P.’s voice describing the damage wears off.

  Wednesday, September 25th.

  All day - Monday - in London; in the flat; dark; carpets nailed to windows; ceilings down in patches; heaps of grey dust and china under kitchen table; back rooms untouched. A lovely September day - tender - three days of tender weather - John came. We are moved to Letchworth. The Garden City was moving us that day. Roger surprisingly sells. The bomb in Brunswick Square exploded. I was in the baker’s. Comforted the agitated worn women.