Excerpts From The Diary Of Virginia Woolf, Volume V

Author(s): VIRGINIA WOOLF, Anne Olivier Bell, Andrew McNeillie

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The American Poetry Review, Vol. 13, No. 5 (SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1984), pp. 8-12
Published by: American Poetry Review
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27777437 .
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 In addition to her novels, Virginia Woolf was the author of A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas.

Excerpted fromTHE DIARY OF VIRGINIAWOOLF, VOLUME V. DIARY ? 1984 byQuentin Bell and Angelica Garnett.To be published by
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

VIRGINIA WOOLF:

From The Diary Of

Excerpts

Woolf, Volume V
Virginia
edited Anne Olivier Bell
by
assisted Andrew McNeillie
by
war ifwar comes.1 But privately?how one rockets between private &
public?his eyes are bluer, his skin pinker, & he can walk without pain.
Lydia has devoted herself to the treatment. They think Nessa suppresses
Clive?wont have things out. Never will have anything out. But the[n]
L[ydia]. is always on husbands side?a serf like spirit, natural in the cir
cumstances. My allegiance is to N. & D. as usual: but I like all my friends
?though not the taste of Tilton.
Roasting hot: birds a chirp: butterflies.
I am reading Dickens; by way of a refresher. How he lives; not writes:
both a virtue & a fault. Like seeing something emerge; without con
taining mind. Yet the accuracy & even sometimes the penetration?into
Miss Squeers & Miss Price & the farmer [in Nicholas Nickleby] for
example?remarkable. I cant dip my critical mind, even if I try to. Then
I'm reading Sevign?, professionally for that quick amalgamation of
books that I intend. In future, I'm to write quick, intense, short books, &
never be tied down. This is the way to keep off the settling down &
refrigeration of old age. And to flout all preconceived theories?For more
& more I doubt if enough is known to sketch even probable lines, all too
emphatic & conventional.
Maurice, the last of the LI. Davies brothers is dead; & Margaret lives
-
lives too carefully of life, I used to feel.Why drag on, always measuring
& testing one's little bit of strength & setting it easy tasks so as to ac
cumulate years?2
Also I'm reading Rochefoucauld. Thats the real point of my little
Brown book?that itmakes me read?with a pen?following the scent: &
read the good books; not the slither ofMSS & the stridency of the young
chawking?the word expresses callow bills agape & chattering?for
sympathy. Chaucer I take at need. So if I had any time?but perhaps
next week will be more solitudinous?I should, if itweren't for the war
glide my way up & up in to that exciting layer so rarely lived in: where
entries, excerpted from the final volume of Virginia Woolf s my mind works so quick it seems asleep; like the aeroplane propellers.
But I must retype the last Clifton passage; & so be quit for tomorrow &
rhese diary, cover the period from April to September 1939. They chronicle
the events of a time important both for their author and for her country: clear the decks for Cambridge. Rather good, I expect it is: condensed &
amid the negotiations and false hopes forpeace which preceded England's moulded.
entry into war with Germany on September 3, Virginia Woolf had set *****

herself a strict regimen to complete her biography of art critic Roger Fry,
while writing at intervals the first draft o/Pointz Hall, the work which Friday 28 April
would become Between the Acts, her last novel Very much screwed in the brain by trying to get Roger's marriage
The characters who people the diary are many, some famous, others not: chapter into shape; & also warmed by L. saying last night that he was
the author's sister and brother-in-law, Vanessa and Clive Bell, and their fonder of me than I of him. A discussion as to which would mind the
son Quentin; the artist Duncan Grant, with whom Vanessa worked from other's death most. He said he depended more upon our common life
about 1914 until her death in 1961 and by whom she had a daughter, than I did. He gave the garden as an instance. He said I lived more in a
Angelica, in 1918; John Lehmann of theHogarth Press; Mabel Haskins, world of my own. I go for long walks alone. So we argued. I was very
theWoolfs' domestic; artist and patron of the arts Helen Anrep, and her happy to think I was so much needed. Its strange how seldom one feels
son Igor; composer, author and feminist Dame Ethel Smyth; and the this: yet 'life in common' is an immense reality. For instance, I cant go to
economist John Maynard Keynes and his wife, Lydia Lopokova. The Wreckers tonight with Ethel Smyth because: 1. I have a little tem
Monks House, Leonard and Virginia Woolf s Sussex home, is the perature: 2: (& more serious) I'd rather stay at home with L. Its no use
primary setting for the events described At the time of the first entry, the fighting against this. Its one of the facts.3
Woolf s are settling back there after tea-time visits the two previous days Oh such a dismal tea with Mrs W. yesterday. She is completely lifeless
to Charleston, Vanessa's house, and to Tilton, theKeynes' estate neigh ?like an old weed on a rock. And always recurring to the complaints.
boring it. That was how, by the way, we came to discuss our deaths. L. said he
hoped he would predecease me. Her lonely old age is so intolerable. But
Tuesday 11 April
its lonely, he said, because she has adopted an unreal attitude. Lived in a
How much identity, to use my own private slang, is needed to sur sentim[ent]al make believe. Sees herself as the adored matriarch, &
mount a little hillock: for instance, Lydia on Lappin & Lapinova yester forces the children to adopt her attitude. Hence the unreality of all
day at Tilton; & Tilton's comfort, & quiet; all seem tomake it harder for relations. This obsession of hers has also shut her off from all other
me to get on with revising Roger. Revising Roger at the rate of 2 weeks interests: doesn't care for any impersonal music, books.
thing?art,
to a chapter will take me 3 months. Then there's the war. The finest Wont have a companion or reader; must depend on her sons. Constant
Easter possible has this purple background. We wait like obedient chil innuendoes therefore about the goodness of Herbert & Harold; inference
dren to hear what we shall be told when Parliament meets on Thursday. that L. neglects her; hints that I have taken him away from his family;
At Tilton we talked first medicine; Maynard's drastic cure by Plesch; absorbed him in mine. So in that crowded pink hot room we sat for 2
then politics; five minutes left for Tom's play. Every day, save 2, some hours trying to beat up subjects for conversation. And there were awful
thing's turned up. Private peace is not accessible. Miss Robins tomorrow. silences, & our heads filled with wool; & all was dusty, dreary, old, &
Then Charleston. Then L.P. here. Maynard, even Maynard, cant find hopeless. Yet she followed us out on to the stair & made L. swear that she
much that's hopeful now that Italy has nipped off Albania save that looks better? "Sure Len? Sure I look better?" as if she still clings hard to
theres a unity of hatred. The men women children dogs &c. are solid for life & cant be removed. So to walk in the hail inKen. Gardens; & see the

PAGE 8 THEAMERICAN POETRY REVIEW

 cherry trees livid & lurid in the yellow storm haze. Very cold winter
spring.

THE
Friday 28 July

The use of this book is to write things out, hence: the Greenhouse. I'm
so unhappy. A portmanteau guilt; remorse
word. Analysed:
. . .The house, L.'s house, ... oh dear, his
headache;
hobby?his peach tree?to be
GENERATION
pulled down because of me. How can I get sensible? I mind so much. Oh
dear?the conflict?the ugliness: v: L.'s wish. And is it worth this OF
misery? ?oughtn't I to have said go ahead, when he came to me in the
Bath this morning? The men had come?Shd. they put it up? I said you
must decide. So he sent them away & its to be pulled down. How to live it
over? Forget he says: but I shant... & cant read or write? . . .
I have composed myself, momentarily, by reading through this years
2000
diary. Thats a use for it then. It composes. Why? I think shows one a
stretch, when one's grubbing in an inch. Head relieved anyhow by
reading. Odd that I can read here without repulsion. Why? My own mind
I suppose claws me when others slip. CONTEMPORARY
I forget that we came down; & its been fine, rather; lovely on the
marsh. Hay cutting. Figures spaced on the marsh. Old Bob thanks me
for my letter. Much hurt by Stephen's review. A letter from Susie
AMERICAN POETS
Tweedsmuir?deadly dull at Quebec. Reading Gide's diaries, recom
mended by poor death mask Eddie [Sackville-West]. An interesting EDITED BY
knotted book. Its queer that diaries now pullulate. No one can settle to a
work of art. Comment only. That explains but scarcely excuses Peter WILLIAM HEYEN
Lucas; & his exhibition of Prudence.4 Shd. one judge people by what they
write? Shd. people show their naked skins? Eddie shows his death mask $14.95, paper
?Dear, I forgot my shudder at Helen's son [omission]; nor can dissect
my mix up of the debt, the dislike of Igor's great fleshy mouth. (I'm "An impressive gathering of younger American
whistling to keep up my spirits this very strained grey day?the Green
poets, distinguished by the care with which they and
house morning.) I must now carry off lunch. What annoys me is L.'s their poems have been selected by their properly
adroitness in fathering the guilt on me. His highhandedness. I see the
temptation. "Oh you dont want it?so I submit." This spoilt bowls last idiosyncratic editor who believes in the seriousness
night. We shied them at the Jack. Yet so happy in our reconciliation. "Do and relevancy of his generation's poetry and here
you ever think me beautiful now?" "The most beautiful of women"? proves it" ?Theodore Weiss
. .a
7August [Bank Holiday]
strong, vigorous anthology??Publishers Weekly
Monday
I am now going to make the rash & bold experiment of breaking off,
from condensing Vision & Design,5 to write here for 10 minutes instead
of revising, as I ought, my mornings grind. Ai Judith Minty
Oh yes. I thought of several things to write about. Not exactly diary. Berry Robert Morgan
Wendell
Reflections. Thats the fashionable dodge. Peter Lucas & Gide both at it.
Neither can settle to creative art (I think, sans Roger, I could). Its the Raymond Carver Joyce Carol Oates
comment?the daily interj ection?that comes handy in times like these.
I too feel it. But what was I thinking? Lucille Clifton Gregory Orr
I have been thinking about Censors. How visionary figures admonish
' Norman Dubie Robert Phillips
us. Thats clear in an MS I'm reading. If I say this So & So will think me
sentimental. If that. . .will think me Bourgeois. All books now seem to Marge Piercy
Tess Gallagher
me surrounded by a circle of invisible censors. Hence their selfconscious
ness, their restlessness. It wd. be worth while trying to discover what Louise Gl?ck Stanley Plumly
they are at the moment. Did Wordsworth have them? I doubt it. I read
Ruth before breakfast. Its stillness, its unconsciousness, its lack of Albert Goldbarth William Pitt Root
distraction, its concentration & the resulting "beauty" struck me. As if Michael S. Harper Robert Siegel
the mind must be allowed to settle undisturbed over the object in order
to secrete the pearl. Robert Hass Charles Simic
Thats an idea for an article.
The figurative expression is that all the surroundings of the mind have William Heyen Dave Smith
come much closer. A child crying in the field brings poverty: my comfort:
Faye Kjcknosway Mark Strand
tomind. Ought I to go to the village sports? Ought thus breaks in tomy
contemplation. Paul Mariani Michael Waters
Oh & I thought, as I was dressing, how interesting it would be to
describe the approach of age, & the gradual coming of death. As people William Matthews CK. Williams
describe love. To note every symptom of failure: but why failure? To
treat age as an experience that is different from the others; & to detect
Heather McHugh Charles Wright
every one of the gradual stages towards death which is a tremendous Sandra McPherson
experience, & not as unconscious at least in its approaches, as birth is.
I must now return tomy grind. I think rather refreshed.
Clive at Cn yesterday, with an enormous white jersey which he patted
& prodded from time to time. A little testy about his room. Photographs and introductory prose pieces by each poet
included. Discounts for course adoption.
I needn't say I've been palmed off with the worst in [the] house.
Desiring sympathy, Duncan said, & admiration. All his books were put
in order by the others. Rather an elderly tea party. Q. away.6
*****
Order from:Persea Books
225 Lafayette St.
Wednesday 30 August THE New York,NY 10012

Not at war yet. Par[liamen]t met: yesterday. Negotiations. We are

firm.A pause. L. & I discussing the Broadcast are up & down. Very black
OF ONTARIO REVIEW PRESS
2000 Send me a copy of The Generation of 2000. Enclosed ismy
?then less so. L. pessimistic more than I am this morning. He thinks check (or money order) in the amount of $16.45 (includes
that H[itier], ismaking up his mind to spring. Raging voices began again AMERICAN
POETS $1.50 for postage and handling).
last night in German. Last years mad voice heard again, as if he were
_
lashing himself up. At the same time, a reply of 8 pages has been sent
NAME

last night to the Cabinet. The French are out of it this time.7
WILLIAM HEYEN. ADDRESS_
I'm dull headed. Spreading my mind out to synthesise the last chapter.
Well, its a good thing as a distraction. Also wrote a synopsis of a story CITY_STATE_ZIP _
for Chabrun [Chambrun]. Will they really order 3,000 words on that

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1984 PAGE 9

 flimsy sketch for $200? Seems impossible. Nobody keeps engagements
or answers letters. A kind of block & suspension. No furniture unpacked.
We go up tomorrow.
Brilliant?yes, the light is very evanescent?shining?weather. Very
hot. To Lewes about shoes &c. All the tradespeople one wd say indif
"A poet tends as a matter of course to ferent. Question of buying bicycles. Lots of bicycles. But why? Oh d'you
some narcissism about his work. Why think there'll be a war?
Platonic otherwise
those bundles
should he keep about
of old worksheets
him
but
Now I must listen to the one 'clock.
Red faced boys in khaki guarding Rodmell Hill. The soldiers in the
in thedwindling hope thatsome line village. Otherwise quiet & usual eno'
. . .
rejected from the old poem... may * * * * *
be rescued for the new? Why, indeed,
should he be to set down an Sunday 3 September
Scripts
tempted
account of the composition of one of
This is I suppose certainly the last hour of peace. The time limit is out
byDONALD
JUSTICE his poems? I sometimes suspect that
at 11. PM to broadcast at 11.15. L. & I "stood by" 10 minutes ago. Why
all such accounts... stem from
more than a mere innocent
repeat what'U be in all the papers? We argued. L. said Greenwood was
nothing
right?forcing the PM in the House last night.81 argued its "they" as
affection for the first idea of the
usual who do this. We as usual remain outside. Ifwe win,?then what? L.
that pure and as yet un
poem, said its better to win; because the Germans, vanquished, are what they
which
compromised conception are. Mus[solini']s last try, a try on. All the formulae are now a mere
somehow shrinks and becomes dis
surface for gangsters. So we chopped words. I suppose the bombs are
in the writing_I myself am
falling on rooms like this inWarsaw.
figured A fine sunny morning here; apples
not sure that Iwould take as much
shining. Mabel came tomy regret last night. Atmosphere at once stiff&
pleasure inwriting were itpossible
prickly. Mustn't mind, says L. No children yet come. Nessa & Angelica
to commit the original idea with per
over as I took up the book yesterday. 14 in house: 3 children dumped.
fect spontaneity to paper, nor am I at
Maynard has given Q. a job as tractor driver.9 This is a relief. No one
all sure that such poems would be as
as one might like to be
knows how we're to fight. Rumours beginning. A flurry of people
interesting
lieve in themidst of the longnightof shopping in Lewes yesterday: the flight of cars with beds fairly thick.
labor. Even so it is true, at least
inmy Shops rather empty. People buying stuff forwindows. Little girl says If
we have a chink they'll spy us out. Flint [grocer] cross. Many of them
own experience, that the conception
that?as if half unhappy half resentful. No excitement visible. M[abel].
of a poem does usually... seem more
said train very empty. I believe little exact notes are more interesting
impressive, grander, than the finished
which almost
than reflections?the only reflection is that this is bosh & stuffing com
product, always
a series of compromises pared with the reality of reading say Tawney; writing, & re-writing one
represents
sentence of Roger.10 So this experiment proves the reality of the mind.
between desire and necessity."
Photo by Joseph Levy ? Two hours sewing [black-out] curtains. An anodyne, pleasant to do
Donald Justice
something: but so tepid & insipid. One's too tired, emotionally, to read a
paper $7.95
page. I tried Tawney last night?cdn't concentrate. Church bells ringing.
Mrs Ebbs carrying a sheaf of gladioli. Where from? Breaky Bottom.
They hardly ever come to church, but now & then send lovely flowers for
the church.11 Question: ifwe had a church? The relief of having some
common outside interest or belief. If it were a belief ... Q. & A. to eat
John's grouse.
Its the unreality of force that muffles every thing. now about 10.33.
Itys
Not to attitudinise is one reflection. Nice to be entirely genuine &
obscure. Then of course I shall have to work to make money. That's a
comfort. Write articles forAmerica. I suppose take on some writing for
some society. Keep the Press going. Of course no beds or heat on at 37.
Collected So far plenty of petrol. Sugar rationed. So I shall now go in. Nothing
the garden or meadows that strikes me out of the way?&
in
certainly I
Foreword by William Meredith cant write.12

Edited by Frederick Glaysher Wednesday 6 Sep tember

Prose Our first air raid warning at 8.30 this morning. A warbling that grad
itself as I lay in bed. So dressed & walked on the terrace
HAYDEN
byROBERT ually insinuates
with L. Sky clear. All cottages shut. Breakfast. All clear. During the
interval a raid on Southwark. No news.
The Hepworths came on Monday.13 Rather like a sea voyage. Forced
"The destructive forces at work in conversation. Boredom. All meaning has run out of everything. Scarcely
the twentieth century, the crises and worth reading papers. The BBC gives any news the day before. Empti
obsessions of a world in violent tran ness. Inefficiency. I may as well record these things. My plan is to force
my brain to work on Roger. But Lord this is the worst of all my life's
sition, account for much that is nega
tive in poetry and the other arts to I note that force is the dullest of experiences. It means
experiences.
day. Chauvinism, the frenetic quest one cold & Endless
feeling only bodily feelings: gets torpid. interrup
for novelty, the subordination of the tions. We have done the curtains. We have carried coals &c into the
aesthetic to the politically utilitarian women & children. The expectant mothers
? cottage for the 8 Battersea
theseare, clearly, manifestations are all quarrelling. took the car to be
Some went back yesterday. We
of decadence. They are not, however, hooded, met Nessa, were driven to tea at Charleston. Yes, its an empty
the only elements discernible. If
meaningless world now. Am I a coward? Physically I expect I am. Going
there is catabolism, there is also an
to London tomorrow I expect frightens me. At a pinch eno' adrenalin is
abolism. If there exists a 'poetry of
secreted to keep one calm. But my brain stops. I took up my watch this
and rejection, there is also a
despair'
morning & then put it down. Lost. That kind of thing annoys me. No
that affirms the humane and
poetry doubt one can conquer this. But my mind seems to curl up & become
spiritual. Our attempts at the present
undecided. To cure this one had better read a solid book like Tawney, an
time to achieve a new, a larger vision
exercise of the muscles. The Hepworths are travelling books inBrighton.
of God, man, civilization give sub Shall I walk? Yes. Its the gnats & flies that settle on noncombatants.
stance to the work of many outstand
Photo byBob Kalmbach This war has begun in cold blood. One merely feels that the killing
ing poets."
? machine has to be set in action. So far, The Athena has been sunk.14 It
Robert Hayden
seems entirely meaningless?a perfunctory slaughter, like taking a jar in
paper $7.95 one hand, a hammer in the other. Why must this be smashed? Nobody
knows. This feeling is different from any before. And all the blood has
been let out of common life. No movies or theatres allowed. No letters,
except strays from America. "Reviewing" rejected by Atlantic.15 No
friends write or ring up. Yes, a long sea voyage, with strangers making
ofMichiganPress
The University conversation, & lots of small bothers & arrangements seems the closest I
can get. Of course all creative power is cut off.
Dept. CF P.O. Box 1104 Ann Arbor,Michigan 48106
Perfect summer weather.
[Later.] Its like an invalid who can look up & take a cup of tea?Sud

PAGE 10 THE AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW

 denly one can take to the pen with relish. Result of a walk in the heat, knocked over the head. The darkness they say is the worst of it. The air
clearing the fug & setting the blood working. This book will serve to raid had been very trying?at 2.30. John had drunk a glass ofwater & sat
accumulate notes, the fruit of such quickenings. And for the 100th time I in the cellar. No one can control their nerves. So I was glad to be on the
repeat?any idea ismore real than any amount of war misery. And what road home. No raids yet. Poland being conquered, & then?we shall be
one's made for. And the only contribution one can make?This little attended to.
pitter patter of ideas ismy whiff of shot in the cause of freedom?so I tell I've offered to write for the NS. I dont know ifwisely: but it's best to
myself, thus bolstering up a figment?a phantom: recovering that sense have a job, & I dont think I can stand aloof with comfort at the moment.
of something pressing from outside which consolidates the mist, the So my reasons are half in half. Intolerable tedium.?no papers: no letters;
non-existent. & all this made up talk with Nicholls.
I see Priestley consolidating his idea of himself too. Begins his article, Cooler now.
Helping to receive refugees &c. . . . thus bringing before himself P. the
Saturday 23 September
active, the helper in the cause of common life: & so doubtless releasing
his rush of ideas. But I dont like P.'s figment, necessary as itmay be.161 Meanwhile Poland has been gobbled up. Russia & Germany divide it.
conceived the idea, walking in the sun baked marsh where I saw one An aircraft carrier has been sunk. But there have been no raids.19 And
clouded yellow, ofmaking an article out of these 15 odd diaries. This will I?having said impulsively that I would write for the NS by way of using
be an easy slope of work: not the steep grind of Roger. But shall I ever my faculties patriotically?have written 2 & used up every morning to
have a few hours to read in? I must. Tonight the Raid has diminished the margin. Also people have been staying here ... oh such a fritter &
from a raid on Southwark; on Portsmouth; on Scarborough, to an agitation?solid weekends with Mrs Nicholls, Miss Perkins, Miss
attempt on the E. Coast without damage. Tomorrow we go up.
Woodward?both very good samples: public house life & greengrocers.
So distracted I've scudded over the surface of the days. And now
Monday 11 September is on us & so we shall be lip sore & addle headed. Then
Stephen alone;
I have just read 3 or 4 Characters of Theophrastus, stumbling from theres John on Monday.
Greek to English, & may as well make a note of it.17Trying to anchor my Civilisation has shrunk. The Amenities are wilting. Theres no petrol
mind on Greek. Rather successful. As usual, how Greek sticks, darts, today: so we are back again with our bicycles at Asheham 1915. And
eels in& out! No Latin wd have noted that a boor remembers his loans in once more L. & I calculate our income. Can I give A. her allowance? How
the middle of the night. The Greek has his eye on the object. But its a much must we both earn? Once more we are journalists. I've offered to
long distance one has to roll away to get at Theophrastus & Plato. But do an article, required by The Times, on artists & the crisis; offered
worth the effort. others. My old age of independence is thus in danger. But in fact its hard
Mrs Nicholls a great frost. A painted metallic shrill nagging woman; to keep aloof & do my books. Theres a pressure about an article?even
with a mind that pecks the same rotten apple again?this side, that side. White & Bewick?that keeps one absorbed. But how sick of 1500 words
Her daughter: & her future: & Tigger the Dalmatian: full of her shoddy by Wednesday I shall get!20
contacts; her cocktails: shall I buy a housecoat for raids or trousers? At Then one begins stinting paper, sugar, butter, buying little hoards of
last, at 8 am, she left us; but depressed, for one doesnt like coins to turn matches. The elm tree that fell has been cut up. This will see us through 2
out false. Of course she ruined Sunday tea: Charleston over. Much winters. They say the war will last 3 years. We had an SOS from
grumbling from Clive at their inmates. Nessa who is making a chicken Kingsley. He came for the night. What was it he cdn't say on the
house is philosophic. But she compares the Grants & Breretons.18 telephone? Nothing. Should h? come out in favour of peace? Cha[mberlai]n
To London on Thursday. Pitiless fine weather. Over London a light has the terms in his pocket. All in the know say we are beaten. Troops
spotted veil?the ballons. Very empty streets. A curious strained silence. guard the East end. A bomb?& he means to bomb the docks?will lead
At the Press, Miss P[erkins, clerk], listening for Sirens. So I listened. Sat to revolution. He was happy?but chuckling, quick & low, like a delirious
in the sunny window. Cases all empty but piled up. Mabel & I laid carpets. bird. Always seeing himself, & pleased to see himself a martyr. Nothing
Sandwiches with John. Stephen came in. His great joints seemed to of the least importance is said though in his article. A sensationalist?his
crack. Eyes stared. Is writing reams about himself. Can't settle to mind rotted with hot coterie talk?all pitted & soft as a hot dis[h]cloth?
poetry. London after sunset a mediaevel city of darkness & brigandage. steaming, unwholesome, unreal. Yet I rather liked him?a Celt.21
Mrs [Cyril]Connolly told by a taxi man he had just been robbed & I forget who else has been. Nessa painting L.22 Drove to Newhaven yes

The of Woolf
Diary Virginia

Paper, $3.95 Paper, $5.95 Paper, $8.95 Paper, $7.95

?> HARCOURT BRACE JOVANOVICH

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1984 PAGE 11
 terday to buy plaster of Paris for Q. & we saw the 2 hospital ships tuberculosis.

painted green & white in the harbour. Many games of bowls. No reading. 10. R.H. Tawney (1880-1962), economic historian and social critic; his most
No Theophrastus?only article reading. But this must be stopped, as I'm influential book was Religion and theRise of Capitalism (1926).
now up to time with my little Hutterers; & thank God old Mabel who is 11. Breaky Bottom is an isolated farm in a fold of the downs west ofRodmell.
like one of the clammy kitchen flies, goes back on Tuesday. London no 12. The Prime Minister broadcast to the nation at 11:15 a.m. on Sunday 3 Sep
worse, she says than anywhere. An opinion I encourage. tember: as Germany had not replied to his Government's ultimatuum that their
forces be withdrawn fromPoland by 11 a.m. that day, he announced that Great
was at war
Notes Britain
13. Barbara
already with Germany.
from the Hogarth Press and her sister stayed at
Hepworth
1. Alive at last to the dangers ofHitler's military and territorial ambitions in Monks House from 4-7 September.
Eastern Europe, a disillusioned Mr. Chamberlain announced on 31 March that 14. On 3 September the linerAthenia, bound forCanada with 1400 passengers
Britain and France would guarantee support to Poland should her independence and crew, was torpedoed by a German submarine and sunk 250 miles west of the
be threatened (which itwas); when Parliament reassembled on 13 April?after Hebrides; 112 lives were lost.
the invasion and annexation of Albania by Mussolini's troops on Good Friday 15. VW finished writing her essay "Reviewing" in June 1939; it was pub
(7 April)?this guarantee was extended to Greece and Roumania. The Hungarian lished, with a dissenting note by LW, as a Hogarth Sixpenny Pamphlet on
born Dr. Janos Plesch (1879-1957) gave up his practice in Germany when the 2 November 1939, but did not appear inAmerica.
Nazis came to power, and settled inEngland; he had treated Keynes since 1937 16. See J.B. Priestly in the News Chronicle, 4 September 1939: "Two-ton
and became a friend as well as his doctor. Annie": "We had been asked to lend a hand at receiving and distributing the
2. Margaret Llewelyn Davies, now seventy-eight, had six brothers; Maurice patients, who had been evacuated fromPortsmouth hospitals. So there I was, at
(1865-1939) was the third. the end of Ryde Pier, watching the sick folk arrive ..."
3. Ethel Smyth's opera The Wreckers was given its last performance of the 17. Theophrastus, a pupil of Plato and ofAristotle; his "Characters" consist
season at Sadler's Wells this evening. of brief delineations ofmoral types.
4. VW had written to R.C. Trevelyan to thank him for his Collected Works, 18. Norah Nicholls of the Hogarth Press office staff stayed at Monks House
Volume 1: Poems (1939) which had been disparagingly reviewed by Stephen from Saturday to Monday morning. Julian and Quentin's governess Mrs.

Spender in the NS&N [New Statesman and Nation] of 22 July 1939. Lady Brereton and her daughter formed part of Vanessa's household at Charleston
Tweedsmuir's letter of 14 July fromThe Citadel, theGovernor-General's Quebec towards the end of the 1914-18 war; now it was a refuge from the expected
residence, is in theMonks House Papers, Sussex. Andr? Gide's Journal 1885-1939 dangers of war forDuncan Grant's mother and her sister Violet McNeil.
(1939).With the titleJournal under theTerror, F.L. Lucas in 1938 published what 19. Invading German forces from theWest and Russian from the East over
he called "the unedited truth of . . .day-to-day impressions of a year [1937] in ran Poland and met at Brest-Litovsk on 18 September; by the end of themonth
modern Europe." From November onwards it contains references to his wife the partition of the country secretly agreed in theGerman-Soviet Pact was effec
Prudence's nervous breakdown. tive and ratified. HMS Courageous was torpedoed and sunk in the Bristol
5. i.e.: VW's heading to Chapter 10 ofRoger Fry, which deals with his book of Channel on 17 September with a loss of over 500 men.
this title. 20. Nothing came of the proposed Times article; that on "White's Selborne"
6. Clive in fact had three of the best rooms inCharleston, and a private bath was published in theNS&N on 30 September 1939; that on the artist William
room. Bewick (1795-1866), based on his Life and Letters ... (1871) edited by Thomas
7. Since the signing of the German-Soviet Pact there had been intense diplo Landseer, and J.G. Tait's 1939 edition of the first volume of SirWalter Scott's
matic activity in an attempt to avert Hitler's intended attack on Poland and, on Journal (1825-26), appeared under the title "Gas at Abbotsford" in theM><?iV"on
his part, to prevent Britain and France fulfilling their obligations towards her. 27 January 1940.
8. The House of Commons met on Saturday 2 September; Chamberlain, still 21. Kingsley Martin came toMonks House for the night on 19 September; his
hoping to avoid a European war, reported that Mussolini had proposed an leading article in theNS&N of 23 September, "Brest-Litovsk Revenged," makes
immediate cessation of hostilities and a conference . . .Arthur Greenwood no allusion to the alleged peace terms proposed to theAllies by Hitler following
'
(1880-1954), Deputy Leader of theLabour Party, urged to "speak forEngland," the "collapse' ofPoland?which were not made public until the end of themonth.
insisted that the time for compromise was past and that England's duty was to 22. Vanessa Bell's finished portrait of LW hung at Monks House until his
honour her guarantee of aid to Poland. death, when itwas given to the National Portrait Gallery by Mrs. Ian Parsons;
9. Quentin Bell had been rejected formilitary service because of his history of the preliminary study is in a private collection in Chicago.

Once I gave a talk on Garcia Lorca, years after his death, and someone in the audience asked me: "In your 4Oda a Federico Garcia Lorca/ why do
you say that theypaint hospitals blue for him?"
"Look, my friend," I replied, "asking a poet that kind of question is like asking a woman her age. Poetry is not static matter but a flowing current
that quite often escapes from the hands of the creator himself. His raw material consists of elements that are and at the same time are not, of things
that exist and do not exist. Anyway, Fll try to give you an honest answer. For me, blue is themost beautiful color. It suggests space as man sees it, like
the dome of the sky, rising toward liberty and joy. Federico's presence, his personal magic, instilled a mood of joy around him. My line probably
means that even hospitals, even the sadness of hospitals, could be transformed by the magic spell of his influence and suddenly changed into
beautiful blue buildings."

from Pablo Neruda's Memoirs,

translated by Hardie St.Martin
Neruda quotation reprinted with the permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc., fromMEMOIRS by Pablo Neruda, translated from the Spanish by Hardie St. Martin. Translation copyright
1976, 1977, by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Translated from the Spanish CONF?ESO QUE HE VIVIDO. MEMORIAS, Copyright 1974 by theEstate of Pablo Neruda.

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