Richard, and Sally Seton perhaps: but I don't want to tie myself down to that yet. Now I do think this might be the best of my endings and come off, perhaps. But I have still to read the first chapters, and confess to dreading the madness rather; and being clever. However, I'm sure I've now got to work with my pick at my seam, if only because my metaphors come free, as they do here. Suppose one can keep the quality of a sketch in a finished and composed work? That is my endeavour. Anyhow, none can help and none can hinder me any more. I've been in for a shower of compliments too from
The Times,
Richmond rather touching me by saying that he gives way to my novel with all the will in the world. I should like him to read my fiction, and always suppose he doesn't.
There I was swimming in the highest ether known to me and thinking I'd finish by Thursday; Lottie suggests to Karin we'd like to have Ann; Karin interprets my polite refusal to her own advantage and comes down herself on Saturday, blowing everything to smithereens. More and more am I solitary; the pain of these upheavals is incalculable; and I can't explain it either.... Here I am with my wrecked weekâfor how serene and lovely like a Lapland night was our last week togetherâfeeling that I ought to go in and be a good auntâwhich I'm not by nature; ought to ask Daisy what she wants; and by rights I fill these moments full of Mrs. Dalloway's party for tomorrow's writing. The only solution is to stay on alone over Thursday and try my luck. A bad night (K.'s doing again) may partly account. But how entirely I live in my imagination; how completely depend upon spurts of thought, coming as I walk, as I sit; things churning up in my mind and so making a perpetual pageant, which is to be my happiness. This brew can't sort with nondescript people. These wails must now have ending, partly because I cannot see, and my hand shakes, having carried my bag from Lewes, where I sat on the Castle top, where an old man was brushing leaves, and told me how to cure lumbago; you tie a skein of silk round you; the silk costs threepence. I saw British canoes, and the oldest plough in Sussex 1750 found at Rodmell, and a suit of armour said to have been worn at Seringapatam. All this I should like to write about, I think. And of course children are wonderful and charming creatures. I've had Ann in talking about the white seal and wanting me to read to her. And how Karin manages to be so aloof I can't think. There's a quality in their minds to me very adorable; to be alone with them, and see them day to day would be an extraordinary experience. They have what no grown up hasâthat directnessâchatter, chatter, chatter, on Ann goes, in a kind of world of her own, with its seals and dogs; happy because she's going to have cocoa tonight, and go blackberrying tomorrow. The walls of her mind all hung round with such bright vivid things, and she doesn't see what we see.
Friday, October 17th
It is disgraceful. I did run upstairs thinking I'd make time to enter that astounding factâthe last words of the last page of
Mrs. Dalloway,
but was interrupted. Anyhow, I did them a week ago yesterday. "For there she was," and I felt glad to be quit of it, for it has been a strain the last weeks, yet fresher in the head; with less I mean of the usual feeling that I've shaved through and just kept my feet on the tight rope. I feel indeed rather more fully relieved of my meaning than usualâwhether this will stand when I re-read is doubtful. But in some ways this book is a feat; finished without break from illness, which is an exception; and written really in one year; and finally, written from the end of March to the 8th October without more than a few days' break for writing journalism. So it may differ from the others. Anyhow, I feel that I have exorcised the spell which Murry and others said I had laid myself under after
Jacob's Room.
The only difficulty is to hold myself back
The Times,
Richmond rather touching me by saying that he gives way to my novel with all the will in the world. I should like him to read my fiction, and always suppose he doesn't.
There I was swimming in the highest ether known to me and thinking I'd finish by Thursday; Lottie suggests to Karin we'd like to have Ann; Karin interprets my polite refusal to her own advantage and comes down herself on Saturday, blowing everything to smithereens. More and more am I solitary; the pain of these upheavals is incalculable; and I can't explain it either.... Here I am with my wrecked weekâfor how serene and lovely like a Lapland night was our last week togetherâfeeling that I ought to go in and be a good auntâwhich I'm not by nature; ought to ask Daisy what she wants; and by rights I fill these moments full of Mrs. Dalloway's party for tomorrow's writing. The only solution is to stay on alone over Thursday and try my luck. A bad night (K.'s doing again) may partly account. But how entirely I live in my imagination; how completely depend upon spurts of thought, coming as I walk, as I sit; things churning up in my mind and so making a perpetual pageant, which is to be my happiness. This brew can't sort with nondescript people. These wails must now have ending, partly because I cannot see, and my hand shakes, having carried my bag from Lewes, where I sat on the Castle top, where an old man was brushing leaves, and told me how to cure lumbago; you tie a skein of silk round you; the silk costs threepence. I saw British canoes, and the oldest plough in Sussex 1750 found at Rodmell, and a suit of armour said to have been worn at Seringapatam. All this I should like to write about, I think. And of course children are wonderful and charming creatures. I've had Ann in talking about the white seal and wanting me to read to her. And how Karin manages to be so aloof I can't think. There's a quality in their minds to me very adorable; to be alone with them, and see them day to day would be an extraordinary experience. They have what no grown up hasâthat directnessâchatter, chatter, chatter, on Ann goes, in a kind of world of her own, with its seals and dogs; happy because she's going to have cocoa tonight, and go blackberrying tomorrow. The walls of her mind all hung round with such bright vivid things, and she doesn't see what we see.
Friday, October 17th
It is disgraceful. I did run upstairs thinking I'd make time to enter that astounding factâthe last words of the last page of
Mrs. Dalloway,
but was interrupted. Anyhow, I did them a week ago yesterday. "For there she was," and I felt glad to be quit of it, for it has been a strain the last weeks, yet fresher in the head; with less I mean of the usual feeling that I've shaved through and just kept my feet on the tight rope. I feel indeed rather more fully relieved of my meaning than usualâwhether this will stand when I re-read is doubtful. But in some ways this book is a feat; finished without break from illness, which is an exception; and written really in one year; and finally, written from the end of March to the 8th October without more than a few days' break for writing journalism. So it may differ from the others. Anyhow, I feel that I have exorcised the spell which Murry and others said I had laid myself under after
Jacob's Room.
The only difficulty is to hold myself back
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