Volume Four: 1931-1935 (in progress)

diary xxi: 13 January 1932 – 3 January 1933

Well, now ’tis really a new book in order! The Woolf’s returned to London on 10 January, and Diary XXI begins.

Wednesday 13 January 1932: Being back means also returning to all the chores surrounding the Press – staff are ill, John (Lehmann) is being bossy and/or presumptuous of his position – and Virginia is wondering at its longevity, and that of herself and Leonard. And should it be “20 years”, will she get written the “4 novels” in her head? And, Lytton is still alive – but only just. Any wonder, perhaps, as her fiftieth birthday approaches, that she should again be obsessing on mortality. Virginia Woolf says: Ethel (Smyth) says Hilda (Matheson) says Vita is working manically to keep the Nicolsons afloat – ‘keeping sons at Eton & Long Barn & Siss[inghurs]’ [p.63] costs it would seem!

The next day the Woolfs drive down to Ham Spray and visit Lytton. In the nick of time one could say, for Virginia writes on Friday 22 January: ‘Lytton died yesterday morning’ [p.64], and she writes of the mood the evening before at a party for Angelica in Vanessa’s Fitzroy Street studio. She muses on loss ‘[…] the thing we shall never have again’ [p.65]. January ends with Lytton everywhere, Oliver Strachey to visit with tales of wives – present (Ray, of course) and former, a grotesquely re-imagined tea with Mrs. Woolf, and (we are told on 1st February) an evening visit with Roger Fry and Helen Anrep and a meeting with a certain Gerald Heard who impressed only in regaling them with the news of Leonard Elmhirst and the very monied Dorothy Whitney Straight and their plans for Dartington Hall and experimental farming and educational programs. But all the talk of rewilding (well before the invention of the word I would proffer!) must have inspired her, because the 2 February begins: ‘I am reading Wells’ science of life […]’ (actually, The Science of Life, written by H.G. Wells, Julian Huxley and G.P. Wells, the US edition from 1935 here at the Internet Archive)

Last updated: July 2 2024 [IV VW Diary, 2 February 1932]