Woolf recorded entries from 7th September through to 1st October in a new book (and in a new home!) – Diary VIII – before returning to Diary VII in October.
DIARY VIII: 7 September 1919-1 October 1919
Monks House, Rodmell.
Amongst the chaos associated with their move from Asheham to Monks House on 1st September 1919, Virginia reveals the feat of the move being made in one day and all that still has to be done to achieve order, but she is very well pleased with their new abode and surroundings. But on 12th-13th September she talks suddenly of depression, and to me that seems to follow course with any upheaval in her life – however good it may seem to others. Along with the hectic involved in the new home, there were writing ideas on her mind, publishing issues in America, a return of Vanessa envy – the boisterous family life she would never have. Then in a moment of reflection, almost shame at her discontent, she admits:
…remember the saying that at one’s lowest ebb one is nearest a true vision. I think perhaps 9 people out of ten never get a day in the year of such happiness as I have almost constantly; now I’m having a turn of their lot.
Vol. 1 [p.298]
But by the next day she has seemingly pulled herself together; craving now for the freedom to return to work and the written word and enjoying the first of hundreds, thousands of walks before her in the downs and valleys she loved so dearly. And the next Sunday, the 21st, Woolf informs of joining the Lewes public library (for 5/-) which led to Mrs Humphrey Ward, and the scalpel coming out again! And the next Sunday is one of isolation – a national railway strike – war rationing returns and there is disquiet amongst the village inhabitants. The Woolfs surreptitiously visit Asheham, but any nostalgia is put to one side and Virginia instead gives a botanical run through of their new garden at Monks House. By Tuesday there is still no word of an end to the strike, and there is still no post and the papers wildly shrunk and already “old news”, and on Wednesday 1 October everyone seems to have a different story!
The Woolfs returned to Richmond on 6th October, and VW returns to Diary VII.
DIARY ViI (cont.): 20 January 1919-28 December 1919
Hogarth House, Paradise Road, Richmond.
After their return in October, Virginia contemplates the “settled” life she sees before them at Hogarth, Monks House “& two domestics”. [p. 304] Occupied with reviewing and London jaunts – to Vanessa’s flat, tea at the Club – she is only mildly disconcerted that the prospects of being published in America have dissipated. On Tuesday 21 October 1919 Night & Day was published and she forwarded copies to Vanessa and Clive, Lytton, Morgan and Violet Dickinson, and pondered the chances of it being well-received and perhaps, noting autumn “leaves hanging [prophetically!] like rare gold coins on the trees”, selling well. In the next days all the words of praise from Vanessa, Clive, Lytton and a highly favourable review in the TLS, can not quite mitigate the more tepid response from Forster – Morgan it seems is now the one that must be impressed; he the kindred literary spirit. Generally though, she imparts a great sense of relief – Night & Day will soon be history and she can move on.
Thursday 6 November sees Morgan to dine, and his criticisms of Night & Day are clarified to Woolf’s satisfaction. Later she says of him:
Morgan has the artists mind; he says the simple things that clever people don’t say; I find him the best of critics for that reason. Suddenly out comes the obvious thing that one has overlooked.
Vol. 1 [pp 310-311]
A measure of the compatibility between the pair is revealed in Forster’s shared confidence of the writing difficulties he is currently facing, and the footnote suggests that this was probably referring to his struggles with A Passage to India.
November ends with some irritations – an end to Leonard’s International Review editorship (and the budgeted £250 p.a.!), the servants giving notice, and what Woolf determines to be a spiteful review of Night & Day by KM in the Athenaeum (26 November 1919). But, on the brighter side, also there is finally word of an agreement for the American publication of both The Voyage Out and Night & Day (George H. Doran, New York were to become VW’s first American publishers).
VW’s last entry for the year is on Sunday 28 December, and the previous few weeks are explained away by first, Leonard’s illness then her own, and attributed to a prolonged and debilitating influenza. She reveals that she has just read through the year’s diary and intends keeping it up, the servants not going anywhere after all, and they have received advance copies of Leonard’s book (to be published in January 1920), will be off to Monks House tomorrow, and ends with: “We think we now deserve some good luck. Yet I daresay we’re the happiest couple in England.”
Here ends Volume One (1915-1919) of The Diary of Virginia Woolf and is continued in Volume Two covering the years 1920-1924.
Last updated: March 19th, 2020. [I VW Diary, 28 December, 1919 p.317]