THE LIFE OF LITERATURE
about someone who was mad, and with such clear objectivity that one
was not embarrassed by the recollection that she had twice been insane
herself.
Virginia seemed to hate her dinner parties to come to an end and
sometimes they would go on until two in the morning. She always gave
an
impression of great happiness on these occasions. However, sometimes
she could be cold, snubbing and frightening, in the manner of extremely
sensitive people. Once I happened to find myself seated next to her in
a concert of three Posthumous Quartets of Beethoven. She looked at
me a little coldly, said nothing and turned away.
It
was obvious that
she wished to listen to the concert and not speak to me, so I did not
say a word to her either during or after the music. A day later she
telephoned inviting me to dine.
If
I had tried to make conversation
she might have rebuffed me in the way of frightened people, asking
sharply: "What do you want?" or "Who are you?" while looking at me
with eyes that scarcely saw.
As remarkable as Virginia was Leonard Woolf her husband, who
wrote some of the best modem short stories and illuminating studies
of modem history, was an important worker in the Labor Movement,
an
authority on International Relations, founded his publishing firm on
the winnings of a prize in the Calcutta Sweepstake, and who by his love,
patience and tact created the conditions which made possible Virginia's
great creative work. Towards the end of her life, I used to see Virginia
alone more often than previously. Once she said: "My marriage with
Leonard is the most wonderful thing in my life. It is always new. I have
been married to him (twenty?) years and yet whenever he comes into
a room I haven't the faintest idea what he is going to say." These two,
with their devotion, their loyal sense of friendship, had something Roman
about them, and the death of Virginia was also Roman. Feeling the ap–
proach of the mental illness from which she had ·already suffered twice,
she went to a small river in the neighborhood of her house in Sussex,
filled her pockets with stones and threw herself into the stream.
These brief sketches are written only for the purpose of showing that
there was a life, a life of houses, drawing rooms, and conversation, which
was
the background of literature in England after the First World War.
From a certain point of view what I have said may be too much and
distract from the main purpose of this record of personal history with
its
lessons of mistakes and losses. From another point of view I have
not written enough to give a complete idea of the richness and com–
pleteness of this life. For example, I have said very little of the main
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