Dearest honey
Kay Dick
A Change of Perspective: The Letters of Virginia Woolf 1923-1928, ed. Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann (Hogarth Press, E12.50) They have now become as familiar to us as they were to themselves — those Bloomsbury dwellers and Sussex commuters — thanks to the indefatigable labours of their kith and kin whose editing and annotation have so vastly contributed to our common knowledge, and, really, one cannot resist keeping up with them, as volume after volume pours from the presses. We have perhaps an advantage over them, because, viewing posthumously, we gain a certain amusement denied to them, as we note the variations and deviations. A loving letter to A is totally shattered in a letter to B. An expression od devotion and respect to Y is knocked to smithereeens in a letter to X. Such publications teach caution and stress that truth will out, although, paradoxically, demonstrate why reading diaries and letters is such fun, and, when all's said and done, they — the Bloomsbury dwellers and their satellites — have provided us with some enormous fun reading, thanks, yet again, to their kith and kin.
Virginia (we know her so well now that we can allow ourselves the ease of her Christian name) is a much nicer person in her letters than in her diaries. There is more evidence of a wish to please, more conciliatory a tone generally, in fact, on the whole, it could be said that her letters aim to seduce. The diary, although consciously written to ultimate publication, is basically a receptacle for spleen, for anxiety, for selfapprobation. One does wonder why the Bells could not, cooperatively, have coincided the publication of their diary years to link with the letters. Admittedly it is a relief to deal with the well-mannered and civilised Mr Nigel Nicolson who does not, like the Bells, ram opinions down one's throat. Virginia's letters to the young Quentin show that he must have been as insufferably arrogant as a child as he is as an adult — father's child indeed! Everything written about Clive makes hackles rise. However. . .
These particular five years are probably the most interesting, certainly one reads through them as avidly as through a thriller. Work produced, Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando, and the first volume of The Common Reader. Settling down with the Hogarth Press in Tavistock Place and living more frequently at Rodmell. Few health worries; in fact a period of happy creative achievement and much pleasant social life. A few trips to France, one with Vita Sackville-West. Katherine Mansfield recently dead: a rival in work out of the way and a hopeful friendship unconsummated (Murray left behind to rail about — here one feels Virginia was right when she wrote that he 'smells impure'). Virginia, now in her forties, well cared for by Leonard, can attend to funds for Tom Eliot, flatter Ottoline, bombard Vanessa with 'I love you only please say you do too' intimacies, coyly remind Lytton how close they were before he was famous, shine intellectually with Roger who, clearly, brought out the best in most people, cagily flirt with Clive, be perfectly bitchy about Keynes's Lydia, and, most important, indulge in what was perhaps the most exciting personal experience of her life, a love affair with Vita Sackville-West (in parenthesis most of all those other names — Morgan, Raymond, Eddie, Sydney, Violet, Dadie, Ethel etc — are included in this entertaining feast of literary gossip and chat).
'They slept together perhaps a dozen times, in Vita's house and later in Virginia's, while their husbands were away.' So writes Nigel Nicolson. Both husbands clearly knew the score. One, Leonard, anxious only in case this erotic excitement should bring back the madness. The other, himself bisexual, content that Vita was emotionally independent. That it did Virginia good is also clear. She is at her best during this period, happy almost, extraordinarily anxious to please the beautiful long-legged aristocratic Vita who was to inspire Orlando, her 'dearest honey' who came closer than anyone else. The role Virginia appears to have played is that of a pale lady needing to be conquered by the buoyant knight at arms. That she entirely satisfied Vita is to be doubted. One recalls Vita's letter to Harold quoted by Nigel Nicolson in Portrait of a Marriage, 'I am scared to death of moving physical feelings in her, because of the madness', although Vita might well have thrown a few white lies at Harold. In the main it worked: it lasted a good three years, then petered out into a devoted friendship, yet not before Virginia was teasing Vita about her more robust conquests. Virginia's way of coming to terms with the end of that affair was to write Orlando, which on rereading does not quite impress as it did at first reading.
One suspects that never again shall we have another volume of Virginia's letters which show us the joyful sides of her nature. That she was not troubled by that dreadful recurrent madness during those five years does suggest that love was a good antidote. Small details inform: Virginia's dislike of receiving presents; Vita is often ticked off for sending trinkets. Her utter lack of how to dress and improve her personal appearances: she relies on others to tell her how and what to do. There is an element of the deprived child about .Virginia in personal matters (particularly in letters to Vanessa seeking reassurance). Her jealousy is let out in small puffs: 'Lord I wish I were less fond of you! I hate being anxious: I hate being away. And why are you so splenetic? Haint you got Harold? So what do Potto and Virginia matter' One has to concentrate on the love affair because it is so vital a part of this volume, so vital and so deeply informative about Virginia, but for readers who can't stand love between women and more one can recommend the engrossing quality of the 'other part' — a description of a meeting with Berta Ruck is a wonder. One may groan at the sight of another Virginia Woolf, yet one has to admit that one laps it up with the same old zest. After all, one does know them now, so well.
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