I am in such a twitter owing to two columns in the Observer praising The Years that I can't, as I foretold, go on with Three Guineas. Why I even sat back just now and thought with pleasure of people reading that review. And when I think of the agony I went through in this room, just over a year ago ... when it dawned on me that the whole of three years' work was a complete failure: and then when I think of the mornings here when I used to stumble out and cut up those proofs and write three lines and then go back and lie on my bed—the worst summer in my life, but at the same time the most illuminating—it's no wonder my hand trembles. What most pleases me though is the obvious chance now since de Selincourt sees it, that my intention in The Years may be not so entirely muted and obscured as I feared. The T.L.S. spoke as if it were merely the death song of the middle classes: a series of exquisite impressions: but he sees that it is a creative, a constructive book. Not that I've yet altogether read him: but he has pounced on some of the key sentences. And this means that it will be debated; and this means that Three Guineas will strike very sharp and clear on a hot iron: so that my immensely careful planning won't be baulked by time of life etc. as I had made certain. Making certain however was an enormous discovery for me, though.
Friday, March 19th
Now this is one of the strangest of my experiences—"they" say almost universally that The Years is a masterpiece. The Times says so. Bunny etc.: Howard Spring. If somebody had told me I should write this, even a week ago, let alone six months ago, I should have given a jump like a shot hare. How entirely and absolutely incredible it would have been! The praise chorus began yesterday: by the way I was walking in Covent Garden and found St. Pauls, C.G., for the first time, heard the old char singing as she cleaned the chairs in the ante hall; then went to Burnets; chose stuff; bought the Evening Standard and found myself glorified as I read it in the Tube. A calm quiet feeling, glory: and I'm so steeled now I don't think the flutter will much worry me. Now I must begin again on Three Guineas.
Something about a masterpiece and how Mrs. W. has more to give us than any living novelist ... astonishing fertility.
Saturday, March 27th
No, I am not going to titivate Gibbon—that is condense by a thousand words. Too much screw needed, and my brain unstrung. Merely scribbling here: over a log fire, on a cold but bright Easter morning; sudden shafts of sun, a scatter of snow on the hills early; sudden storms, ink black, octopus pouring, coming up; and the rooks fidgeting and pecking on the elm trees. As for the beauty, as I always say when I walk the terrace after breakfast, too much for one pair of eyes. Enough to float a whole population in happiness, if only they would look. Curiously a combination, this garden, with the church, and the cross of the church black against Asheham Hill. That is all the elements of the English brought together, accidentally. We came down on Thursday, packed in the rush in London; cars spinning all along the roads: yesterday at last perfect freedom from telephones and reviews, and no one rang up. I began Lord Ormont and his Aminta and found it so rich, so knotted, so alive, and muscular after the pale little fiction I'm used to, that, alas, it made me wish to write fiction again. Meredith underrated. I like his effort to escape plain prose. And he had humour and some insight too—more than they allow him now. Also Gibbon. And so I'm well fitted out; but can't write more than this without the old tightening and throbbing at the back of the head.
Friday, April 2nd
How I interest myself! Quite set up and perky today with a mind brimming because I was so damnably depressed and smacked on the cheek by Edwin Muir in the Listener and by Scott James in the Life and Letters on Friday. They both gave me a smart snubbing: E. M. says The Years is dead and disappointing. So in effect did'S. James. All the lights sank; my reed bent to the ground. Dead and disappointing—so I'm found out and that odious rice pudding of a book is what I thought it—a dank failure. No life in it. Much inferior to the bitter truth and intense originality of Miss Compton Burnett. Now this pain woke me at 4 A.M. and I suffered acutely. All day driving to Janet and back I was under the cloud. But about 7 it lifted; there was a good review, of 4 lines, in the Empire Review. The best of my books: did that help? I don't think very much. But the delight of being exploded is quite real. One feels braced for some reason; amused; round; combative; more than by praise.
Saturday, April 3rd
Now I have to broadcast on 29th. It will go like this: can't be a craft of words. Am going to disregard the title and talk about words: why they won't let themselves be made a craft of. They tell the truth: they aren't useful. That there should be two languages: fiction and fact. Words are inhuman ... won't make money—need privacy. Why. For their embraces, to continue the race. A dead word. The purists and the im-purists. These are only impressions, not fixations. I respect words too. Associations of words. Felicity brings in absent thee. We can easily make new words. Squish squash: crick crack. But we can't use them in writing.
Sunday, April 4th
Another curious idiosyncrasy. Maynard thinks The Years my best book: thinks one scene, E. and Crosby, beats Tchekov's Cherry Orchard—and this opinion though from the centre, from a very fine mind, doesn't flutter me as much as Muir's blame; it sinks in slowly and deeply. It's not a vanity feeling; the other is; the other will die as soon as the week's number of the Listener is past. L. went to Tilton and had a long quiet cronies talk. Maynard said that he thought The Years very moving: more tender than any of my books: did not puzzle him like The Waves; symbolism not a worry; very beautiful; and no more said than was needed; hadn't yet finished it. But how compose the two opinions; it's my most human book; and most inhuman? Oh to forget all this and write—as I must tomorrow.
Friday, April 9th
"Such happiness wherever it is known is to be pitied for tis surely blind." Yes, but my happiness isn't blind. That is the achievement, I was thinking between 3 and 4 this morning, of my 55 years. I lay awake so calm, so content, as if I'd stepped off the whirling world into a deep blue quiet space and there open eyed existed, beyond harm; armed against all that can happen. I have never had this feeling before in all my life; but I have had it several times since last summer: when I reached it, in my worst depression, as if I stepped out, throwing aside a cloak, lying in bed, looking at the stars, these nights at Monks House. Of course it ruffles, in the day, but there it is. There it was yesterday when old Hugh came and said nothing about The Years.
MONKS HOUSE. Monday, June 1st
I have at last got going with Three Guineas—niter five days' grind, re-copying, to some extent re-writing; my poor old brain hums again—largely I think because I had a good long walk yesterday and so routed the drowse—it was very hot. At any rate I must use this page as a running ground—for I can't screw all the three hours; I must relax and race here the last hour. That's the worst of writing—its waste. What can I do with the last hour of my morning? Dante again. But oh how my heart leaps up to think that never again shall I be harnessed to a long book. No. Always short ones in future. The long book still won't be altogether downed—its reverberations grumble. Did I say—no, the London days were too tight, too hot, and distracted for this book—that H. Brace wrote and said they were happy to find that The Years is the best-selling novel in America? This was confirmed by my place at the head of the list in the Herald Tribune. They have sold 25,000—my record, easily. (Now I am dreaming of Three Guineas.) We think if we make money of buying perhaps an annuity. The great desirable is not to have to earn money by writing. I am doubtful if I shall ever write another novel. Certainly not unless under great compulsion such as The Years inspired in me. Were I another person, I would say to myself, Please write criticism; biography; invent a new form for both; also write some completely unformal fiction: short: and poetry. Fate has here a hand in it, for when I've done Three Guineas —which I hope to have written, not yet for publication though, in August—I intend to put the script aside and write Roger. What I think best would be to work hard at Three Guineas for a month—June: then begin readin
g and re-reading my Roger notes. By the way, I have been sharply abused in Scrutiny who, L. says, calls me a cheat in The Waves and The Years; most intelligently (and highly) praised by F. Faulkner in America—and that's all. (I mean that's all I need I think write about reviews now: I suspect the clever young man is going to enjoy downing me—so be it: but in private Sally Graves and Stephen Spender approve: so, to sum up, I don't know, this is honest, where I stand; but intend to think no more of it. Gibbon was rejected by the N. Republic, so I shall send no more to America. Nor will I write articles at all except for the Lit. Sup. for whom I am going now to do Congreve.)
Monday, June 14th The Years still is top of the list.
Monday July 12th. The Years is still top of the list and has been weekly.
August 23rd. Years now 2nd or 3rd. 9 editions.
Yesterday, October 22nd, it was last on the list.
Tuesday, June 22nd
Isn't it shameful to write here first thing, not to tackle Congreve? But my brain after talking to Miss Sarton, to Murray, to Ann gave out after dinner, so that I couldn't read Love for Love. And I won't do Three Guineas till Monday—till I've had a quiet breather. Then the Prof. Chapter: then the final. So now to draw the blood off that brain to another part—according to H. Nicolson's prescription, which is the right one. I would like to write a dream story about the top of a mountain. Now why? About lying in the snow; about rings of colour; silence; and the solitude. I can't though. But shan't I, one of these days, indulge myself in some short releases into that world? Short now for ever. No more long grinds: only sudden intensities. If I could think out another adventure. Oddly enough I see it now ahead of me—in Charing Cross Road yesterday—as to do with books: some new combination. Brighton? A round room on the pier—and people shopping, missing each other—a story Angelica told in the summer. But how does this make up with criticism? I'm trying to get the four dimensions of the mind ... life in connection with emotions from literature. A day's walk—a mind's adventure; something like that. And it's useless to repeat my old experiments: they must be new to be experiments.
Wednesday, June 23rd
It's ill writing after reading Love for Love—a. masterpiece. I never knew how good it is. And what exhilaration there is in reading these masterpieces. This superb hard English! Yes, always keep the classics at hand to prevent flop. I can't write out my feeling, though; must decant it tomorrow in an article. But neither can I settle to read poor Rosemary's verses, as I should with a view to this evening. How could L. S. in D.N.B. deny C. feeling, pain—more in that one play than in all Thackeray: and the indecency often honesty. But enough—I went shopping, whitebait hunting, to Selfridges yesterday and it grew roasting hot and I was in black—such astonishing chops and changes this summer—often one's caught in a storm, frozen or roasted. As I reached 52, a long trail of fugitives—like a caravan in a desert—came through the square: Spaniards flying from Bilbao, which has fallen, I suppose. Somehow brought tears to my eyes, though no one seemed surprised. Children trudging along; women in London cheap jackets with gay handkerchiefs on their heads, young men, and all carrying either cheap cases, and bright blue enamel kettles, very large, and canisters, fitted I suppose with gifts from some charity—a shuffling trudging procession, flying—impelled by machine gun in Spanish fields to trudge through Tavistock Square, along Gordon Square, then where?—clasping their enamel kettles. A strange spectacle. They went on, knowing which way: I suppose someone directed them. One boy was chatting, the others absorbed, like people on the trek. A reason why we can't write like Congreve I suppose.
Sunday, July 11th
A gap: not in life, but in comment. I have been in full flood every morning with Three Guineas. Whether I shall finish by August becomes doubtful. But I am in the middle of my magic bubble. Had I time I would like to describe the curious glance of the world—the pale disillusioned world—that I get so violently now and then, when the wall thins—either I'm tired or interrupted. Then I think of Julian near Madrid: and so on. Margaret LI. Davies writes that Janet * is dying, and will I write on her for The Times—a. curious thought, rather: as if it mattered who wrote, or not. But this flooded me with the idea of Janet yesterday. I think writing, my writing, is a species of mediumship. I become the person.
Monday, July 19th
Just back from M.H. but I can't and won't write anything—too bothered and dithered. Also, I screwed my head tight—too tight—knocking together a little obituary of Janet for The Times. And couldn't make it take the folds well: too stiff and mannered. She died. Three notes from Emphie † this morning. She died on Thursday, shut her eyes and "looks so beautiful." Today they are cremating her, and she had had printed a little funeral service—with the death day left blank. No words: an adagio from Beethoven and a text about gentleness and faith which I would have included had I known. But what does my writing matter? There is something fitting and complete about the memory of her, thus consummated. Dear old harum scarum Emphie will have her solitary moments to herself. To us she will always be a scatterbrain; yet to me very touching and I remember that phrase in her letter, how she ran into Janet's room at midnight, and they had a nice little time together. She was always running in. Janet was the steadfast contemplative one, anchored in some private faith which didn't correspond with the world's. But she was oddly inarticulate. No hand for words. Her letters, save that the last began "My beloved Virginia," always cool and casual. And how I loved her, at Hyde Park Gate: and how I went hot and cold going to Windmill Hill: and how great a visionary part she has played in my life, till the visionary became a part of the fictitious, not of the real life.
Friday, August 6th
Will another novel ever swim up? If so, how? The only hint I have towards it is that it's to be dialogue: and poetry: and prose; all quite distinct. No more long closely written books. But I have no impulse; and shall wait; and shan't mind if the impulse never formulates; though I suspect one of these days I shall get that old rapture. I don't want to write more fiction. I want to explore a new criticism. One thing I think proved, I shall never write to "please," to convert; now am entirely and for ever my own mistress.
Tuesday, August 17th
Not much to say. It's true, the only life this summer is in the brain. I get excited writing. Three hours pass like 10 minutes. This morning I had a moment of the old rapture—think of it!—over copying The Duchess and the Jeweller for Chambrun, N.Y. I had to send a synopsis. I expect he'll regret the synopsis. But there was the old excitement, even in that little extravagant flash—more than in criticism I think.
Happily—if that's the word—I get these electric shocks—Cables asking me to write. Chambrun offer £500 for a 9,000 word story. And I at once begin making up adventures—ten days of adventures—a man rowing with black knitted stockings on his arms. Do I ever write, even here, for my own eye? If not, for whose eye? An interesting question, rather.
LONDON. Tuesday, October 12th
Yes, we are back at Tavistock Square; and I've never written a word since September 27th. That shows how every morning was crammed to the margin with Three Guineas. This is the first morning I write, because at 12, ten minutes ago, I wrote what I think is the last page of Three Guineas. Oh how violently I have been galloping through these mornings! It has pressed and spurted out of me. If that's any proof of virtue, like a physical volcano. And my brain feels cool and quiet after the expulsion. I've had it sizzling now since—well I was thinking of it at Delphi I remember. And then I forced myself to put it into fiction first. No, the fiction came first. The Years. And how I held myself back, all through the terrible depression, and refused, save for some frantic notes, to tap it until The Years—that awful burden—was off me. So that I have deserved this gallop. And taken time and thought too. But whether it is good or bad, how can I tell? I must now add the bibliography and notes. And have a week's respite.
Tuesday, October 19th
It came over me suddenly last night as I was reading The Shooting
Party—the story that I'm to send to America, H. B.—that I saw the form of a new novel. It's to be first the statement of the theme: then the restatement: and so on: repeating the same story: singling out this and then that, until the central idea is stated.
This might also lend itself to my book of criticism. But how I don't know, being very jaded in the brain, try to discover. What happened was this: when I finished the S.P., I thought, now that the woman has called a taxi; I will go on to meet, say, Christabel, at T. Square who tells the story again: or I will expatiate upon my own idea in telling the story; or I will find some other person at the S.P. whose life I will tell: but all the scenes must be controlled and radiate to a centre. I think this is a possible idea; and would admit of doing it in short bursts: could be a concentrated small book: could contain many varieties of mood. And possibly criticism. I must keep the idea at the back of my mind for a year or two, while I do Roger etc.
1938
Sunday, January 9th
Yes, I will force myself to begin this cursed year. For one thing I have "finished" the last chapter of Three Guineas and for the first time since I don't know when have stopped writing in the middle of the morning.
Friday, February 4th
A ten minutes spin here. L. gravely approves Three Guineas. Thinks it an extremely clear analysis. On the whole I'm content. One can't expect emotion, for as he says, it's not on a par with the novels. Yet I think it may have more practical value. But I'm much more indifferent, that's true: feel it a good piece of donkeywork, and don't think it affects me either way as the novels do.