Virginia Woolf.
Yes, it's her 125th today and I've been browsing her diaries for entries around the time of her birthday.
Monday 25th January 1915
My birthday and let me count up all the things I had...in fact I don't
know when I have enjoyed a birthday so much - not since I was a child
anyhow.Sitting at tea we decided three things:in the first place to
take Hogarth, if we can get it;in the second to buy a Printing press;in
the third to buy a Bull dog, probably called John. I am very much
excited at the idea of all three - particularly the press.
Friday 25th January 1918
My Birthday...Nelly has knitted me a pair of red socks which tie round the ankle & thus just suit my state in the morning
Monday 26th January 1920
The day after my birthday;in fact I'm 38. Well I've no doubt I'm a great deal happier than I was at 28; and happier today than I was yesterday having this afternoon arrived at some idea of a new form for a new novel
Tuesday 25th January 1921 (K.M = Katherine Mansfield).
Here I have waited 25 days before beginning the new year; & the 25 is not unfortunately my 25th, but my 39th birthday & we've had tea and calculated the costs of printing Tchekov...I'm puzzled to say K.M. (as the papers call her) swims from triumph to triumph in the reviews; save that Squire doubts her genius - so I'm afraid, do I.
Tuesday 16th January 1923
Katherine has been dead a week...I was jealous of her writing - the only writing I have ever been jealous of
Wednesday 23rd January 1924
...back again tomorrow to The Hours, which I was looking at disconsolately - oh the cold raw edges of one's relinquished pages.
A letter from Morgan today (E.M.Forster) saying "to whom first but you & Virginia should I tell the fact that I've put the last words to my novel?" He is moved, as I am always on these occasions.
I've spent hours browsing these volumes over the last few months, one entry leading to another and into the deeps of Virginia Woolf's life, when suddenly I came across this entry and I realised I was perhaps finally warming to Woolf
Monday 7th December 1925
I want to lie down like a tired child & weep away this life of care - & my diary shall receive me on its downy pillow. Most children do not know what they cry for; nor do I altogether.
So now I wonder again as I often have, how long might she have lived if not for that moment with the stones and what else would she have written?
Would she have been a blogger? Her diary reads like one, she is certainly not talking to herself. Personally I think there can be little doubt that she would have loved it.
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