A Writer's Diary (4 page)

Tuesday, October 21st

This is Trafalgar day and yesterday is memorable for the áppearance of
Night and Day.
My six copies reached me in the morning and five were despatched, so that I figure the beaks of five friends already embedded. Am I nervous? Oddly little; more excited and pleased than nervous. In the first place, there it is, out and done with; then I read a bit and liked it; then I have a kind of confidence, that the people whose judgment I value will probably think well of it, which is much reinforced by the knowledge that even if they don't, I shall pick up and start another story on my own. Of course, if Morgan and Lytton and the others should be enthusiastic, I should think the better of myself. The bore is meeting people who say the usual things. But on the whole I see what I'm aiming at; what I feel is that this time I've had a fair chance and done my best; so that I can be philosophic and lay the blame on God.

Thursday, October 23rd

The first fruits of
Night and Day
must be entered. "No doubt a work of the highest genius"—Clive Bell. Well, he might not have liked it: he was critical of
The Voyage Out.
I own I'm pleased: yet not convinced that it is as he says. However, this is a token that I'm right to have no fears. The people whose judgment I respect won't be so enthusiastic as he is, but they'll come out decidedly on that side, I think.

Thursday, October 30th

I have the excuse of rheumatism for not writing more; and my hand tired of writing, apart from rheumatism. Still, if I could treat myself professionally as a subject for analysis I could make an interesting story of the past few days, of my vicissitudes about
N. and D.
After Clive's letter came Nessa's—unstinted praise; on top of that Lytton's: enthusiastic praise; a grand triumph; a classic; and so on; Violet's
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sentence of eulogy followed; and then, yesterday morning, this line from Morgan "I like it less than
The Voyage Out.
" Though he spoke also of great admiration and had read in haste and proposed re-reading, this rubbed out all the pleasure of the rest. Yes, but to continue. About 3 in the afternoon I felt happier and easier on account of his blame than on account of the others' praise—as if one were in the human atmosphere again, after a blissful roll among elastic clouds and cushiony downs. Yet I suppose I value Morgan's opinion as much as anybody's. Then there's a column in
The Times
this morning; high praise; and intelligent too; saying among other things that
N. and D.,
though it has less brilliance on the surface, has more depth than the other; with which I agree. I hope this week will see me through the reviews; I should like intelligent letters to follow; but I want to be writing little stories; I feel a load off my mind all the same.

Thursday, November 6th

Sydney and Morgan dined with us last night. On the whole, I'm glad I sacrificed a concert. The doubt about Morgan and
N. and D.
is removed; I understand why he likes it less than
V.O.;
and, in understanding, see that it is not a criticism to discourage. Perhaps intelligent criticism never is. All the same, I shirk writing it out, because I write so much criticism. What he said amounted to this:
N. and D.
is a strictly formal and classical work; that being so one requires, or he requires, a far greater degree of lovability in the characters than in a book like
V.O.,
which is vague and universal. None of the characters in
N. and D.
is lovable. He did not care how they sorted themselves out. Neither did he care for the characters in
V.O.,
but there he felt no need to care for them. Otherwise, he admired practically everything; his blame does not consist in saying that
N. and D.
is less remarkable than t'other. O and beauties it has in plenty—in fact, I see no reason to be depressed on his account. Sydney said he had been completely upset by it and was of opinion that I had on this occasion "brought it off." But what a bore I'm becoming! Yes, even old Virginia will skip a good deal of this; but at the moment it seems important. The
Cambridge Magazine
repeats what Morgan said about dislike of the characters; yet I am in the forefront of contemporary literature. I'm cynical about my figures, they say; but directly they go into detail, Morgan, who read the Review sitting over the gas fire, began to disagree. So all critics split off, and the wretched author who tries to keep control of them is torn asunder. For the first time this many years I walked along the river bank between ten and eleven. Yes, it's like the shut up house I once compared it to; the room with its dust sheets on the chairs. The fishermen are not out so early; an empty path; but a large aeroplane on business. We talked very rarely, the proof being that we (I anyhow) did not mind silences. Morgan has the artist's 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. He is in trouble with a novel of his own, fingering the keys but only producing discords so far.

Friday, December 5th

Another of these skips, but I think the book draws its breath steadily if with deliberation. I reflect that I've not opened a Greek book since we came back; hardly read outside my review books, which proves that my time for writing has not been mine at all. I'm almost alarmed to find how intensely I'm specialised. My mind turned by anxiety, or other cause, from its scrutiny of blank paper, is like a lost child—wandering the house, sitting on the bottom step to cry.
Night and Day
flutters about me still, and causes great loss of time. George Eliot would never read reviews, since talk of her books hampered her writing. I begin to see what she meant. I don't take praise or blame excessively to heart, but they interrupt, cast one's eyes backwards, make one wish to explain or investigate. Last week I had a cutting paragraph to myself in
Wayfarer;
this week Olive Heseltine applies balm. But I had rather write in my own way of
Four Passionate Snails
than be, as K. M. maintains, Jane Austen over again.

Monday, January 26th

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. Suppose one thing should open out of another—as in an unwritten novel—only not for 10 pages but 200 or so—doesn't that give the looseness and lightness I want; doesn't that get closer and yet keep form and speed, and enclose everything, everything? My doubt is how far it will enclose the human heart—Am I sufficiently mistress of my dialogue to net it there? For I figure that the approach will be entirely different this time: no scaffolding; scarcely a brick to be seen; all crepuscular, but the heart, the passion, humour, everything as bright as fire in the mist. Then I'll find room for so much—a gaiety—an inconsequence—a light spirited stepping at my sweet will. Whether I'm sufficiently mistress of things—that's the doubt; but conceive(?)
Mark on the Wall, K.G.
and
Unwritten Novel
taking hands and dancing in unity. What the unity shall be I have yet to discover; the theme is a blank to me; but I see immense possibilities in the form I hit upon more or less by chance two weeks ago. I suppose the danger is the damned egotistical self; which ruins Joyce and Richardson to my mind: is one pliant and rich enough to provide a wall for the book from oneself without its becoming, as in Joyce and Richardson, narrowing and restricting? My hope is that I've learnt my business sufficiently now to provide all sorts of entertainments. Anyhow, I must still grope and experiment but this afternoon I had a gleam of light. Indeed, I think from the ease with which I'm developing the unwritten novel there must be a path for me there.

Wednesday, February 4th

The mornings from 12 to 1 I spend reading
The Voyage Out.
I've not read it since July 1913. And if you ask me what I think I must reply that I don't know—such a harlequinade as it is—such an assortment of patches—here simple and severe—here frivolous and shallow—here like God's truth—here strong and free flowing as I could wish. What to make of it, Heaven knows. The failures are ghastly enough to make my cheeks bum—and then a turn of the sentence, a direct look ahead of me, makes them burn in a different way. On the whole I like the young woman's mind considerably. How gallantly she takes her fences—and my word, what a gift for pen and ink! I can do little to amend, and must go down to posterity the author of cheap witticisms, smart satires and even, I find, vulgarisms—crudities rather—that will never cease to rankle in the grave. Yet I see how people prefer it to
N. and D.
I don't say admire it more, but find it a more gallant and inspiring spectacle.

Tuesday, March 9th

In spite of some tremors I think I shall go on with this diary for the present. I sometimes think that I have worked through the layer of style which suited it—suited the comfortable bright hour, after tea; and the thing I've reached now is less pliable. Never mind; I fancy old Virginia, putting on her spectacles to read of March 1920 will decidedly wish me to continue. Greetings! my dear ghost; and take heed that I don't think 50 a very great age. Several good books can be written still; and here's the bricks for a fine one. To return to the present owner of the name, on Sunday I went up to Campden Hill to hear the Schubert quintet—to see George Booth's house—to take notes for my story—to rub shoulders with respectability—all these reasons took me there and were cheaply gratified at 7/6.

Whether people see their own rooms with the devastating clearness that I see them, thus admitted once for one hour, I doubt. Chill superficial seemliness; but thin as a March glaze of ice on a pool. A sort of mercantile smugness. Horsehair and mahogany is the truth of it; and the white panels, Vermeer reproductions, Omega table and variegated curtains rather a snobbish disguise. The least interesting of rooms; the compromise; though of course that's interesting too. I took against the family system. Old Mrs. Booth enthroned on a sort of commode in widow's dress; flanked by devoted daughters; with grandchildren somehow symbolical cherubs. Such neat dull little boys and girls. There we all sat in our furs and white gloves.

Saturday, April 10th

I'm planning to begin
Jacob's Room
next week with luck. (That's the first time I've written that.) It's the spring I have in my mind to describe; just to make this note—that one scarcely notices the leaves out on the trees this year, since they seem never entirely to have gone—never any of that iron blackness of the chestnut trunks—always something soft and tinted; such as I can't remember in my life before. In fact, we've skipped a winter; had a season like the midnight sun; a new return to full daylight. So I hardly notice that chestnuts are out—the little parasols spread on our window tree; and the churchyard grass running over the old tombstones like green water.

Thursday, April 15th

My handwriting seems to be going to the dogs. Perhaps I confuse it with my writing. I said that Richmond
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was enthusiastic over my James article? Well, two days ago, little elderly Walkley attacked it in
The Times,
said I'd fallen into H. J.'s worst mannerisms—hardbeaten "figures"—and hinted that I was a sentimental lady friend. Percy Lubbock was included too; but, rightly or wrongly, I delete the article from my mind with blushes, and see all my writing in the least becoming light. I suppose it's the old matter of "florid gush"—no doubt a true criticism, though the disease is my own, not caught from H. J., if that's any comfort. I must see to it though.
The Times
atmosphere brings it out; for one thing I have to be formal there, especially in the case of H. J., and so contrive an article rather like an elaborate design, which encourages ornament. Desmond, however, volunteered admiration. I wish one could make out some rule about praise and blame. I predict that I'm destined to have blame in any quantity. I strike the eye; and elderly gentlemen in particular get annoyed.
An Unwritten Novel
will certainly be abused: I can't foretell what line they'll take this time. Partly, it's the "writing well" that sets people off—and always has done, I suppose, "Pretentious" they say; and then a woman writing well, and writing in
The Times—
that's the line of it. This slightly checks me from beginning
Jacob's Room.
But I value blame. It spurs one, even from Walkley; who is (I've looked him out) 65, and a cheap little gossip, I'm glad to think, laughed at, even by Desmond. But don't go forgetting that there's truth in it; more than a grain in the criticism that I'm damnably refined in
The Times;
refined and cordial; I don't think it's easy to help it; since, before beginning the H. J. article, I took a vow I'd say what I thought, and say it in my own way. Well, I've written all this page and not made out how to steady myself when the
Unwritten Novel
appears.

Tuesday, May 11th

It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything. I'm a little anxious. How am I to bring off this conception? Directly one gets to work one is like a person walking, who has seen the country stretching out before. I want to write nothing in this book that I don't enjoy writing. Yet writing is always difficult.

Wednesday, June 23rd

I was struggling, at this time, to say honestly that I don't think Conrad's last book a good one. I have said it. It is painful (a little) to find fault there, where almost solely, one respects. I can't help suspecting the truth to be that he never sees anyone who knows good writing from bad, and then being a foreigner, talking broken English, married to a lump of a wife, he withdraws more and more into what he once did well, only piles it on higher and higher, until what can one call it but stiff melodrama. I would not like to find
The Rescue
signed Virginia Woolf. But will anyone agree with this? Anyhow nothing shakes my opinion of a book. Nothing—nothing. Only perhaps if it's the book of a young person—or of a friend—no, even so, I think myself infallible. Haven't I lately dismissed Murry's play, and exactly appraised K.'s story, and summed up Aldous Huxley; and doesn't it somehow wound my sense of fitness to hear Roger mangling these exact values?