Virginia Woolf’s diary, 1919

Just back from four days at Asheham and one at Charleston. I sit waiting for Leonard to come in, with a brain still running along the railway lines, which unfits it…

Life piles up so fast that I have no time to write out the equally fast rising mound of reflections, which I always mark down as they rise to be inserted here. I…

. . . Night and Day which L. has spent the past two mornings and evenings in reading. I own that his verdict, finally pronounced this morning, gives me immense…

Yesterday I took Night and Day up to Gerald and had a little half domestic half professional interview with him in his office. I don’t like the Clubman’s view of…

These ten minutes are stolen from Moll Flanders, which I failed to finish yesterday in accordance with my time sheet, yielding to a desire to stop reading and go up…

However one may abuse the Stracheys their minds remain a source of joy to the end; so sparkling, definite and nimble. Need I add that I reserve the qualities I most…

In the idleness which succeeds any long article, and Defoe is the second leader this month, I got out this diary and read, as one always does read one’s own…

We are in the thick of our publishing season; Murry, Eliot* and myself are in the hands of the public this morning. For this reason, perhaps, I feel slightly but…

I must use up the fifteen minutes before dinner in going on again, in order to make up the great gap. We are just in from the Club; from ordering a reprint of the…

One ought to say something about Peace day, I suppose, though whether it’s worth taking a new nib for that purpose I don’t know. I’m sitting wedged into the window…

Perhaps I will finish the account of the peace celebrations. What herd animals we are after all!—even the most disillusioned. At any rate, after sitting through the…

This is Trafalgar day and yesterday is memorable for the appearance of Night and Day. My six copies reached me in the morning and five were despatched, so that I…

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…

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…

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…

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…