19 December 1938 – 25 December 1938

I will spend the last morning—for tomorrow will be an odious scramble—in summing up the year True, there are 10 days or so to run: but the liberty of this book allows these—I was going to say liberties, but my meticulous conscience bids me look for another word. That raises some questions: but I leave them; questions about my concern with the art of writing. On the whole the art becomes absorbing—more? no, I think it’s been absorbing ever since I was a little creature, scribbling a story in the manner of Hawthorne on the green plush sofa in the drawing room at St. Ives while the grown ups dined. The last dinner of the year was to Tom. This year I have worked at Three Guineas: and begun, about April 1st, Roger: whom I have brought to the year 1919. I have also written Walpole; Lappin Lapinova; and The Art of Biography. The reception of Three Guineas has been interesting, unexpected—only I’m not sure what I expected. 8,000 sold. Not one of my friends has mentioned it. My wide circle has widened—but I’m altogether in the dark as to the true merits of the book. Is it . . . ? No, I won’t even formulate qualities; for, it’s true, no one has yet summed it up. Much less unanimity than about Room of One’s Own. A suspended judgment upon that work then seems fittest. I’ve written too 120 pages of Pointz Hall. I think of making it a 220 page book. A medley. I rush to it for relief after a long pressure of Fry facts. But I think I see a whole somewhere—it was simply seized, one day, about April, as a dangling thread: no notion what page came next. And then they came. To be written for pleasure.