16 September 1940 – 22 September 1940

Well, we’re alone in our ship. A very wet stormy day. Mabel* stumped off, with her bunions, carrying her bags at 10. Thank you for all your kindness; she said the same to us both. Also would I give her a reference? “I hope we shall meet again,” I said. She said “Oh no doubt” thinking I referred to death. So that 5 years’ uneasy mute but very passive and calm relation is over: a heavy unsunned pear dropped from a twig. And we’re freer, alone. No responsibility: for her. The house solution is to have no residents. But I’m stupid; have been dallying with Mr. Williamson’s confessions appalled by his egocentricity. Are all writers as magnified in their own eyes? He can’t move an inch from the glare of his own personality—his fame. And I’ve never read one of those immortal works. To Charleston this afternoon, after provisioning for our siege in Lewes. Last night we saw tinsel sparks here and there in the sky over the flat. L. thought they were shells bursting from the London barrage. Great air traffic all night. Some loud explosions. I listened for church bells, thinking largely, I admit, of finding ourselves prisoned here with Mabel. She thought the same. Said that if one is to be killed one will be killed. Prefers death in a Holloway shelter playing cards—naturally—to death here.

No invasion. High wind. Yesterday in the Public Library I took down a book of X.’s criticism. This turned me against writing my book. London Library atmosphere effused. Turned me against all literary criticism: these so clever, so airless, so fleshless ingenuities and attempts to prove—that T. S. Eliot for example is a worse critic than X. Is all literary criticism that kind of exhausted air?—book dust, London Library, air. Or is it only that X. is a second hand, frozen fingered, university specialist, don trying to be creative, don all stuffed with books, writer? Would one say the same of the Common Reader? I dipped for five minutes and put the book back depressed. The man asked “What do you want, Mrs. Woolf?” I said a history of English literature. But was so sickened I couldn’t look. There were so many. Nor could I remember the name of Stopford Brooke. I continue, after winning two games of bowls. Our island is a desert island. No letters from Meek. No coffee. Papers between 3 and 4. Can’t get on to Meek, when we ring up. Some letters take 5 days coming. Trains uncertain. One must get out at Croydon. Angelica goes to Hilton via Oxford. So we, L. and I, are almost cut off. We found a young soldier in the garden last night, coming back. “Can I speak to Mr. Woolf?” I thought it meant billeting for certain. No. Could we lend a typewriter? Officer on hill had gone and taken his. So we produced my portable. Then he said: “Pardon sir. Do you play chess?” He plays chess with passion. So we asked him to tea on Saturday to play. He is with the anti-aircraft searchlight on the hill. Finds it dull. Can’t get a bath. A straight good natured young man. Professional soldier? I think the son, say of an estate agent, or small shopkeeper. Not public school. Not lower class. But I shall investigate. “Sorry to break into your private life” he said. Also that on Saturday he went to the pictures in Lewes.

“We have need of all our courage” are the words that come to the surface this morning: on hearing that all our windows are broken, ceilings down, and most of our china smashed at Mecklenburgh Square. The bomb exploded. Why did we ever leave Tavistock? What’s the good of thinking that? We were about to start for London, when we got on to Miss Perkins who told us. The Press—what remains—is to be moved to Letchworth. A grim morning. How can one settle into Michelet and Coleridge? As I say, we have need of courage. A very bad raid last night on London—waiting for the wireless. But I did forge ahead with P.H. all the same.

Less need of courage today. I suppose the impression of Miss P.’s voice describing the damage wears off.