(1) Virginia Woolf, diary entry (18th April, 1918)

I went to the Women's Cooperative Guild, which pleased me by its good sense, and the evidence that it does somehow stand for something real to these women. In spite of their solemn passivity they have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life.

 

(2) On 15th October, 1918, Virginia Woolf had tea with Herbert Fisher, Education Minister in David Lloyd George's government.

"We've won the war today" he said at once. "The Germans have made up their minds they can't fight a retreat. The General Staff has faced the fact, and they've had what I think the considerable courage to admit it. There is now a good prospect of a complete defeat of the German army."

Foch says "I have not had my battle". Despite the extreme vindictiveness of our press and the French press, Herbert believes that we are going to balk Foch of his battle, partly because the Germans will accept any terms to avoid it. "Lloyd George has told me again and again that he means to be generous to the Germans. We want a strong Germany, he says."

So we talked on. I tried to think it extraordinary but I found it difficult - extraordinary, I mean, to be in touch with one who was in the very centre of the very centre, sitting in a little room at Downing Street where, as he said, the wireless messages are racing through from all over the world, a million miles a minute; where you have constantly to settle off-hand questions of enormous difficulty and importance - where the fate of armies does more or less hang upon what two or three elderly gentlemen decide.

 

(3) Virginia Woolf, diary entry (11th November, 1918)

Twenty-five minutes ago the guns went off, announcing peace. A siren hooted on the river. They are hooting still. A few people ran back to look out of windows. A very cloudy still day, the smoke toppling over heavily towards the east; and that too wearing for a moment a look of something floating, waving, drooping. So far neither bells nor flags, but the wailing of sirens and intermittent guns.

 

(4) Virginia Woolf, diary entry (15th November, 1918)

Peace is rapidly dissolving into the light of common day. You can go to London without meeting more than two drunk soldiers; only an occasional crowd blocks the street. But mentally the change is marked too. Instead of feeling that the whole people, willing or not, were concentrated on a single point, one feels now that the whole bunch has burst asunder and flown off with the utmost vigour in different directions. We are once more a nation of individuals.

 

(5) In January, 1941, Leonard Woolf, became concerned about the state of Virginia Woolf's health. He decided to ask the advice of their friend, Dr. Octavia Wilberforce.

Octavia Wilberforce practised as a doctor in Montpelier Crescent, Brighton, and lived there with Elizabeth Robins. Octavia was a remarkable character. Her ancestors were the famous Wilberforce of the anti-slavery movement; their portraits hung on her walls and she had inherited their beautiful furniture and their fine library of eighteenth-century books. Octavia had been born and bred in a large house in Sussex, a young lady in a typical country gentleman's house. But though she was always very much an English lady of the upper middle class, she was never a typical young lady.

She was already a young lady when she decided that she must become a doctor. It was a strange, disquieting decision, for in a Sussex country houses in those days young ladies did not become a doctors; they played tennis and went to dances in order to marry and breed more young ladies in still more country houses. Octavia's idea was not thought to be a good one by her family, and she received no encouragement there. Another difficulty was that her education as a young lady was not the kind which made it easy for her to pass the necessary examinations to qualify as a doctor. But her quiet determination, the oak and triple brass enabled her to overcome all difficulties. She became a first-class doctor in Brighton.

She had, to all intents and purposes become Virginia's doctor, and so the moment I became uneasy about Virginia's psychological health in the beginning of 1941 I told Octavia and consulted her professionally. The desperate difficulty which always presented itself when Virginia began to be threatened with a breakdown - a difficulty which occurs, I think, again and again in mental illness - was to decided how far it was safe to go in urging her to take steps - drastic steps - to ward off the attack. Drastic steps meant going to bed, complete rest, plenty of food and milk.

On Wednesday, March 26, I became convinced that Virginia's mental condition was more serious than it had ever been since those terrible days in August 1913 which led to her complete breakdown and attempt to kill herself. I suggested to Virginia that she should go and see Octavia and consult her as a doctor as well as a friend. She had a long talk with Octavia by herself and then Octavia came into the front room in Montpelier Crescent and she and I discussed what we should do.

We felt that it was not safe to do anything more at the moment. And it was the moment at which the risk had to be taken, for if one did not force the issue - which would have meant perpetual surveillance of trained nurses - one would only have made it impossible and intolerable to her if one attempted the same kind of perpetual surveillance by one self. The decision was wrong and led to the disaster.

 

(6) In his autobiography, The Journey, Leonard Woolf described the suicide of Virginia Woolf (1969)

On Friday, March 28, 1941, I was in the garden and I thought she was in the house. But when at one o'clock I went in to lunch, she was not there. When I could not find her anywhere in the house or garden, I felt sure that she had gone down to the river. I ran across the fields down to the river and almost immediately found her walking-stick lying upon the bank. I searched for some time and then went back to the house and informed the police. It was three weeks before her body was found when some children saw it floating in the river.

 

(7) Virginia Woolf, had a friend who owned a farm. She wrote a letter to Vita Sackville-West about this in November, 1940.

That's a whole pound of butter I said. Saying which, I broke off a lump and ate it pure. Then in the glory of my heart I gave all our week's ration - which is about the size of my thumb nail - to Louie (her maid) then sat down and ate bread and butter. Think of our lunch tomorrow! In the middle of the table I shall put the whole pat. And I shall say: Eat as much as you like.

 

(8) Virginia Woolf, letter to Leonard Woolf (28th March, 1941)

I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer.

 

(9) Francis Partridge, diary entry concerning the death of Virginia Woolf (8th April, 1941)

Sat out on the verandah, trying to write to Clive (Bell) in answer to his letter about Virginia's death. He says: "For some days, of course, we hoped against hope that she had wandered crazily away and might be discovered a barn or a village shop. But by now all hope is abandoned. It became evident some weeks ago that she was in for another of those long agonizing breakdowns of which she has had several already. The prospect - two years insanity, then to wake up to the sort of world which two years of war will have made, was such that I can't feel sure that she was unwise. Leonard, as you may suppose, is very calm and sensible. Vanessa is, apparently at least, less affected than Duncan, Ouentin and I had looked for and feared. I dreaded some such physical collapse as before her after Julian was killed. For the rest of us the loss is appalling, but like all unhappiness that comes of missing , I suspect we shall realize it only bit by bit."

 

(10) Henry (Chips) Channon, diary entry (5th April, 1941)

Virginia Woolf is dead, a grey, highly-strung woman of dignity and charm; but she was unstable and often had periods of madness. She led the Bloomsbury movement, did much indirectly to make England so Left - yet she always remained a lady, and was never violent. She could not stand human contacts, and people fatigued her.