Sunday 14 June
A disgraceful confession—this is Sunday morning, & just after ten, & here I am sitting down to write
diary & not fiction or reviews, without any excuse, except the state of my mind. After finishing those two books,
though, one can't concentrate directly on a new one; & then the letters, the talk, the reviews, all serve to enlarge
the pupil of my mind more & more. I cant settle in, contract, & shut myself off. I've written 6 little stories,
scrambled them down untidily, & have thought out, perhaps too clearly, To the Lighthouse. And both books so
far are successful. More of Dalloway has been sold this month than of Jacob in a year. I think it possible we may
sell 2,000. The Common one is making money this week. And I get treated at great length & solemnity by old
gentlemen.
A powerful, heavy, light blue eyed woman of 50, Mrs Cartwright wants to succeed Murphy; & Murphy
wants to stay. How people want work! How tremendous a pull a very little money has in the world! But what the
solution is to be, & how we are to find it, I know not. Here I salute Leonard with unstinted, indeed childlike,
adoration. Somehow he will gently & firmly decide the whole thing, while Angus & I wobble & prevaricate. But
then I have a child's trust in Leonard. Waking this morning, rather depressed that Mrs D. did not sell yesterday,
that we had Peter [Lucas], Eileen Power & Noll & Ray [Strachey] last night & found it hard work, & not a single
compliment vouchsafed me, that I had bought a glass necklace for £1, that I had a sore throat & a streaming
nose, rather under the weather, I say, I snuggled in to the core of my life, which is this complete comfort with L.,
& there found everything so satisfactory & calm that I revived myself, & got a fresh start; feeling entirely
immune. The immense success of our life, is I think, that our treasure is hid away; or rather in such common
things that nothing can touch it. That is, if one enjoys a bus ride to Richmond, sitting on the green smoking,
taking the letters out of the box, airing the marmots, combing Grizzle, making an ice, opening a letter, sitting
down after dinner, side by side, & saying "Are you in your stall, brother?"—well, what can trouble this
happiness? And every day is necessarily full of it. If we depended upon making speeches, or money, or getting
asked to parties—which reminds me of Ottoline's ghastly party the other night. What possessed me to talk all the
time to Helen Anrep? Partly that the plethora of young men slightly annoys me. Really, I am not a good lioness.
With all my vanity, I'm come now to be a little cynical, or why don't I so much relish the admiration of the
Turners, Kitchins, & Gathorne Hardys? A woman is much more warmly sympathetic. She carries her
atmosphere with her. And Ott.'s powers of hostesry are all worn threadbare. People sat about at great distances,
& one had a sense of the clock ticking & Ott. saying This is a failure, a failure, & not knowing how to pick the
pieces up.
Now I must answer Gerald Brenan, & read the Genji; for tomorrow I make a second £20 from Vogue.
Did I say that I am rejected by Sybil? From being Sybil, she has become Lady Colefax. No invitations for a
month.