virginia's vivid nightmares

December 2011

7 posts

“But I am so unhappy, Septimus,” said Rezia, trying to make him sit down.
The millions lamented; for ages they had sorrowed. He would turn round, he would tell them in a few moments, only a few moments more, of this relief, of this joy, of this astonishing revelation -
“The time, Septimus,” Rezia repeated. “What is the time?”
He was talking, he was starting, this man must notice him. He was looking at them.
“I will tell you the time,” said Septimus, very slowly, very drowsily, smiling mysteriously at the dead man in the grey suit. As he sat smiling, the quarter struck - the quarter to twelve.” —Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

Dec 26, 201116 notes

#Mrs Dalloway #Virginia Woolf #Septimus

“But he himself remained high on his rock, like a drowned sailor on a rock. I leant over the edge of the boat and fell down, he thought. I went under the sea. I have been dead and yet am now alive, but let me rest still, he begged (he was talking to himself again - it was awful, awful!); and as, before waking, the voices of birds and the sounds of wheels chime and chatter in a queer harmony, grow louder and louder, and the sleeper feels himself drawing to the shores of life, so he felt himself drawing towards life, the sun growing hotter, cries sounding louder, something tremendous about to happen.” —Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway

Dec 26, 20115 notes

#Virginia Woolf #Mrs Dalloway

“The house was empty, and one felt, since one was the only person in the drawing-room, like one of those naturalists who, covered with grass and leaves, lie watching the shyest animals—badgers, otters, kingfishers—moving about freely, themselves unseen. The room that afternoon was full of such shy creatures, lights and shadows, curtains blowing, petals falling—things that never happen, so it seems, if someone is looking. The quiet old country room with its rugs and stone chimney pieces, its sunken book-cases and red and gold lacquer cabinets, was full of such nocturnal creatures. They came pirouetting across the floor, stepping delicately with high-lifted feet and spread tails and pecking allusive beaks as if they had been cranes or flocks of elegant flamingoes whose pink was faded, or peacocks whose trains were veiled with silver. And there were obscure flushes and darkenings too, as if a cuttlefish had suddenly suffused the air with purple; and the room had its passions and rages and envies and sorrows coming over it and clouding it, like a human being. Nothing stayed the same for two seconds together.
But, outside, the looking-glass reflected the hall table, the sunflowers, the garden path so accurately and so fixedly that they seemed held there in their reality unescapably. It was a strange contrast—all changing here, all stillness there. One could not help looking from one to the other. Meanwhile, since all the doors and windows were open in the heat, there was a perpetual sighing and ceasing sound, the voice of the transient and the perishing, it seemed, coming and going like human breath, while in the looking-glass things had ceased to breathe and lay still in the trance of immortality.” —from The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection by Virginia Woolf

Dec 19, 20112 notes

#Virginia Woolf #quote #short story

Listen

acandleandawick:

Angelica Garnett talks about Leonard and Virginia Woolf

Dec 12, 201147 notes

#Virginia Woolf #Leonard Woolf #Angelica Garnett

Dec 5, 201185 notes

#Virginia Woolf #painting

Dec 5, 201190 notes

#Virginia Woolf #Vanessa Bell #Bloomsbury #Charleston House

“The only thing in this world is music - music and books and one or two pictures. I am going to found a colony where there shall be no marrying - unless you happen to fall in love with a symphony of Beethoven - no human elements at all, except what comes through Art - nothing but ideal peace and endless meditation. This world of human beings grows too complicated, my only wonder is that we don’t fill more madhouses: the insane view of life has much to be said for it - perhaps the sane one after all: and we, the sad sober respectable citizens really rave every moment of our lives and deserve to be shut up perpetually. My spring melancholy is developing in these hot days into summer madness.” —from a letter from Virginia Stephen to Emma Vaughan, 23rd April 1901

Dec 3, 2011129 notes

#Virginia Woolf #Virginia Stephen #Emma Vaughan #letter #the best thing to read before bed are her letters