28 February 1921 – 6 March 1921

I am not satisfied that this book is in a healthy way. Suppose one of my myriad changes of style is antipathetic to the material? or does my style remain fixed? To my mind it changes always. But no one notices. Nor can I give it a name myself. The truth is that I have an internal, automatic scale of values; which decides what I had better do with my time. It dictates “this half hour must be spent on Russian.” “This must be given to Wordsworth.” Or “Now I’d better darn my brown stockings.” How I come by this code of values I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the legacy of puritan grandfathers. I suspect pleasure slightly. God knows. And the truth is also that writing, even here, needs screwing of the brain —not so much as Russian, but then half the time I learn Russian I look in the fire and think what I shall write tomorrow. Mrs. Flanders is in the orchard. If I were at Rodmell I should have thought it all out walking on the flats. I should be in fine writing trim. As it is Ralph,* Carrington† and Brett‡ have this moment gone; I’m dissipated; we dine and go out to the Guild. I can’t settle as I should to think of Mrs. Flanders in the orchard.

Nessa approves of Monday or Tuesday—mercifully; and thus somewhat redeems it in my eyes. But I now wonder a little what the reviewers will make of it—this time next month. Let me try to prophesy. Well, The Times will be kindly, a little cautious. Mrs. Woolf, they will say, must beware of virtuosity. She must beware of obscurity. Her great natural gifts etc. . . . She is at her best in the simple lyric, or in Kew Gardens. An Unwritten Novel is hardly a success. And as for A Society, though spirited, it is too one-sided. Still Mrs. Woolf can always be read with pleasure. Then, in the Westminster, Pall Mall and other serious evening papers I shall be treated very shortly with sarcasm. The general line will be that I am becoming too much in love with the sound of my own voice; not much in what I write; indecently affected; a disagreeable woman. The truth is, I expect, that I shan’t get very much attention anywhere. Yet, I become rather well known.