23 October 1922 – 29 October 1922

Miss Mary Butts being gone, and my head too stupid for reading, I may as well write here, for my amusement later perhaps. I mean I’m too riddled with talk and harassed with the usual worry of people who like and people who don’t like J.R. to concentrate. There was The Times review on Thursday—long, a little tepid, I think—saying that one can’t make characters in this way; flattering enough. Of course, I had a letter from Morgan in the opposite sense—the letter I’ve liked best of all. We have sold 650, I think; and have ordered a second edition. My sensations? as usual—mixed. I shall never write a book that is an entire success. This time the reviews are against me and the private people enthusiastic. Either I am a great writer or a nincompoop. “An elderly sensualist,” the Daily News calls me. Pall Mall passes me over as negligible. I expect to be neglected and sneered at. And what will be the fate of our second thousand then? So far of course the success is much more than we expected. I think I am better pleased so far than I have ever been. Morgan, Lytton, Bunny, Violet, Logan,† Philip,‡ have all written enthusiastically. But I want to be quit of all this. It hangs about me like Mary Butts’ scent. I don’t want to be totting up compliments, and comparing reviews. I want to think out Mrs. Dalloway. I want to foresee this book better than the others and get the utmost out of it. I expect I could have screwed Jacob up tighter, if I had foreseen; but I had to make my path as I went.