Free A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf Page B

said. And Macaulay spoilt English prose. We agreed that people are now afraid of the English language. He said it came of being bookish, but not reading books enough. One should read all styles thoroughly. He thought D. H. Lawrence came off occasionally, especially in
Aaron's Rod,
the last book; had great moments; but was a most incompetent writer. He could cling tight to his conviction though. (Light now fails—7:10 after a bad rainy day.)

    Wednesday, October 4th
    I am a little uppish, though, and self assertive, because Brace wrote to me yesterday, "We think
Jacob's Room
an extraordinarily distinguished and beautiful work. You have, of course, your own method, and it is not easy to foretell how many readers it will have; surely it will have enthusiastic ones, and we delight in publishing it," or words to that effect. As this is my first testimony from an impartial person I am pleased. For one thing it must make
some
impression, as a whole; and cannot be wholly frigid fireworks. We think of publishing on October 27th. I daresay Duckworth is a little cross with me. I snuff my freedom. It is I think true, soberly and not artificially for the public, that I shall go on unconcernedly whatever people say. At last, I like reading my own writing. It seems to me to fit me closer than it did before. I have done my task here better than I expected.
Mrs. Dalloway
and the Chaucer chapter are finished: I have read 5 books of the Odyssey;
Ulysses;
and now begin Proust. I also read Chaucer and the Pastons. So evidently my plan of the two books running side by side is practicable and certainly I enjoy my reading with a purpose. I am committed to only one
Supt.
article—on essays—and that at my own time; so I am free. I shall read Greek now steadily and begin
The Prime Minister
on Friday morning. I shall read the Trilogy and some Sophocles and Euripides and a Plato dialogue: also the lives of Bentley and Jebb. At forty I am beginning to learn the mechanism of my own brain—how to get the greatest amount of pleasure and work out of it. The secret is I think always so to contrive that work is pleasant.

    Saturday
,
October 14th
    I have had two letters, from Lytton and Carrington, about
Jacob's Room,
and written I don't know how many envelopes; and here we are on the verge of publication. I must sit for my portrait to
John o' London's
on Monday. Richmond writes to ask that date of publication may be put ahead, so that they may notice it on Thursday. My sensations? they remain calm. Yet how could Lytton have praised me more highly? prophesies immortality for it as poetry; is afraid of my romance; but the beauty of the writing, etc. Lytton praises me too highly for it to give me exquisite pleasure; or perhaps that nerve grows dulled. I want to be through the splash and swimming in calm water again. I want to be writing unobserved.
Mrs. Dalloway
has branched into a book; and I adumbrate here a study of insanity and suicide; the world seen by the sane and the insane side by side—something like that. Septimus Smith? is that a good name? and to be more close to the fact than
Jacob:
but I think
Jacob
was a necessary step, for me, in working free. And now I must use this benignant page for making out a scheme of work.
    I must get on with my reading for the Greek chapter. I shall finish
The Prime Minister
in another week—say 21st. Then I must be ready to start my Essay article for
The Times:
say on the 23rd. That will take say till 2nd November. Therefore I must now concentrate on Essays: with some Aeschylus, and I think begin Zimmern, making rather a hasty end of Bentley, who is not really much to my purpose. I think that clears the matter up—though
how
to read Aeschylus I don't quite know: quickly, is my desire, but that, I see, is an illusion.
    As for my views about the success of
Jacob,
what are they? I think we shall sell 500; it will then go slowly and reach 800 by June. It will be highly praised in some places for