226).

Woolf’s depression and suicide have led many to view her life as tragic. But ultimately it is a story of triumph. She battled mental illness and enormous obstacles successfully to do the thing she felt was more necessary, more fundamental, more vital than anything else in the world: to write. She was helped enormously by her husband, Leonard, who not only monitored her health and buoyed her spirits but also supervised the publishing venture they started — Hogarth Press — and allowed Virginia the freedom within their marriage to remain herself. His support no doubt had a controlling aspect, but without it she may not have survived as long as she did — something she readily acknowledged. Even when she was well, she knew that she was at risk because her madness was simply at bay, dwelling somewhere within her. One could argue that her illness had a positive side, in that through it she was able to access hidden depths; but it could not be controlled or predicted.

In the end Woolf left us with an astonishing, prolific, wide-ranging legacy of essays, novels, letters, and criticism. But her legacy is not in her work as much as it is in the spirit she infused it with — one of joy, humanity, and revelation. She felt that life was never what is seen on the surface, that “behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we — I mean all human beings — are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art” (Moments of Being, p. 72). This view of a shared connection can be seen at the conclusion of The Voyage Out when St. John goes back to the hotel and is liberated from the pain of Rachel’s death by the presence of others: “The light and warmth, the movements of the hands, and the soft communicative voices soothed him; they gave him a strange sense of quiet and relief” (p. 362). We may not always understand the pattern in front of us, Woolf seems to be saying, and we may spend the majority of our life isolated from others and trapped within our own experience, but only by reconnecting to the pattern through people and through art can we truly be alive.

 

Pagan Harleman studied literature at Columbia College, then traveled extensively in the Middle East and West Africa before receiving an MFA from NYU’s graduate film program. While at NYU she made several award-winning shorts and received the Dean’s Fellowship, the Steven Tisch Fellowship, and a Director’s Craft Award.

TO
L.W.

CHAPTER I

As THE STREETS THAT lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very narrow, it is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm. If you persist, lawyers’ clerks will have to make flying leaps into the mud; young lady typists will have to fidget behind you. In the streets of London where beauty goes unregarded, eccentricity must pay the penalty, and it is better not to be very tall, to wear a long blue cloak, or to beat the air with your left hand.

One afternoon in the beginning of October when the traffic was becoming brisk a tall man strode along the edge of the pavement with a lady on his arm. Angry glances struck upon their backs. The small, agitated figures — for in comparison with this couple most people looked small — decorated with fountain pens, and burdened with despatch-boxes, had appointments to keep, and drew a weekly salary, so that there was some reason for the unfriendly stare which was bestowed upon Mr. Ambrose’s height and upon Mrs. Ambrose’s cloak. But some enchantment had put both man and woman beyond the reach of malice and unpopularity. In his case one might guess from the moving lips that it was thought; and in hers from the eyes fixed stonily straight in front of her at a level above the eyes of most that it was sorrow. It was only by scorning all she met that she kept herself from tears, and the friction of people brushing past her was evidently painful. After watching the traffic on the Embankment for a minute or two with a stoical gaze she twitched her husband’s sleeve, and they crossed between the swift discharge of motor cars. When they were safe on the further side, she gently withdrew her arm from his, allowing her mouth at the same time to relax, to tremble; then tears rolled down, and, leaning her elbows on the balustrade, she shielded her face from the curious. Mr. Ambrose attempted consolation; he patted her shoulder; but she showed no signs of admitting him, and feeling it awkward to stand beside a grief that was greater than his, he crossed his arms behind him, and took a turn along the pavement.

The embankment juts out in angles here and there, like pulpits; instead of preachers, however, small boys occupy them, dangling string, dropping pebbles, or launching wads of paper for a cruise. With their sharp eye for eccentricity, they were inclined to think Mr. Ambrose awful; but the quickest witted cried ‘Bluebeard!’ as he passed.