Diary entry for March 24, 1941
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
Diary entry
March 24, 1941
Woolf’s diary was also a refuge in which she recorded everyday happenings. Here—Woolf’s last entry, penned four days before her suicide—she reflects on a strained social encounter: “Sitting there I tried to coin a few compliments. But they perished in the icy sea between us. And then there was nothing.” She also captures a sense of disembodied deflation: “A curious sea side feeling in the air today . . . All pulp removed . . . & I am imagining how it would be if we could infuse souls.”
In 1953, Leonard Woolf published selections from his wife’s diaries in A Writer’s Diary. His aim was to include “practically everything which referred to her own writing” as well as entries in which she is working on her craft, or has included what he calls the “raw material of her art,” or has penned comments on books she is reading.
: Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature
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