SELECTIONS FROM VITA SACKVILLE-WEST DIARIES, 1907–1929

Vita’s diary entries between 1907 and 1933, from which this selection has been made, offer the fullest picture of her interior and exterior landscapes. The identifications in brackets are of people and places important in Vita’s personal life.

Vita’s diaries compose a startling contrast to those of her mother: They are terse, rapid, and concern themselves more with other people and the outside world than with formal society, its procedures, and her place in it. Quite the opposite of her mother, Vita never comments on what she is wearing and is far more interested in the monuments she sees on her travels, the people with whom she travels, and—at times—in their relations with others and herself. As for her relationship with her mother, it had much secrecy in it: Suspecting that her mother would read her diary, the young Vita kept it in Italian for four years, partly for privacy, but mostly for enjoyment of the language. (Vita was fluent in both Italian and French.)

What she notices and notes defines her point of view: Her acute perception is trained above all on the necessity of feeling alive to her experiences and to those events that matter to her and her companions, rather than to a preordained social set. The role of diary-writing was crucial in sustaining her personal intensity, whether she was traveling or simply writing, gardening, reading, and lecturing. In contradistinction to the way in which she felt herself so inarticulate and so slow with the members of the Bloomsbury group in their witty and rapid exchanges, (“I am distinctly not clever,” she says in her memoir)1, her diaries show her as determined, acute, sensitive, and perceptive to a fault. This is the compensation for the way she had so often perceived herself: “I see myself … plain, lean, dark, unsociable, unattractive—horribly unattractive!—rough, and secret. Secrecy was my passion; I dare say that was why I hated companions.”2 Her diary was, from the beginning, her companion, but a companion to whom she never talked excessively. Vita, for all her passionate living, was almost a classicist in her words.

The first diary entries here record her third trip to Italy, where she had two years before been sightseeing with Violet Keppel; they had had private Italian lessons together, and Violet had already announced her affection for Vita—whose own affection for Rosamund Grosvenor had been her own first lesbian attachment. The intense and long-lasting affair with Violet, which nearly destroyed both their marriages, was to take on its full flavor later.

Vita, always an enthusiastic traveler, comments succinctly on the details that most impress her: people, landscapes, monuments. Like a Jamesian heroine, she could be counted as one on whom nothing is lost. Nor does anything take up too much space.

July 1907-July 1910

May 8, 1910. Hotel Royal Daniele, Venice. We [Vita and Rosamund Grosvenor] went to San Marco and through the Doge’s palace: both are fine in their way, but nothing seems to stand out here above anything else; all the buildings are so crowded one on the top of the other. But I like some of the old palaces, especially in the small canals.…

May 9. We went to the Belle Arti; fascinating Carpaccios! And right down the Canal Grande in the afternoon, after which we wandered into a few churches where there was nothing very remarkable. Orazio Pucci [her suitor] turned up in the evening! We packed him off to another hotel, as he proposed to stay here.

May 14. Chiasso, over Swiss frontier … Weather ascribed to Halley’s comet, through the tail of which I believe we are passing now.

May 15. I suppose the scenery is magnificent, but it is rather like a colour picture-postcard, or a scene from a pantomime.

May 17. All day by the St. Gotthard route, which I have gotten to know well. I remember how enthusiastic I was over it two years ago. It is horrible to feel oneself getting blasé.

May 29. Heavenly crossing delayed by king’s [Edward VII’s] funeral. It was very magnificent but not at all like a funeral except when the guards reversed arms and everyone cried when they saw the King’s little dog following the coffin. The German Emperor talked all the time to the King [George V], which everyone thought very bad taste.

July 2. Ellen Terry, who is quite charming. Lady Tree is appalling. The Party stayed here: Miss Campbell, Rosamund [Grosvenor], Felicia, Mrs. Godfrey Baring, Harold Nicolson [“Harold Nicolson” underlined in red].

1913

July 25. Friday. Knole. [The court case, brought by the family of Sir John Murray Scott (Seery) contesting his will, in which he left Vita’s mother £50,000, had taken up much of Vita’s time, but Victoria triumphed, to Vita’s admiring eyes.] Poor Harold, let’s hope he isn’t forced to return here this morning. I have been very involved … but thanks be to God, everything is all right.

October 1. Wednesday. Coker. WEDDING DAY! Today Harold and I got married. Mother didn’t get up in the morning, just carried on with her regular schedule, then toward midday, I got dressed all in gold, which was a great success. Olive sang in the chapel. [Olive Rubens was a close friend of Lionel Sackville-West, whom he had, at one point, wanted to move into Knole with her tubercular husband.]

October 2. Thursday. We didn’t do anything but write and sleep in the garden.… I never would have dreamt of such happiness.

1915

August 3. Alone, lunching with Harold, and I feel newly married. 182 Ebury Street. Get up late, lunch and dine alone with Harold. [The initial sentence is written in Italian, the following in English—this is Vita’s first entry in English since 1911!]

1916

May 1. Long Barn. A long day all alone with Harold, lovely weather. We do forestry. Paddle with Ben … Ben says “boat,” “ball,” and “my good tea, Amen.”

November 29. Violet [Keppel] lunches and we go to Chu Chu Chow & to tea with Osbert [Sitwell]. Ezra Pound brings his little Jap to try on Buddha clothes.

1918

April 29. On. Polperro.… drive out to Polperro [Cornwall] by wagonette. Staying in a fisherman’s cottage, very primitive—rice pudding & no drains!

Harold plants nuts. Ben goes up to a little girl in the village and says “Buckle my shoe” to her by way of opening a conversation.

April 30. Nigel goes into short frocks. Go to Hugh Walpole’s cottage. He isn’t here but lets us use his room and his books.

May 2. Polperro. Go to Fowey [nearby town to Polperro] in the local butcher’s pony cart. The harness comes all to pieces. Have tea, or rather cider, in a little restaurant at Fowey, V. [Violet] meets a man like Mallory. V. steals wisteria & lilac from a deserted garden by the wayside.

May 3. Polperro. Spend the day at Hugh Walpole’s cottage again, reading his books

May 4. Leave Polperro.

[Vita and Violet Keppel initiated their affair with various trips to Paris in November 1918, then to Monte Carlo from December 1918 until March 1919, returning to England only after Vita’s mother and husband prevailed on her to do so. In March 1919 Violet Keppel announced her engagement to Denys Trefusis and, despite her passion for Vita, married him in June of that year, having extracted from him an agreement that she could continue her affair with Vita. In October 1919, Vita and Violet again traveled to Monte Carlo, and the intensity of their affair grew: They agreed to leave their husbands to live together. Vita intended to inform Harold of their decision when she went to see him in Paris. Finding him ill, she postponed her announcement of the intended “elopement” until mid-January 1920, after she and Harold had reunited in England and Violet and Denys Trefusis had returned from France.]

1920

January 1. Hotel Matignon, Paris. H. [Harold] has his knee finally stitched up.

January 2. Hill Street [Victoria’s house, acquired in 1907]. Come over from Paris. A jolly crossing by moonlight. Sit up on deck almost alone; cold, but love it. Read life of Rimbaud which thrills me; also Claudel.

London beastly, fog.

January 3. Knole. Spend the morning in London looking for a governess—object of value and rarity. Lunch with Rose, & come down here afterwards, where I am alone with Dada [her father, Lionel Sackville-West]. Ben and Nigel are here, very well; and the former immensely grown. Bitterly cold.

January 4. Take Ben & Nigel out for a walk in the morning, and go to see B.M. [Bonne Maman, Victoria] who is very seedy.

January 6. Spend the day in bed, very cold and bored and stupid; read Hippolytus and try quite vainly to write.

January 8. Hill Street. Go with Dada to see movies of Allenby’s campaign and pictures of Pepita [her Spanish grandmother, about whom Vita wrote a biography] which simply enchant me.

January 9. Knole. Spend the day in London with L. [Lushka, Vita’s name for Violet Trefusis] Take “Rebellion” to Collins who think they can get it out by May next [one of the early titles of the novel Challenge, written in collaboration with Violet. It was not published in the United Kingdom until 1974 because of Vita’s mother’s strong objection.] Go to see the pictures of Petra again, with L.

January 10. It pours. Go over to Long Barn to get a few things. The place is just one large puddle.

January 11. It pours and blows a gale. Resume the soap book. Kenneth renews his usual ludicrous proposals to me. [Her godfather, Kenneth (Kenito) Hallyburton Campbell, a friend of Seery’s, the age of her mother, who tried to rape her when she was 16.]

January 12. Go to London for the day & see L., also D. T. [Denys Trefusis]—an unpleasant interview. [Violet remained in love with Vita, who reciprocated her affection: Violet’s husband, Denys, was understandably upset.]

January 13. Walk Ben, Nigel, and two dogs to Sevenoaks, a strenuous undertaking. Walk over to Long Barn in the afternoon & get things there, & retrieve the beginning of the soap book which I thought was lost.

January 14. 34 Hill Street. Spend the day with L. Dine with Kenneth and Dada at Jules and go to “Home and Beauty.” Kenneth comes back with me afterwards here.

See Ozzie [Oswald Dickinson, Harold’s friend], a gossip, as befits his post of Secretary to the Home Office Board of Control in Lunacy! In the evening, about B.M. & Knole, etc. Kenneth rather a dear; tell him I am in trouble, to stop him making love to me, and he instantly becomes the most concerned of friends, & puts himself wholly at my disposal. Poor thing: if he only knew!…

January 16. Basil Hotel. Clear out of Hill St. under the impression that H. and B.M. have had row & come to this hotel with L. Harold arrives in evening and we both dine at Cadogan Gardens [Harold’s mother’s house in London]; his father is very old and can barely lift his right arm. Go to H.’s room afterwards and tell him about things [her planned elopement to France with Violet and the unpleasant interview with Denys].

B.M. arrives from Paris.

Spend half the night writing letters.

Met H.’s mother on the stairs as I was leaving C. Gardens, and told her everything.

January 17. Knole. A perfectly awful day. Come round early to C. Gardens & stay until midday talking to H. who refuses to agree to my going today. Go round to see L. Lunch with Harold and take him to Grosvenor Street afterwards. L. agrees to wait a fortnight [before eloping with Vita to France], then when H. has gone she says she won’t come back to Knole in a state of collapse.

January 19. Nigel’s birthday.

January 22. 34 Hill Street. Come up with H. Lunch with L. Don’t see B.M. until the evening, when we have a strained and impersonal conversation. Dine at the Ritz with H. and go with him to Home and Beauty. On my return I again talk to B.M., who tries to get me to agree with all she says about Dada [Lionel, whom she is about to leave]; when she finds I won’t she goes off very angry. An impossible situation.

January 23. Knole. I see B.M. for a moment this morning before leaving Hill St. but she is frigid to me and writes H. a letter refusing to see him at all—though what he has done as he wasn’t even in the room during her conversation with me Heaven only knows!

January 26. Knole. H. and I take Ben to the pantomime—his first. He is less impressed than I expected, but at his best all day. See L. for a brief moment just before lunch.

February 1. Still at Knole. Harold goes back to Paris. I go up to London with him. To the station, then straight back to Knole.

Walk over to Long Barn with Dada in the afternoon. The suspense is almost unbearable. The whole fortnight has been sufficiently odd, esp. as H. has never mentioned the subject [her predicted elopement with Violet] until I simply forced it on him in the train today.

When shall I see him again? What is going to happen?

February 2. Come up to London early with my things & go to the dentist. See L. at 11:30 and lunch with her. It is, at any rate not for today.… Spend the afternoon with her, and come back to Knole in the evening, leaving my things at Charing Cross. At the last moment she wants to come with me, but, having promised D.T. not to give him the slip, she goes back to Grosvenor St. Also she was rather insufficiently equipped with her wax Bacchante & and box of brandy cherries!

February 3. Saracen’s Head, Lincoln. Come here with L.

February 4. Lincoln. Walk up to the cathedral; Lincoln is rather jolly, but o Lord! the cold!

February 5. Lincoln. Meant to go to the Fens today, but spend the day in bed instead.

February 6. Lincoln. Spend the day in bed.

February 7. Go to the Fens today. Meant to spend the night here, but having forgotten the Bacchante at Lincoln we come back to fetch it.

February 8. Liverpool Street Hotel. We come back from Lincoln this afternoon, arriving at dinnertime. L. telephoned for D.T. who comes at once & remains a comparatively short time. L. very silent & unhappy.

February 9. King’s Head Hotel, Dover. D.T. comes for a second to our hotel early this morning, and L. & I leave for Dover by the boat train. She goes alone, very frightened, leaving me at Dover. After lunch Denys appears, having followed us by motor. Spend a grim afternoon with him in my hotel, send telegrams, write letters, etc. A fierce storm gets up & rages all night.

February 10. Hotel Meurice, Calais. Cross to Calais with Denys, the roughest crossing I have ever known. L. comes unexpectedly to meet me, and we meet in the buffet; she looks terribly ill & collapsed. D. and I take her to a hotel, & put her to bed & get a doctor. Impossible to discuss anything tonight. This ludicrous situation resolves itself into our all three dining most amicably in L.’s bedroom, & even into D. suggesting that we should all live together in Jamaica growing sugar!

February 11. Hotel du Rhin, Amiens. We take a motor in Calais and motor to Boulogne in piercing cold across desolate country. In the train between Boulogne & Amiens, D. suddenly says he will go on to Paris when we get out at Amiens. This he does, after an interminable 2 hours in a train that stops at every station. L. and I here alone.

February 12. Amiens. We go out in the morning & look at the remains of the bombardment, and at the very lovely cathedral. L. spends the rest of the day in bed, but comes down to dinner, and after dinner “Papa” [Violet’s father George Keppel] suddenly arrives in L.’s room and we have a ridiculous & abusive scene with him.

Learn meanwhile by telephone that H. has left Paris for London this morning, & I wire for him.

February 13. Amiens. Papa mercifully keeps out of the way. L. spends the day in bed, only dining downstairs. She has another scene with Papa after dinner, at which I do not assist.

February 14. Hotel Alexandre III, Paris. Denys & Harold arrive together by aeroplane from London, landing at Amiens. Return to Paris with H. In the middle of dinner L. comes in & I feel restored to life to a certain extent. My god, what a day! I am broken with misery; if things were as bad as I had at first thought, I should put an end to myself. I had to go, I should have killed her if I had stayed an instant longer. I have told her I cannot even see her for two months. She calls it banishment—it is not. It is simply the impossibility of bringing myself to see her for the present.

February 15. Paris. L. leaves Paris by motor this morning. Lunch at Laurent’s with H.

February 17. Go with H. to “Le Bonheur de ma femme.”

February 18. Paris. Ash Wednesday. Bright, warm sunshine. L. telephones to me every day from various provincial towns in France, on her way south, and every day her voice is a little fainter …

February 20. Paris. Get the proofs of “Rebellion”; about the only thing which has stirred me to any interest since Amiens.

February 21. Paris. Have a chill and spend the day in bed, feeling rather wretched. Reading “Anna Karenina” again. Write a new last chapter to “Rebellion,” and decide to call it “Endeavour” since Rebellion has been already used. Sorry about this, but Endeavour seems perhaps more applicable.

February 22. Paris. Still feel rather seedy, & don’t go out, as it has turned cold. Jean de Gaigneron [one of Harold’s lovers] comes and Herman Norman.

February 23. Paris. Send off corrected proofs of “Rebellion.”

February 24. Paris. Lunch with Jim Barnes and H. at La Perouse and go to Leon Vannier to see if H. can pick up any information about Verlaine, particularly as he has taken up against idea of his biography of Verlaine. Wander around Paris, the most lovely sunny day, quite warm. Buy two little birds.

February 25. Paris. Harold is telephoned up mysteriously, and goes off to London in the afternoon.

February 26. Paris. Alone here. Lunch with Jim Barnes at Voisin & go to various shops & Musee Rodin with him; he comes back to tea. Dine with Uncle Charlie [(Baron) Charles Sackville-West] & go to “Mademoiselle ma mère”—funny. Get a wire from H. asking me to come over.

February 27. Paris. Wretched day.… Desperate telephoning between me and L. who is at Bordighera with Pat [Margaret “Pat” Dansey, one of Violet’s lovers, who later became one of Vita’s].

February 28. Come across with Dido and Miss Williams. H is going to Russia with the L. of N. [League of Nations] commission. B.M. Brighton. An awful blow meets me here: B.M. has read my proofs, and thinking that the book will give rise to gossip wants me not to publish it.

March 2. Long Barn. Change my title to “Challenge.” I can’t give it up; B.M. asks too much.

March 9. Long Barn. My birthday. Harold gives me a cocker spaniel puppy (Judy). Spend the day in London with B.M. and go with her to a matinee.

March 12. Hill St., Richmond. Mrs. Belloc Lowndes rings me up out of the blue and says she wants to know me. [Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes, to whom Victoria will write about the awfulness of Orlando.] Will I go and see her? I go. She is much au courant with my circumstances, and with the question of publishing “Challenge” or not. I am to send her the proofs.

March 15. Hill St., Richmond. Go to see Mrs. Lowndes, and have a long discussion with her about “Challenge,” which she has now read in proof. She wants me to cancel it—says if L. were dead, would I publish it, etc.? This hits me—gossip I don’t care a damn about. Mrs. Lowndes is kindness itself. So I give it up. I hope B.M. is pleased. She has beaten me.

March 19. In the train. I leave London early this morning, and catch the train to Avignon in Paris at 8. Sit up all night, but what do I care?

March 20. Hotel de l’Europe, Avignon. Arrive at 8 in the morning, and find L. at the hotel. We go out to look at the Palais des Papes, which we liked so much when we were here before. Quarreling already, because she apparently thought she could persuade me to stay with her after these allotted ten days were over, and it angers her to find she can’t.

March 21. Cap d’Antibes. We hire a motor and come thus far, about 200 kilometres—right through Provence and over the Esterel, which is lovely but alarming. Find this rather jolly hotel, & dine over the sea in a pavilion.

March 22. Bordighera. Alas, my Monte Carlo! I get whirled past in a motor with drawn blinds … Reach Bordighera in the evening & dine with Pat who has a villa here.

March 23. San Remo. Motor to San Remo, a beastly place. L. horrible to me all day, and makes me very miserable and exasperated. After dinner I lose my head & say I will stay with her—Paradise restored.

March 24. Nervi. We leave S. Remo in the morning, joining Pat & Joan in the train, and travel all day getting to Genoa in the evening. There is no room in the hotels at Genoa, so we have to motor out to this perfectly beastly place. L. is however so sweet, having got the promise she wanted, that it makes up for everything.

March 25. Milan. Get to Milan latish and have a job to find room. I’ve got an awful cold.

March 26. Danieli Hotel, Venice. Spend the morning in Milan (with a streaming nose!) come here by Orient Express. It is very late as usual, & we don’t reach Venice till nearly midnight. L. falls in love with the Orient Express, and it’s all I can do to make her get out at Venice, as she wants to go on.

March 27. Venice. Spent part of the day trying to find Louis Mallet’s palace & part of the day in shops & sightseeing. Had forgotten the beauty of San Marco.

Reading nothing but Shakespeare—an undiscovered country to me, which I swear I won’t leave till I’ve explored every corner. What a wealth, what afflatus, what wind-filled sails! I feel that at last I’ve found the real thing; think I must have been mad not to embark on it before.

March 28. Venice. Everything is black again. I have had to tell L. I should only be followed and brought back. It is horrible. She is in the depths. So am I. I feel the Grand Canal, in spite of the floating onions, would be preferable.

March 30. Venice. L. not at all well.

March 31. Venice. L. still very seedy, and the doctor says she has a touch of jaundice. She stays in bed all day. It pours. Anything better than Venice in the rain is hard to conceive.

April 1. Verona. L. a little better, so we leave Venice and come here, arriving late.

April 2. Verona. Verona is very attractive, or would be if it wasn’t raining. We go to see the Scaliger tombs, and in the afternoon drive round the town seeing the amphitheatre, the Scaliger Bridge & castle, the Duomo, and San Zeno.

April 3. Verona. We try to catch the Orient Express, in which we have reserved places, but miss it & have to return to the hotel. Take a carriage & drive out into the country in the middle of a thunderstorm.

April 4. Verona. Today the Orient Express is 13 hours late, so we renounce all hope of catching it. Unfortunately it continues to pour.

April 5. Albergo Sempione, Domodossola. We actually succeed in leaving Verona this afternoon, a grand regret, and think we shall really get to Paris at last, but no, the fates think otherwise; we get turned out of the train at the frontier for not having an Italian police permit. Nearly get locked up as a spy, and nearly get sent back to Venice as an alternative, but avoid both these things, and come to this hotel. Can’t help feeling this is a reprieve.

April 6. Domodossola. Still here. Spend all day in bed. Get up at one A.M. in the morning to try & catch the train, then hear it won’t arrive till 5, and give up the attempt, especially as we have heard nothing about places being available.

April 7. Orient Express. Get up and go for a delicious drive into the hills with L.; lie on a warm sunny bank and talk. Catch the blessed old train at midnight (only four hours late today!). Dreadfully sorry to leave.

April 8. Hotel Powers, Paris. Arrive in Paris about two o’clock, and much to my surprise are met by Harold who has come over on L. of N. business. B.M. is alone at Long Barn. Go out for a walk with H. in the afternoon. He comes round to our hotel after dinner, and remains talking to L. and me about the future until nearly one in the morning. Simply dead with tiredness.

April 18. Grand Hotel, Dover. Leave Paris this morning, meaning to reach London tonight, but change our minds & stay at Dover. Beastly grey country!

April 19. Long Barn. Leave Dover early & travel with L. as far as Ashford where we part. Come on here, and find B.M. rather sceptical as to the genuineness of all my delays. I don’t blame her. She’s had a lot to put up with from me, poor darling.

April 21. Hill St., Richmond. Spend the morning with L. & lunch with her & take her to a play after. A beastly unsatisfactory day. (Raquel Meller at Hippodrome, marvelous Spanish singer)

April 22. Come up to London with H.… Meet L. after lunch & come down here with her alone. Hate seeing her in her own house—hate the hypocrisy of it all.

April 27. Long Barn. Bicycle home & get drenched, but rather enjoy flying down the hill with the rain lashing my face.

April 28. See L. in morning. Tired, absentminded, and dispirited.

April 29. Long Barn. Seedy, which annoys me. I suppose I get spoilt by being always well, and feel injured when my usual health fails me—like a millionaire who can’t put his hand on £10,000 cash at a given moment!

April 30. Long Barn. Oh my good Lord! I can’t write nowadays. It drives me wild to remember my fluency of once upon a time—ten or twelve sheets a day! And as for poetry, it’s gone, gone, gone from me.

May 1. Long Barn. Lose the ring I always wear [The missing ring was one Violet had given her.] & am miserable & superstitious about it.

May 2. Long Barn. Walk to Hildeborough station after lunch to see if by any chance I have dropped my ring there, but fail to find it.

May 3. L. very unhappy & haunted. I wish I knew what to do.

May 5. Long Barn. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I think I’ve got softening of the brain. I’ve been sitting all day in front of a barely begun review of some book, reading over & over again the few sentences I had written, not taking them in in the very least—oh wind, come & blow away the clouds! I smoke endless cigarettes, which help to addle my brain. I long for vigour and clear thought, but only meet with chaos. How I envy H. his clear-cut intellect!

I must shake myself out of this inertia. I wish I was poor, dirt poor, miserably poor, and obliged to work for my daily bread or go without. I need a spur. I am a rotten creature.

… Later, made myself finish the review.

May 7. Long Barn. Spend all today in bed. Write two poems, one of them slick off so perhaps I haven’t got softening of the brain after all? Distinctly more cheerful in consequence.

May 11. Write another poem—bad, but better than nothing.

May 14. Long Barn. Pat comes down for the day. H.’s mother comes to stay in the evening. Very restless and unhappy.

May 17. Lower Grosvenor Place. Come up in the morning, lunch with L. We go to a matinee at the Hippodrome. We are both staying with Pat. Dinner all three at a little hotel opposite; happy.

May 18. Long Barn. Spend a rather miserable day with L. in London, after a row with Pat in the morning. Come down here with H. See B.M. in the morning & get slandered by her too. It blows a gale. Am I a good sailor? A burning question.

May 19. Long Barn. L. comes down for the night.

May 20. Sumurun [Lord Sackville-West’s yacht], Calshott. Sail very slowly down to Calshott. Lovely weather.

May 21. Swanage. Sail from Calshott to Swanage. I am a good sailor! Harold immersed in his life of Verlaine.

May 23. Dartmouth. It has turned warm, and we had a perfect day though very little breeze. Lay on deck in the sun. Even Harold was weaned for a little from Paul Verlaine.

May 25. At sea off Start Point. Start well, but get suddenly becalmed and befogged and hurried heave to in a swell and a thick mist, with foghorns hooting all around.

May 26. At sea off Fowey. A perfect day again, but very little breeze till dinnertime, when we get about 4 hours moonlight sailing; then the wind drops and we are left rocking about in an awful swell all the rest of the night.

May 27. Falmouth. Wake up not knowing where we are, and believing ourselves to be off Fowey (o my Polperro!) but suddenly round a headland upon Falmouth. Find a telegram from H. saying that the Bolsheviks have invaded Persia, so he can’t rejoin us yet. Go for a walk with Dada.

May 28. Falmouth. Go with Dada by steamer to Tregothman, a place belonging to Lord Falmouth. Such marvelous wood! Run a mile & a half to catch the return boat. Perfect weather.

May 31. Meet L. Hindshead.

June 4. Long Barn An alarming “literary” party! Clemence Dane [Winifred Ashton], Hugh Walpole, Marcus Hewlett, Virgilia [Enid Bagnold] & Sir Roderick [Jones] and Rebecca West—an attractive ugly young savage.

June 6. Long Barn. Write a lot, so does H. who kills off P.V. [Paul Verlaine]

June 7. Long Barn. Spend most of the day in bed, trying to write poetry, and enviously reading Shakespeare.

June 15. Gloucester. We go over the cathedral in the morning, very fine tombs (especially of Robert of Normandy) and a fine early 14th century window. We motor out to Berkeley after lunch, quite overwhelmed by its charm, magic, & mystery. We have to break our way in over hedges & through soaking hayfields, but it’s impossible to get inside. A jolly day. Go to the local music hall in the evening.

June 26. Long Barn. L. makes me go up to London to see her; so I go up with Mrs. Lowndes.

July 2. Hill St., Richmond. A ghastly day. Get a note from L. in the morning saying she is going away, etc. Incapable of doing anything but slouching round Ebury St. after B.M. L. telephones to me in the evening; there ensures a scene between H., B.M., and me, which is interrupted only by the necessity of dining with Sybil Colefax. Pull myself together.… Go afterward to a dance at Mrs. Gordon’s where I see L. and the whole of her family, whom I’ve conscientiously met.

July 3. Long Barn. Spend a disturbed morning with L. in Pat’s house.… Lovely evening, walk up and down the terrace talking to Hugh till nearly midnight.

July 4. Long Barn. Hugh reads “Challenge,” and is very complimentary about it, he prefers it to “Heritage.” (I don’t.)

July 5. H. staying up for dinner so I come here, and argue with Clemence Dane over the abstract and the concrete in literature and their rival merits. Afterwards L. and I tell Clemence Dane all about ourselves.

July 6. Long Barn. Stay till the evening, after an awful morning with Clemence Dane trying to make L. and me give each other up.

July [8?]. Sonning. Come down here & find L. very seedy, with her heart gone wrong.

July 9. Sonning. Not well, so I chuck going to the opera with L. I’ll stay down here—not reluctantly. A perfectly happy day.

July 12. Sonning. H. to Paris, I come here, alone with L.

July [13, 14, or 15]. Long Barn. Sale at Ebury St. See L. first at Pat’s; attend the sale, rather fun.

July 16. 34 Half Moon St. L. comes this afternoon. As she has not told D. where she is, he telephones to her after dinner, and he forces her to go up to London. She misses the last train, so I motor her in, without luggage or anything; I get a room here, while she goes to the Curzon Hotel.

July 17. Beacon Hotel, Hindhead. L. comes round to me before 8 this morning and says she has had a scene with D.T. [Denys Trefusis], and has left him, so after seeing Pat, lunching at our little Rubens hotel, we motor down here. O Christ, how I long for peace at Long Barn! but she is in such distress of mind & so seedy into the bargain that I must give way to her. It is lovely here, but I had been so looking forward to being at home. However … She writes D. a note asking him to see her for a final discussion on Monday.

July 18. Moorlands Hotel, Hindhead. We transfer to this hotel, as it is nicer. We go for a lovely walk across the moors. Very happy.

July 19. Long Barn. Go for another walk this morning, lovely day. No answer from D., so we motor up to London after tea, and L. gets him on the telephone; he is very rude to her, so she motors down here with me.

July 20. Long Barn. L. very seedy this morning, so I take her up to London.

It seems that I am never to have any peace!

B.M. comes to dinner on her way to London from Brighton

July 22. Sumurun, Deal. Race this morning in a heavy wind. Brittania wins. Anchor off Deal; horribly rough.

July 23. Sail round from Deal to Dover this morning in a very rough sea after a beastly night of rocking about in a swell. On the way to Dover our dinghy gets washed adrift by a specially heavy sea. One of the crew gets his head cut open by a block. Altogether an adventurous trip.

July 24. Long Barn. Alone here. Writing an autobiography, started today.

July 27. Long Barn. Go up to London and lunch with L. and see Pat for a short time. B.M. stops here to dinner, she is specially charming tonight.

(Jean de Gaigneron, he paints and I write.)

August 5. Hill Street. Long Barn. A horrible day. Tell L. on the telephone that I am going to Albania [trip with Harold], which brings her here by the next train. She arrives ill & goes straight to bed. H. comes back in the evening & she persuades him not to go. Everything too hellish.

August 6. Long Barn. Ben’s birthday. Give him Meccano. L. leaves in the morning & goes back to Sonning. Perfectly miserable.… There seems to be nothing but misery of one sort and another for everyone.

August 7. Long Barn. We were to have started today at 2 for Albania!

[Between August 8 and 12.] Moorlands Hotel, Hindhead. Spend all day in bed at Long Barn, and motor across here to join L. in the evening—a lovely drive & perfect weather.

August 13. Hindhead. Lovely day. Go for a picnic with L. Happy.

August 16. Moorlands Hotel, Hindhead. Come across here by train, and retrieve the motor on the way. Have got 5 days with her.

August 17. Marden’s Head, Uckfield. Motor as far as this, where the car breaks down. Don’t mind much.

[Probably August 18.] Mermaid Inn, Rye. Leave Uckfield after lunch, and motor here, which we stop and look at. the moat is dry for the moment, which detracts from its beauty L. likes it, but doesn’t like Rye—how instinctively right she always is about things!

August 28. Sherfield, Basingstoke. Spend the day pottering about. Harold comes down in the evening. I like Dottie but can’t stick smug Gerry. [Dorothy Wellesley, née Ashton, with whom she would later travel to Teheran; Gerry Wellesley, her husband; Sherfield, their home.]

August 30. Brighton. Spend the day in London with L. who is a little better, and who leaves in the evening for Holland. Come down here & find Ben & Nigel very happy.

September 4. Sumurun. H. writing a novel, with his usual indefatigable energy.

September 10. At sea I sleep on deck, in the gig, a glorious night, quite calm, studded with stars—never liked anything better, except that the swell is rather a bore as the boom and sail and blocks make such a row banging about.

September 15. Brighton. Ben and Nigel well, & still here. Most successful week on Sumurun. Have simply loved it.

B.M. is having financial rows … O god, this bloody money means so much to her.

September 17. Long Barn. It pours, gardening, perfect weather.

B.M. “of an angelic sweetness.”

September 24. Stratford. Out shooting all day, a very jolly day. In the evening 12 farmers come to dinner, and Dada makes a speech and so do I!

October 9. Sonning. Go for a walk with M. Harwood in the morning over the Downs. Come up and go straight across London to meet L. at Paddington, she having just arrived from Holland. Come down here together. So happy.

October 11. Sonning. L. a little better. So happy.

October 12. Sonning. Spend the day in bed.

October 13. Hill Street. Come up after lunch, after four really perfect days without one jarring moment. Dine with L. and Harold.

1921

April 16. Snow! “The snow!”

July 21. Sherfield. A lovely day; D’s monkey is too attractive.

July 23. Sailing Sumurun. Have a roughish sail up from Ryde.

July 24. A lovely day; we sail about.

August 2. Long Barn. John Drinkwater and I read each other’s poems aloud after dinner.

August 3. Sumurun broke her mizzen boom yesterday racing for the King’s Cup; Harold loved it; there was a big wind.

August 5. Long Barn. D. [Dorothy Wellesley] comes to stay.

August 6. Ben’s birthday. He is too sweet.… Ben comes down to dinner for the first time in his life, has champagne, and falls into a drunken slumber.

August 7. Long Barn. The house catches fire in the morning & we have great fun putting it out. Play lots of tennis.

August 11. Finish a story called “The Bell Buoy,” for the New Statesman. Have got the proofs of my poems & have been working on these. Are they good? Are they futile? I don’t know.

August 12. Long Barn. Begin writing a new book.

August 25. Long Barn. Alone; work hard.

December 18. Long Barn. H. began to work at his book on Tennyson; I read “Reddin” from the beginning, and was infinitely depressed by it. [Reddin was a topic she worked on as a book, as a play—both unfinished—and as a poem: Reddin, an old, wise architect-sculptor, “gentle, mild and sure,” understanding the “unimportance of life,” surrounded by disciples, building a cathedral on a cliff as a monument to his ideals.]

December 19. L. comes over from Paris tomorrow.

1922

[Mostly Vita used this diary as an engagement calendar for this year, listing tennis, lunches, and parties.]

August 6. Ben’s birthday. He dines downstairs. Gets le vin gai. VERY sweet. Give him a pony.

August 7. Play tennis most of the day & discuss poetry with Eddy. Find him devitalising.

August 8. Got seven new dogs—(one born since above entry). Watch the whole process; much impressed by manifestation of instinct—platitudinous but cosmic.

August 10. Sail to Portland. Sulky and homesick (not seasick).

August 11. Sail to Dartmouth. Home tomorrow! and my puppies.

August 13. H. depressed because it is the end of his leave. Play tennis. Give the four children rides on the pony. Corrected proofs of Knole [Knole and the Sackvilles].

1924

January 24. Quarrel with Pat in full swing; letters exchanged, she threatening lawsuits, & I being rather pompous. [Pat Dansey, Violet Trefusis’s lover, a mythomaniac and madly jealous over Vita, to whom she gave a car, threatened suicide over her other lovers, and persisted in such fabrications as offering Vita nonexistent shares in the Morning Post and declaring she was leaving everything to Vita at her death.]

January 3. Went home with April, and dined home alone with H; talked to him about Pat, & finally wrote her a conciliatory letter. So bored with this row, and have moments of wishing most people at the bottom of the sea.

January 4. 34 Hill Street. Lunched at Portland Place, and in the afternoon took Ben, Nigel, Valerian, and Michael Montague to the Drury Lane Melodrama, shipwreck, motor accidents, fire, & a horse race. All very thrilling. Came home to find B.M., Gerald Berners, & Desmond McCarthy dinner; told murder stories till 12:30. He asks me to review for the Statesman & Empire Review, whose literary side he has just taken on.

January 6. Knole. Walked over to the cottage and back in the morning. I lay down in the afternoon, and between sleeping and waking started writing a poem about woods.

January 8. Ben came to me in tears because he had been copying out the Golden Journey & Nigel had torn it up. He has a real passion for it, and copies it out, learns it by heart. I shan’t force this taste, but let it take its own course. He loves that and the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” so he has begun well; also the Bible.

I spent the morning in bed, going on in the poem about woods … Ben had a crise de nerfs, so I sent him to bed for the afternoon—not as a punishment, but to rest and recover!

January 10. 34 Hill St. Geoffrey rang me up … at 7 he came for me, we dined at the Berkeley, & came back here afterwards; a bewildering and not very real evening. Rainy London; taxis; champagne, confusion. [Geoffrey Scott, who continued to hope Vita would go off with him; later, his marriage broke up over his affair with Vita.]

January 31. 34 Hill St. An awful agitated day. Lunched with B.M. to meet Mrs. Spears, whom I liked particularly. B.M. came back to Hill St. with me & flew into a rage about the plate-warmer, she left the house in a fury. I descended to the basement & cried for two hours, on the kitchen table. Advent of Geoffrey; consolation from him and Lily. Advent of Ozzie; laughter restored to life.

Had seven to dinner … Felt like death, or rather, like flu.

February 1. Lunched with B.M. who was apparently unconscious of anything having happened: Talked to Sybil [Geoffrey Scott’s wife] & tried to enlist her help in diminishing talk about me and G. [Geoffrey Scott]

February 2. Long Barn. Nice here, but draughty. Dined alone, & the puppies ate my little cold joint while I was answering the telephone.

February 3. 34 Hill St. A real spring day at the cottage; we sat out on the step in the sun, read Yeats, and were quite warm, surrounded by Canute, Wolf, Swend, & Enid [her dogs]. Tulips, hyacinths, & Spiraea coming up, aubrietia just beginning, lilacs in full bud.

February 7. Dined with Clive Bell. Ethel Sands there and Desmond McCarthy. Went to Hammersmith to hear “The Way of the World”; a queer wedge of people in the dress circle: Berners next to me, Goosens, Geog of Russia, Lytton Strachey, the Jowetts, and a lot of others. Then to Mrs. Hutchinson’s at Chiswick, where poor Desmond fell downstairs and broke his kneecap. This cast a certain gloom over the party. Came home, giving Duff Cooper a lift … to my astonishment he made love to me—I don’t suppose I see him more than once in two years. Altogether a queer evening.

February 13. Knole. Spent the day alone again, but rather better, and not sorry to be shut away from a biting east wind; with Swend and Canute and books. Dover’s “The Patrician,” which seemed to me the worst of all—and incidents dragged in by the scruff of the neck just to give the author an opportunity to show off his fine writing or to bring in a moral point—and of course the morality maddened me—it all seemed so queerly out of date. Read “Les caves du Vatican” [André Gide’s novel] which bored me surprisingly; and Aristophanes, which makes me laugh always. For the rest, lay very happy watching a fitful sun play along the walls of the green court. Got up for dinner and beat Dada at chess. Harold had to stay up.

February 22. Went down to Richmond by underground to dine with the Woolfs; in the kitchen as usual; Raymond Mortimer there. Virginia delicious as ever; how right she is when she says love makes everyone a bore, but that the excitement of life lies in the béguins [initial infatuations] and the “little moves” nearer to people—but perhaps she feels this because she’s an experimentalist in humanity and has no grande passion in her life …

March 16. Went to the cottage with H. and Nigel.… Niggs so nice and intelligent, with a pronounced taste for the practical and the topical. Anything to do with organization or government interests him.

April 2. Long Barn. In raptures at being home.

April 21. Easter Monday. A lovely, hot day, 70 in the shade. The hedges are rushing out, but the trees are still black—a queer effect of winter trees on a really summer’s day. Down to get the bee orchids, and afterwards to Nigel’s woods. A very happy day—marred only by a post-prandial argument about one’s duty to one’s relations—only Harold maintaining that one has one to relations as such.

April 22. B.M. very sweet, & brought red daisies, as (I suspect) an olive branch. Pat arrived just before she left. Pat in a maddening mood, and I was thankful when Ronnie [Ronald Balfour] came back. Harold was kept up in London. Went for a walk with Ronnie across the fields, having quarreled with Pat. Dinner was strained, but R. played up magnificently. Pat collapsed after dinner and was so pathetic—poor little thing.

April 23. Spent quite a happy day with Pat, gardening—but it is cold again … H. came down.

April 26. B.M. saying I neglected her. Such balls.

1925

March 23. Dined with Mario Lanza.

April 9. Sherfield. Tennis talk. Read Tchekov.

November 7. Long Barn. A lovely warm golden day. Sat in the sun all the morning. Went to tea with Eddy—Leonard [Woolf] went back to London, Virginia remained.

! [in circle.]

V. told me about re-reading the first 30 pages of “To the Lighthouse” & how she had had to rewrite them.

November 10. Spent the evening with Virginia, dinner with the Drinkwaters. Very dull.

November 24. Monday Went up to see Virginia.… After to a party at Vanessa Bell’s.

November 25. Went to Virginia in the evening. Went afterward to Clive’s rooms, found Virginia there.

November 27. Virginia came to Mount St. to see me.

November 29. Spent the afternoon with Virginia.

December 4. Long Barn. Virginia came.

December 5. Alone all day with Virginia.

December 6. Went up with V. in the evening.

December 17. Alone.

December 20. [X at top of page] Spent the afternoon with Virginia; dinner with her at Mount St.

1928

October 1. The 15th anniversary of our wedding day!

October 2. Went up [to London] after breakfast and broadcasted (Modern Poetry) at 6 [lecture included in this volume]. Went to see Margaret and Frederick [Margaret and Frederick Voigt, later divorced]. Dined with Clive who gave me the mss of his book on “Proust.” Raymond [Mortimer] there, and Frances Marshall [later Frances Partridge]. Staying with Raymond and Paul Hyslop.

October 4. Long Barn. A perfectly lovely day, & quite warm. Walked across the fields with the dogs. Virginia & Leonard came to lunch, bringing Pinker and her puppies. April came to dinner & after dinner I lectured on the Bakhtiari Road to the 7 Oaks Literary Society. [Her book Twelve Days was published in 1928.]

October 5. Alone.

October 30. London. Lunched with Hugh Walpole. Virginia there. Conversation all about the “Well of Loneliness” [Radclyffe Hall’s lesbian novel, banned in 1928]. Went to see Pat. Broadcasted at 6 and then went to see Virginia. Dinner with Clive: Vanessa, Duncan, Virginia, Leonard, Beatrice Meyer, Frankie [Birrell, owner of bookstore].

December 2. Long Barn. Collected Nigel & John St. Aubyn in the morning & we went to Christ Church where Nigel was sick. Lunched with John Sparrow.

December 31. Delighted to see the last of 1928.

1929

March [?]. A peaceful day. Took Ben to skate on the lake. Cold but fine. Nothing out in the garden at all, not even a bit of aubrieta & scarcely any bulbs showing.

March 20. Hilda came for the night. [Hilda Matheson, Director of Talks at the BBC, “Stoker” to Vita. They would travel together in the French Savoy in July 1929.] I tidy up the house.

March 21. H. painted the front gate & cut down some things in the wood & made a bonfire. Alone all day. I fear that poor Niggs has got whooping cough.

March 22. Long Barn. Alone. Worried about Harold’s cold so rang him up but he was out. Started to write my Marvell essay [Andrew Marvell, in Faber’s “Poets on Poets” series, published 1929].

March 23. April came to stay, after lunch. Went down in the wood, and my bonfire set fire to the grass all over the Hawthornden. [Vita’s “The Land” won the Hawthornden prize in 1927; “The Garden” would win the Heinemann prize in 1946.] Hadji rang me up in the morning.

April 24. April here. Sat in the sun & read poetry.

Motored Ben, Boski [the children’s governess], and Nigel to Newhaven, from where they go to Dieppe. Stopped at Rodmell on the way back & lunched with Virginia and Leonard; saw their new motor & their new plot of land.

April 28. Virginia came down to dine and sleep. Heard the nightingales for the first time this year.

April 29. Virginia left before lunch. Told me about going to Greenwich in a rage. Hilda came to dine & sleep. Nightingales again, but a great wind sprang up & it turned cold at night, after one really warm & lovely day.

April 29. Virginia left before lunch.

May 8. Long Barn. Alone.

May 9. Saw Hilda for a minute at the BBC. Went to Virginia and we went to Hampstead to see Keats’ house. She told me how she had discussed modern poetry last night with Blunden and how they had decided that poets today were too thin—not pouring out a flood of nonsense & poetry all in the same muddle. She also told me about Laura Riding throwing herself out of the window.

May 16. Lunched with Miss Compton-Burnett [Ivy Compton-Burnett, the novelist] & Miss Jourdain, Leigh there. Went out with Virginia. We went to see the old Roman Baths near the Strand. Broadcast at 7 [her regular broadcasts on gardening].

May 18. Long Barn. Hilda left. Went over the Penns to see the wild lilies of the valley and stayed to dine there. [Dorothy Wellesley had purchased Penns-in-the-Rocks, at Withyham, Sussex, in 1928; Yeats and Pound visited her there.]

May 27. April came over and brought me some little black pansies. Nigel goes to Eton for his scholarship exams.

July 17. Hotel des Glaciers, Pralognon, Savoie. Arrived at Moustiers at 9 A.M. Came up to Pralognon by autobus.

June 7. Alone. Finished Marvell [Her small book on Alexander Marvell].

July 18. Refuge Felix Fauré, Col de la Vanoise. Left Pralognon at 9:30. Dawdled up to the Alpine Club hut, lunching on the way. Very hot indeed. Lovely flowers: mauve & white violas in sheets.

Heavenly air, 8,000 feet up. One ought to do the walk in 3 to 4 hours, but we did not arrive till 4. More thunder in the evening & some rain. Wrote letters lying out on the grass.

July 19. Hotel Parisien, Val d’Isère. Left the hut at 8 and reached Val d’Isère at 7, a perfect day, hot & sunny. The first hour takes one across the col—grassy upland, with little lakes, and then a long stormy descent of half an hour to the valley of the Liesse, passing the chalets of Entre deux Eaux; Byronic gorge, some snow. Long but gradual climb up the valley, fewer flowers in Wilmington (because it is a north bank?), cross the river at the head of the valley, then a steep short climb, and then down to a lake, were we lunched at 12:45. Poor track to the Col de Fressa. Down across meadows (vanilla orchis) and very steep descent to Val d’Isère. Thunder threatening. Very fine view of La Grande Motte from Col de la Liesse, & of Mont Blanc from Col de Liesse.

July 20. La Curé, Val d’Isère. Last night. Slept in hotel annex, “as there were two priests staying with the curé”… Went for a very small walk. Reading the life of Lady Byron, which thrills me.

July 21. Val d’Isère. We took our luncheon up onto the hill & lunched on a ledge there under a little pine which smelt good. Hilda bathed in a waterfall. It became so thunderous that we had to come home after lunch.

July 22. [first three lines scratched out] A lazy day, we took our lunch out to some trees by the Isère. I read Lady Byron and finished a poem about storm in the mountains. Lots of crickets, & peasants gathering hay.

July 23. [first three lines scratched out] X. We walked up here in the morning and spent the afternoon lying on the hillside in the very hot sun. 9,300 feet. Excellent chalet.

July 24. Col d’Isère. Spent a lazy day, the morning in bed, the afternoon lying on the hillside until it became stormy. Then they lit the stove for us & I wrote my novel in the dining room.

July 26. Worked at my novel.

July 31. Nigel comes home. Bourg St. Maurice, a steep road a lacets, through Tignes. Took the train at Bourg, changed at Chambéry & again at Culoz, to Geneva at 4. Had an ice. Found a bookstore in the Rue de Genève with “The Heir” in it [her short story of 1922, published by Heinemann that year, later reprinted with Seducers in Ecuador]. Left at 6 & got to Basel at 10:15. Lovely view of the mountains from the train. Left Hilda at Geneva, to catch the Paris train at 9:30.

August 3. Hotel zur Post. Huge French tricolor was still floating over the Rhine.… We worked on the balcony all afternoon, Hadji at his father’s book, I at my broadcasting for next Thursday.

August 5 [?]. Train to Ostende. I sat at the Cologne-Ostende station and wrote my novel.

August 11. Penns. Went for a nice walk with April over the high fields. Vanessa [Bell] and Roger Fry came to lunch.