Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-02-21
Artists Loo
Of d Journey
Up Purnossus
A Writer'S Diary
BY Virginia Woolf.
fHdrcourt, Brace; $50

q
BY Virginia Woolf.
EHarcourt, Brace: So
Reviewed by Mary MeGrory
This diary plunges into crit
icsm. casual. yet so piercing as
to make Virginia Woolf q for
midable figure in contemporary
letters had she never written q
line Of her remarkable novels.
On the first page she is
writing Of Christina Rossetti.
FIRST she starved herself Of
love, which meant also life:
then Of poetry in difference to
what she thought her, religion
demanded. She starved into
austere emaciation a very fine
original gift" OF Byron: HE
could be laughed at only by
q woman, and they worshiped
instead" OF Millions PARA
disc Lost: "Has any great
poem ever let in so little light
upon ones own joys and sor-
rows?" Later, contemplating
Hazlitt, she complains, IT am
not sure that ! have speared
that little eel in the middle
that marrow-which Is ones
object In criticism" This. diary.
which covers q period Of %
years of intensive reading and
writing, instances no such
failures.
Too Personal
The emphasis in the title is
on writer's" for Mrs. Woolf's
husband Leonard, who is also
her editor, explains that the
complete diary was "too per-
sonal to be published as a
whole during the lifetime Of
many people referred to in it,"
Amid such riches as are Of
fered here. 1t seems greedy to
want more; but it seems not
quite fair to Virginia Woolf
to show her only as the self
absorbed writer. Maybe the
full record-as in the recently
published letters of Flaubert,
to whom she compares her tor
lures Of creation-would not
radically alter the portrait.
Still. as the artist emerges, you
cannot help wondering about
the woman. her religious and
political convictions. for in
stance.
Even so, no one interested in
literature will want to pass up
this enlightening record. We
watch her eagerly seizing an
idea, rejoicing at the long i'm
mersion Of the first rapturous
writing, the distasteful revi-
sion. the dubious presentation
of the manuscript first to her
husband then to her sister.
the reading of the proofs,
then the season of doubts"
that follows the launching Of
each novel. She studies the re-
views: THE Zines mumbleS
and murmurs like man suck
ing pebbles.
ToIks With Friends
A short interval, and it has
begun again usually. it is in
teresting to note with the
character of one of her init
mates. Between times, she
talks with her friends. Eliot.
v. Sackville West, Lytton
Strachey, Morgan Forster. She
goes to visit Thomas Hardy,
who would rather talk about
his dog than his poetry. She
travels. She watches the war
come.
All the time she Is reading,
and how omnivorously. and
how perceptively. She comes
upon Joyce's ulysses" II feel
that myriads of tiny bullets
pepper one and spatter one;
but one does not get one deadly
wound straight in the face as
from Tolstoy."
Those who con these pages
for hints of Mrs. Woolf's fatal
walk into the river in 1941. will
not find them here. She had
her moods, her vexations. But
as an artist, she records "in-
toxicating days" which sound
as though they might have in
sulated her against the human
despair which seized her on
that night during the war. Per-
haps one day, when the whole
diary Is published, we shall I'M
derstand. In the meantime, we
can only wonder at the illumi-
nations of a brilliant creative
mind cast on her own and
other peoples writing.
Russian Influence on
American History
BY Clarence A. Manning.
Library Publishers: $685.
DR.. Manning, professor of
Slavic history at Columbia
University, traces Russian eff
forts to expand on the North
American continent which
ended with the sale of Alaska
to the United States in 1867.
B. F.
u. NJ: Today and
Tomorrow
BY Eleanor Roosevelt and
william De Witt. Harper; 49,
An explanation of the or
ganization and work of the
United Nations which includes
answers to questions most fire.
quently asked and basic docu-
ments such as the Charter and