Memorable Lines: Virginia Woolf
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
Portrait by Vanessa Bell
Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change that it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness, how we go down into the pit of death and feel the waters of annihilation close above our heads and wake thinking to find ourselves in the presence of the angels and the harpers when we have a tooth out and come to the surface in the dentist’s arm-chair and confuse his “Rinse the mouth – rinse the mouth” with the greeting of the Deity stooping from the floor of Heaven to welcome us – when we think of this, as we are so frequently forced to think of it, it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature.
From “On Being Ill,” by Virginia Woolf. First published by the Hogarth Press in 1930, now available in a facsimile edition from the Paris Press, with an introduction by Hermione Lee.
And here (thanks to Andris Taskans via Penn Kemp) is the only recording of Virginia Woolf’s voice:
Last but not least, some images of titles up for auction, should you have an extra $10,000 or so to spare. , Thanks to Nigel Beale for this.
