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Your letter from Trieste came this morningβbut why is it that you think I don't feel, or that I make phrases? Those βlovely phrasesβ you say, which rob things of reality? Just the opposite, Vita; Always, always, always I try to say what I feel.
Will you then believe me, that after you went out last Tuesdayβexactly a week agoβthat I travelled into the slums of Bloomsbury, only to find a barrel organ? Alas, it did not make me cheerful. And nothing important has happened ever sinceβlife has somehow became dull, and damp.
Lovely phrases? I have been dull, Vita. I have missed you. I do miss you. I shall miss you. And if you don't believe it, youβre a longeared owl and ass.
Somehow, as you get further away, I become less able to visualize you; and think of you with backgrounds of camels and pyramids, which made me a little shy.
Then you will board on a ship: Captains and gold lace, of portholes and planks. Then Bombay. Then Gertrude Bell, Baghdadβbut we'll leave that be, and concentrate upon the present.
What have I done, Vita? Imagine a poor wretch sent back to school. I have been very industrious. For one thing, you must have disorganised my domesticity, so that directly you went, a torrent of duties discharged themselves on top of me.
Every time I get inside a shop, all the dust in my soul rises and just how can I write?
To tell you the truth, I have been very excited, writing. I have never written so fast [To the Lighthouse]. It may be illusion, but here I am rung up: Grizzle barks, settles in againβit is a soft blue evening, and the lights are being lit in Southampton Row.
I may tell you that when I saw crocuses in the Sqre yesterday, I thought, May: Vita.
But its true I write rather quickβall in a splash; then feel, thank God, thatβs it.
But one thingβI will not let you make me such an egoist. After all, why don't we talk about your writing? Why is it always mine, mine, and mine? For this reason, I expectβthat after all you're abundant in so many ways, and I,
οΈοΈ οΈοΈ a mere pea tied to a stick.
Do you see how closely I am writing? That is because I want to say a great many things, yet not to bore you, and I think, if I write with little to no space in between, Vita won't see how long this letter is, and she won't be bored.
Have I seen anyone? Yes. A great numerous people, but mostly for business purposes. Oh, the grind of the Press has been rather roaring in my ears. So many manuscripts to read, poems to set up, and letters to write, and Doris Daglish to tea.
Now Vita's getting bored in Bombay; but itβs a bald, prosaic place, full of apes and rocks. I think: please tell me; you can't think how, being a clever woman, as we admit,
οΈοΈοΈοΈ I make every fragment you tell me bloom and blossom in my mind.
As for the people I've seen, I've fallen in love with noneβbut thats not exactly my line. Did you guess that? I'm not cold; not a humbug; not weakly; not sentimental.
What I am; I want you to tell me.
Write, dearest Vita, the letters you make up in the train. I will answer everything. Couldn't you write me lots more letters and post them at odd stations as you pass through?
But of course, to return to your letter, I always knew about your standoffishness. Only I said to myself, I insist upon kindness. With this aim in view, I came to Long Barn.
Open the top button of your jersey and you will see, nestling inside, a lively squirrel, with the most inquisitive habits, but a dear creature all the sameβ
Your Virginia
Are you perfectly well? Tell me.
β
Samael
Posted first in @SHllXUN
[Friday, November 6th, 2020. 12:35 PM.]
W/N: this threadβs origin is fragments from The Letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf, altered selectively to the writerβs predilection.