[Vwoolf] "Jacob's Room": crux #7

[Andre Gerard]

The voice, in part, at least, could be the voice of *The Times*.  Such an
interpretation would give additional resonance to "imprinting" and "Papers
accumulated."   In "John Delane" (1908), Woolf wrote:  "to-morrow a voice
speaks with authority in Court and market and Council Chamber.  But whose
voice is it?  It is not the voice of Mr. Delane, the urbane gentleman who
rides along Fleet Street on his cob, nor is it the voice of Dr Woodham, the
learned Fellow of Jesus.  It has the authority of Government and the sting
of independence; Downing Street trembles at it and the people of England
give ear to it, for such is the voice of

*The Times."  *
Virginia Woolf had a deep and sharply critical interest in *The Times*.
Her ideas about *The Times* owe much to Leslie Stephen's boisterous attack on
*The Times* in *The Times on the American  War *(1865).  That work, in
turn, as Stephen openly acknowledged, was informed by Kinglake's attack on *The
Times* in *The Invasion of the Crimea* (1863).  Woolf was well aware of
Kinglake's book and Kinglake's criticism of *The Times*.  In *Between the
Acts*, Isa notices "Kinglake's *Crimea"* just before she reads *The Times*'
story about the rape.

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 6:14 AM, Stuart N. Clarke <
stuart.n.clarke at btinternet.com> wrote:

>
> I think you’ll like this one!
>
> ‘A *voice* kept remarking that Prime Ministers and Viceroys spoke in the
> Reichstag; entered Lahore; said that the Emperor travelled; in Milan they
> rioted; said there were rumours in Vienna; said that the Ambassador at
> Constantinople had audience with the Sultan; the fleet was at Gibraltar.
> The *voice* continued, imprinting on the faces of the clerks in Whitehall
> (Timothy Durrant was one of them) something of its own inexorable gravity,
> as they listened, deciphered, wrote down. Papers accumulated . . .
>
> ‘The *voice* spoke plainly in the square quiet room with heavy tables,
> where one elderly man made notes on the margin of type-written sheets, his
> silver-topped umbrella leaning against the bookcase. . . .
>
> ‘“The Kaiser,” the far-away *voice* remarked in Whitehall, “received me
> in audience.”’ (near end of ch. xiii)
>
> What voice?  Sir Edward Grey’s? Asquith’s? The telephone? Harold
> Nicolson’s father’s? Morse code? Wireless telegraphy?  Or is it just
> messages pouring in?
>
> Some metaphorical uses of “voice(s)” elsewhere in *JR*:
>
> ‘The worn *voices* of clocks repeated the fact of the hour all night
> long.’ (end of ch. viii)
>
> ‘Yet even in this light the legends on the tombstones could be read,
> brief *voices* saying, “I am Bertha Ruck,” “I am Tom Gage.” . . . the
> tablet set up in 1780 to the Squire of the parish who relieved the poor,
> and believed in God—so the measured *voice* goes on down the marble
> scroll, as though it could impose itself upon time and the open air.’
> (end of ch. xi)
> Stuart
>
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