[Vwoolf] Woolf and Johnson?

Jeremy Hawthorn jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no
Tue Aug 1 05:12:00 EDT 2017


I was struck by the quotation on Drew Shannon's e-mail: "I meant to 
write about death, only life came breaking in as usual." -- Virginia 
Woolf, Diary, 17 February 1922.

It reminded me of Boswell's account of a conversation between Samuel 
Johnson and his "old fellow-collegian" Edwards, in 1778, given in the 
/Life/. In the conversation Edwards remarks:

"You are a philosopher, Dr. Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be a 
philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in."

Has anyone remarked on this before? Incidentally, in /Mrs Dalloway/, it 
is death that breaks in on the life of the party . . .

Jeremy H.


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