[Vwoolf] Memories: Cecil Woolf

[Pat Laurence]

Visiting 1 Mornington Place. Books are piled all the way up the stairs when
you climb to the second floor Bloomsbury parlor with Cecil, and on your way
you pass a wall of Jean’s elegant brimmed hats, yellow and red feathers
fluttering. Books and feathers: I can’t think of Cecil without Jean as he
led quite a versatile life and she so enjoyed sharing it with him. He was a
modest, energetic and tough-minded bookman, a gentleman, a publisher. “Like
Leonard,” he said, I published my wife’s first book.” When they first met
in the British Library –years ago--he urged Jean to write her dissertation
about World War I poets that has led to her stellar career as a biographer,
and a series of World War I poets that he established. But she is one of
the many, mainly women, that he urged to write, establishing for the
Virginia Woolf Society, a series of attractive Bloomsbury Heritage booklets
(now 80) reflecting the original perspectives of its members, and,
importantly, carrying on Virginia and Leonard’s Hogarth legacy.

It was delightful having literary conversations in the evening at their
home with Jean’s usual roast and vegetables (roast beef, his favorite), the
kitchen filled with warm smells, and the meal served on the old wooden
Hogarth Press table of Virginia and Leonard.  His hearty appreciation of
food could not escape one’s notice, and always the generous host, he kept
one’s glass full and urged the sampling of his favorite Stilton or a
delectable chocolate.

Piled high in the adjoining room was Cecil’s overflowing desk—papers,
books, folders, proofs--out of which miraculously emerged Cecil Woolf
publications. And across from Cecil’s workspace, in the corner is a chair
where Jean writes her biographies or sews, altering one of her gorgeous
gowns. Cecil was versatile man, once a financier and a book collector, and,
handy, as he could fix plumbing and electrical systems and climb ladders
into his 90s. Yet mainly a well-read literary man: Jean remembers him
sitting in the adjoining room with four of their five children, all under
ten, crowded round listening to him reading aloud “The Rhyme of the Ancient
Mariner.” “Who else,” she says, “would do that?”

Generous and encouraging, Cecil often had a quizzical look, and tilted his
head sideways when listening. Or playful, a wry smile would appear as he
listened to one of Jean’s strong opinions, proud in his shy way of her
pluckiness. Or, sometimes, he would turn his head, look at you directly
through his horn-rimmed glasses and say, “Why don’t you write that.”
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