[Vwoolf] Woolf & tramping girls

Sat Mar 1 08:44:08 EST 2025

And in this she agreed with William Cullen Bryant, who admonished his 
aspiring-poet nephew not to write about skylarks, a bird he had neither 
seen nor heard.

On 3/1/2025 4:29 AM, Jeremy Hawthorn via Vwoolf wrote:
> That’s another wonderful quotation! I was so struck by it that I did a 
> bit of random Googling looking for uses of the word “boisterous” by 
> her. I found online an essay by Andrew McNeillie entitled “Virginia 
> Woolf’s America” (The Dublin Review,
> That’s another wonderful quotation! I was so struck by it that I did a 
> bit of random Googling looking for uses of the word “boisterous” by 
> her. I found online an essay by Andrew McNeillie entitled “Virginia 
> Woolf’s America” (The Dublin Review, Winter 2001-2). The following 
> quotation I take from this source. I thought that in addition to using 
> “boisterous” it also serves to remind us - some of us - of what we 
> admire in the United States.
>
> “On the contrary, America for Woolf is a positive space, a place of 
> democracy and futurity, of largely enabling modernity, but one 
> hampered by European traditions, by the haunting shades of English 
> literature, by the want among Americans of ‘a language of their own’ 
> as she characteristically put it in her review ‘Melodious Meditations’ 
> in the TLS of 8 February 1917. There we encounter too Woolf’s 
> recognition that ‘the boisterous spirit of democracy’ must find its 
> voice in writing.”
>
> Professor Emeritus
> Department of Language and Literature
> NTNU
> 7491 Trondheim
> Norway
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Fra:* Neverow, Vara S. <neverowv1 at southernct.edu>
> *Sendt:* fredag 28. februar 2025 22:02
> *Til:* Sarah M. Hall <smhall123 at yahoo.co.uk>; Anne Fernald 
> <fernald at fordham.edu>; Jeremy Hawthorn <jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no>
> *Kopi:* vwoolf listserve <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> *Emne:* Re: [Vwoolf] Woolf & tramping girls
> Greetings,
>
> Earlier in /Jacob's Room /there is a passage where Woolf describes two 
> young women crossing Waterloo Bridge that is similar to the longer 
> reflection. They are not hiking, but they are very boisterous:
>
> "On the other hand, though the wind is rough and blowing in their 
> faces, those girls there, striding hand in hand, shouting out a song, 
> seem to feel neither cold nor shame. They are hatless. They triumph."
>
> While there is no mention of their clothing, the length of these young 
> women's skirts probably would be at mid-shin, not at the calf. Later 
> in the 1920s, the calf-length skirts became fashionable.
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://vintagedancer.com/1920s/1920s-day-dresses/__;!!KGKeukY!3lGeqhcdaHnYOTegmAxTqd2iGVrCBD3OofYHJ0h9BkgBsUcvZufuqniuMjLCwvUQ85waC5kGxhJhJkqaptt_B2V4cZI$  
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://vintagedancer.com/1920s/1920s-day-dresses/__;!!KGKeukY!wwDW1Pno07YYh3swnYKb4fwZEWcxMj8HsYqeF5bUqlnHHzxOnhJIjDq6E8v5ALpRVfDWNwTVqVKFaWp0WplZrMaaFa1vB-o$>
>
> Of possible interest regarding the clothes women wore while hiking, 
> mountaineering, etc.:
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2021/06/17/celebrating-early-women-mountaineers/__;!!KGKeukY!3lGeqhcdaHnYOTegmAxTqd2iGVrCBD3OofYHJ0h9BkgBsUcvZufuqniuMjLCwvUQ85waC5kGxhJhJkqaptt_4zziek8$  
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2021/06/17/celebrating-early-women-mountaineers/__;!!KGKeukY!wwDW1Pno07YYh3swnYKb4fwZEWcxMj8HsYqeF5bUqlnHHzxOnhJIjDq6E8v5ALpRVfDWNwTVqVKFaWp0WplZrMaasWOF_G4$>
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://thevintagetraveler.wordpress.com/tag/hiking-2/__;!!KGKeukY!3lGeqhcdaHnYOTegmAxTqd2iGVrCBD3OofYHJ0h9BkgBsUcvZufuqniuMjLCwvUQ85waC5kGxhJhJkqaptt_l4RG8xU$  
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://thevintagetraveler.wordpress.com/tag/hiking-2/__;!!KGKeukY!wwDW1Pno07YYh3swnYKb4fwZEWcxMj8HsYqeF5bUqlnHHzxOnhJIjDq6E8v5ALpRVfDWNwTVqVKFaWp0WplZrMaaDVKZIqE$>
>
> Vara
>
> Vara Neverow
> (she/her/hers)
> Professor, English Department
> Editor, /Virginia Woolf Miscellany/
> Southern Connecticut State University
> New Haven, CT 06515
> 203-392-6717
> neverowv1 at southernct.edu
>
> /I acknowledge that Southern Connecticut //State University was built 
> on traditional territory of the indigenous peoples and nations of the 
> Paugussett and Quinnipiac peoples./////
>
> /
> /
>
> *Recent Publications:*
>
> Lead editor, /Virginia Woolf: Critical and Primary Sources 
> /(Bloomsbury, 2020; with Jeanne Dubino, Kathryn Simpson, and Gill 
> Lowe); Editor, Volume One, 1975-1984, /Virginia Woolf: Critical and 
> Primary Sources/ (Bloomsbury, 2020); Co-editor, /The Edinburgh 
> Companion to Virginia Woolf and Contemporary Global 
> Literature/ (Edinburgh, 2020; with Jeanne Dubino, Paulina Pająk, 
> Catherine Hollis, and Celiese Lypka)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu> on behalf of Jeremy 
> Hawthorn via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> *Sent:* Friday, February 28, 2025 6:51 AM
> *To:* Sarah M. Hall <smhall123 at yahoo.co.uk>; Anne Fernald 
> <fernald at fordham.edu>
> *Cc:* vwoolf listserve <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> *Subject:* Re: [Vwoolf] Woolf & tramping girls
> Yes, a wonderful passage, one that displays how for Woolf 
> self-analysis can have a thoroughly ethical dynamic. She steps back 
> and distances herself from her immediate reaction to the two girls 
> (I’ll use her term), categorizing it as “instinct,” and implying that 
> it is this instinct that leads her to see them as “angular, awkward 
> and assertive.” We find this same process of fixing on an emotional 
> state and then attempting to trace their roots in /Mrs Dalloway/ when 
> Clarissa suddenly asks herself: “But – but – why did she suddenly 
> feel, for no reason that she could discover, desperately unhappy?” She 
> searches her memory for interactions with various characters and 
> finally locates the source in the criticism levelled at her parties by 
> Richard and Peter (Page 133 in the Hogarth ed).
>
> What can we add to, or what lies behind, Woolf’s “instinct” and her 
> response to the two tramping girls? Top of the list is social class. 
> “City clerks or secretaries”: in other words, I assume, lower middle 
> class. What causes Woolf to so categorize the girls? Perhaps their 
> clothing. I’m not an expert on the history of female dress, but I 
> assume that at this time “short skirts” could be rather lower than we 
> might assume today; perhaps knee-length, but certainly shorter than 
> Woolf herself would be wearing in public.
>
> Her assumption seems to be that working-class girls would not be 
> backpacking and neither would posh, upper-class girls. Her chosen 
> adjectives are hardly in themselves pejorative, rather the opposite: 
> “resolute, sunburnt, dusty”; “angular, awkward and self-assertive.” 
> But attached to a city clerk or secretary they suggest an independence 
> and will that are worrying when associated with girls of this social 
> class. In the first half of the twentieth century walking for pleasure 
> was an activity very much associated with advanced views on such 
> matters as the nature and role of women, and with unconventional 
> dress. A key word was the word “tramp,” used where today “hike” or 
> “backpack” might be expected.
>
> Here’s a short passage from Joseph Conrad’s novel /Chance /(1913).
>
> “Little Fyne’s marriage was quite successful. There was no design at 
> all in it. Fyne, you must know, was an enthusiastic pedestrian. He 
> spent his holidays tramping all over our native land. His tastes were 
> simple. He put infinite conviction and perseverance into his holidays. 
> At the proper season you would meet in the fields, Fyne, a 
> serious-faced, broad-chested, little man, with a shabby knap-sack on 
> his back, making for some church steeple. He had a horror of roads. He 
> wrote once a little book called the ‘Tramp’s Itinerary,’ and was 
> recognised as an authority on the footpaths of England. So one year, 
> in his favourite over-the-fields, back-way fashion he entered a pretty 
> Surrey village where he met Miss Anthony. Pure accident, you see. They 
> came to an understanding, across some stile, most likely. Little Fyne 
> held very solemn views as to the destiny of women on this earth, the 
> nature of our sublunary love, the obligations of this transient life 
> and so on. He probably disclosed them to his future wife. Miss 
> Anthony’s views of life were very decided too but in a different way.”
>
> What is fine about Woolf’s diary passage is the manner in which she 
> uncovers the social and cultural prejudices that lie behind her 
> condemnation of the two girls, then resists and rejects it. (Conrad, 
> in contrast, mocks where Woolf indulges in self-criticism and attempts 
> to expose and reject her cultural prejudices.)
>
> Jeremy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Fra:* Sarah M. Hall <smhall123 at yahoo.co.uk>
> *Sendt:* torsdag 27. februar 2025 21:26
> *Til:* Jeremy Hawthorn <jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no>; Anne Fernald 
> <fernald at fordham.edu>
> *Kopi:* vwoolf listserve <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
> *Emne:* Re: [Vwoolf] Woolf & tramping girls
> Thanks, Anne and Jeremy, what a lovely passage, reminiscent of summer. 
> With your help I've pinpointed this to 31 July (/D/3 104), a composite 
> entry with several subheadings: these lines are under 'Wandervögeln', 
> which was apparently a German youth movement (trans. as 'migratory 
> birds'). The /OED /online says:
>
>         The earliest known use of the noun Wandervogel [singular] is
>         in the 1920s.
>
>         OED's earliest evidence for Wandervogel is from 1928, in the
>         writing of D. H. Lawrence, writer.
>
>
> But of course VW's use of the plural beats this by two years. And 
> presumably the term was in common use in Germany long before either of 
> them.
>
> Sarah
>
> Sarah M. Hall
> Executive Council
> Virginia Woolf Society of GB
> Web: virginiawoolfsociety.org.uk
> Facebook: @VWSGB
> Twitter/X: @VirginiaWoolfGB
> Instagram: @virginiawoolfsociety
>
>
>
>
> On Thursday, 27 February 2025 at 16:37:44 GMT, Anne Fernald via Vwoolf 
> <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> “Two resolute, sunburnt, dusty girls in jerseys and short skirts, with 
> packs on their backs, city clerks, or secretaries, tramping along the 
> road in the hot sunshine at Ripe. My instinct at once throws up a 
> screen, which condemns them: - think them in every way angular, 
> awkward and self. assertive. But all this is a great mistake. These 
> screens shut me out. Have no screens, for screens are made out of our 
> own in-tegument; and get at the thing itself, which has nothing 
> whatever in common with a screen. The screen-making habit, though, is 
> so universal that probably it preserves our sanity. If we had not this 
> device for shutting people off from our sympathies we might perhaps 
> dissolve utterly; separateness would be impossible. But the screens 
> are in the excess; not the sympathy.”— 1926
>
> Just as terrific as I remembered.
>
>
> Sent from Gmail Mobile
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 27, 2025 at 11:29 AM Jeremy Hawthorn 
> <jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no <mailto:jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no>> wrote:
>
>     A Writer's Diary p. 97,
>
>     J
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     *Fra:* Vwoolf <vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu
>     <mailto:vwoolf-bounces at lists.osu.edu>> på vegne av Anne Fernald
>     via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu <mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
>     *Sendt:* torsdag 27. februar 2025 15:13
>     *Til:* vwoolf listserve <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
>     <mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>>
>     *Emne:* [Vwoolf] Woolf & tramping girls
>     Good morning, Woolfians,
>
>     I have a recollection of a diary entry (or perhaps a letter) where
>     Woolf encounters a couple young women tramping with rucksacks, but
>     I can’t find it nor can I even figure out how it would be indexed.
>
>     Does this ring a bell? Can you point me in the right direction?
>
>     Thank you,
>
>     Anne
>
>     Sent from Gmail Mobile
>
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