WOOLF, VIRGINIA. Typed letter unsigned ("Virginia" typewritten) to her nephew Quentin Bell 52 Tavistick Square, London, 13 December [1933]. 2 pages, 4to, about 600 words on both sides of the same sheet, single-spaced, slight fold soiling on verso , with a 14-word autograph postscript and a few corrections. BLOOMSBURY ANTI-SEMITISM "...number three Belgrave Square. Who the devil lives there? you would say. And in one word I should reply; a cocktail party given by the Hutchinsons to anticipate their daughter's marriage to the richest Jew in Europe...But as you're not here, and it's foggy, and it's gloomy, and I've no clothes, and can't be bothered to rush out and buy gloves, hat, and shoes, all for a Jew, I sit in my underground vault, with the fog thick on the skylight, writing...We had the young couple the other night; and they brought a brown bag; and out of this they lifted rubies -- rubies set in diamonds. And we all crowned ourselves with the Rothschild rubies; worth #300,000...Nessa [Vanessa Bell] and Duncan [Grant] came in...But Nessa will tell you that she didn't like the flavour of the Jew. Like raw pork, she said. Surely rather an unkind saying?... "Yesterday I had Ethel Smyth [the composer]...and Rebecca West to tea. It was a screaming howling party. Old Ethel meanders so. And she's so violent...so when Leonard [Woolf] claps his hand on her mouth, she sits silent, for a second. Rebecca is the oddest woman; like an arboreal animal grasping a tree, and showing all her teeth, as if another animal were about to seize her young. This may be the result of having a son [Anthony West] out of wedlock. However she is tenacious and masterful and very good company, having also battered about in the stinking underworld of hack writers -- people like [J.B.] Preistley [ sic ], [Robert] Lynd, [J.C.] Squire, and others so covered with mud one can't name them even...We went to Orpheus -- the loveliest opera ever written -- at Sadlers Wells; and there was a congerie of old fogies -- [Lady] Ottoline [Morrell] hawking and mousing; Stephen Spender, being hawked and moused...I suppose you read Roger [Fry's] inaugural lecture. I wonder what you thought of it." Letters , vol. 5, no. 2833
WOOLF, VIRGINIA. Typed letter unsigned ("Virginia" typewritten) to her nephew Quentin Bell 52 Tavistick Square, London, 13 December [1933]. 2 pages, 4to, about 600 words on both sides of the same sheet, single-spaced, slight fold soiling on verso , with a 14-word autograph postscript and a few corrections. BLOOMSBURY ANTI-SEMITISM "...number three Belgrave Square. Who the devil lives there? you would say. And in one word I should reply; a cocktail party given by the Hutchinsons to anticipate their daughter's marriage to the richest Jew in Europe...But as you're not here, and it's foggy, and it's gloomy, and I've no clothes, and can't be bothered to rush out and buy gloves, hat, and shoes, all for a Jew, I sit in my underground vault, with the fog thick on the skylight, writing...We had the young couple the other night; and they brought a brown bag; and out of this they lifted rubies -- rubies set in diamonds. And we all crowned ourselves with the Rothschild rubies; worth #300,000...Nessa [Vanessa Bell] and Duncan [Grant] came in...But Nessa will tell you that she didn't like the flavour of the Jew. Like raw pork, she said. Surely rather an unkind saying?... "Yesterday I had Ethel Smyth [the composer]...and Rebecca West to tea. It was a screaming howling party. Old Ethel meanders so. And she's so violent...so when Leonard [Woolf] claps his hand on her mouth, she sits silent, for a second. Rebecca is the oddest woman; like an arboreal animal grasping a tree, and showing all her teeth, as if another animal were about to seize her young. This may be the result of having a son [Anthony West] out of wedlock. However she is tenacious and masterful and very good company, having also battered about in the stinking underworld of hack writers -- people like [J.B.] Preistley [ sic ], [Robert] Lynd, [J.C.] Squire, and others so covered with mud one can't name them even...We went to Orpheus -- the loveliest opera ever written -- at Sadlers Wells; and there was a congerie of old fogies -- [Lady] Ottoline [Morrell] hawking and mousing; Stephen Spender, being hawked and moused...I suppose you read Roger [Fry's] inaugural lecture. I wonder what you thought of it." Letters , vol. 5, no. 2833
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
