Virginia and Vita

Virginia Woolf is Vita-stirred and begins to write Orlando.

9th Oct. 1927

Vita,

Yesterday morning I was in despair ... I couldn't screw a word from me; and at last dropped my head in my hands: dipped my pen in the ink, and wrote these words, as if automatically, on a clean sheet: Orlando: A Biography. No sooner had I done this than my body was flooded with rapture and my brain with ideas. I wrote rapidly till 12 ... But listen; suppose Orlando turns out to be Vita; and it's all about you and the lusts of your flesh and the lure of your mind (heart you have none, who go gallivanting down the lanes with Campbell) ... Shall you mind? Say yes, or No ...

Virginia