Letter to Vita Sackville-West, 1927
Transcript below
Friday, October 13, 1927
…I’m so engulfed in Orlando I can think of nothing else …. Tomorrow I begin the chapter which describes Violet and you meeting on the ice …. I am swarming with ideas. Do give me some inkling what sort of quarrels you had. Also, for what particular quality did she first choose you? Look here: I must come down and see you ….(I think of nothing but you all day long, in different guises, and Violet and the ice and Elizabeth and George the 3rd) ….
Orlando will be a little book, with pictures and a map or two. I make it up in bed at night, as I walk the streets, everywhere. I want to see you in lamplight, in your emeralds. In fact, I have never more wanted to see you than I do now—just to sit and look at you, and get you to talk, and then rapidly and secretly, correct certain doubtful points. About your teeth now and your temper. Is it true you grind your teeth at night? Is it, true that you love giving me pain? What and when was your moment of greatest disillusionment? …
If you’ve given yourself to Campbell, I’ll have no more to do with you, and so it shall be written, plainly, for all the world to red in in Orlando. Tell me if you will come and when…
Dearest Mrs. Nicholson, Goodnight
End of Transcript
Users of the website may make copies of the Work under general copyright exceptions, but cannot further copy, share or adapt the Work. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. Please credit the copyright holder when reusing this work.