Quentin Bell has written that Bloomsbury grew "not only
by the making but by the breaking of friendships." Woolf and Vanessa found
they had to choose between their old friends, who were wedded to
Victorian social sensibilities, and their new friends. They chose
the intellectually stimulating company of the Bloomsbury Group.
Lytton Strachey was a dark, bearded depressive who, most
in the group agreed, had the most talent, and the most potential
for success. He was extremely witty and could be caustic and cutting.
As a result, he was a bit intimidating to Woolf, but she found
him fascinating. Saxon Sydney-Turner was a man of letters who wrote poems,
painted, and was a musical composer as well as an opera fanatic.
Desmond MacCarthy was a handsome, voluble and extraordinarily talented
novelist. Clive Bell was a gifted painter and an athlete. Leonard
Woolf, whom Woolf first met on November fourteen, 1904 the night
before he left for Ceylon until 1911, was a writer and political
activist.
By this time, Woolf was a regular book reviewer for the
London Times Literary Supplement, as well as teaching night classes
at Morley, a night school for working adults. Clive Bell was immediately
smitten with Vanessa, and proposed to her in 1905. She turned him
down, but remained friends. It was a provocative, amazing time
for Woolf. Although Woolf had always been surrounded by people with
considerable intellects, the Bloomsbury Group was an unprecedented
collection of brilliant people.
In 1906, the four Stephen children took a trip to Greece
along with Violet Dickinson. Unfortunately, while in Greece Vanessa
and Thoby fell quite ill. Back home in London, while Vanessa recovered,
Thoby only got worse. Soon Violet too was sick with typhoid fever
as well. Woolf's attentions were split by the illnesses of two very
important people in her life. Slowly, Violet recovered, but Thoby
did not. He died a few months later. The loss was tremendous and
haunted Woolf for the rest of her life. Thoby's absence is acutely
felt in books like Jacob's Room and The
Waves. Two days after Thoby's death, Vanessa–who, like
the rest of the Stephens, was distraught–agreed to marry Clive
Bell. This was another tragedy for Woolf, who didn't like Clive
and didn't think him good enough for her sister. But Vanessa claimed
to love Clive, and the two took over the house on Gordon Square.
Woolf and Adrian moved to a new house at 29 Fitzroy Square in Bloomsbury.
As she grieved over her brother's death, the only people
Woolf could bear to see were the members of the Bloomsbury Group.
In this period of mourning, they demonstrated that they were not
so detached from their emotions that they couldn't provide comfort. Woolf,
grappling with her brother's death, also had very complex feelings
about her sister's marriage, feelings that went beyond simply disliking
Clive. She felt abandoned by the sister who'd been such an integral
part of her life for so long and who had been with her nearly nonstop
for as long as she could remember. She also looked upon Vanessa
and Clive who, having slightly recovered from the shock and sadness
of Thoby's death, were now demonstrably happy with each other,
with a touch of envy. She was now being pressed by friends and
family to seek a suitable match for marriage. The constant prodding
irritated Woolf, and her letters up to 1907 offer no indication
of an interest in any man. However, in 1907, she took an interest
in an old friend of Leslie's named Walter Headlam. He was old enough
to be her father, but was an eminent Greek scholar and a charming
man. The two flirted and Woolf showed him her early work, which
he critiqued and advised her on. However, nothing really came of
it and the two parted company. However, Woolf would continue to
face pressure to marry for five more years, and would have ample
opportunity to do so.
Meanwhile, Woolf and Adrian resurrected Thoby's Thursday evening
get-togethers. The Bloomsbury set now gathered at Woolf and Adrian's
home on Fitzroy Square. That summer, Woolf, Clive, Vanessa and
Adrian spent the season in Rye, along with occasional visitors
from Bloomsbury, where Woolf read Henry James and was lukewarm
to his prose. In fact, James was an old friend of Leslie's and he
visited the Stephen children in Rye that summer. Although cordial,
he did not approve of Woolf's Bloomsbury friends, whom he saw as
unkempt and boorish. Woolf began work on a novel which she called Melymbrosia, but
which eventually would go by the title of The Voyage Out. It
was the beginning of an intense labor of love as the book occupied
her for the next five years, going through seven drafts. As she
worked on this novel, she continued reviewing for the Guardian
and the Times Literary Supplement, as well as for other smaller
journals. But she did not yet try to publish any of her fiction.
In fact, she was be thirty-three before her first work of fiction
would be published. She was–and would remain for the rest of her
life–terrified of the world's reaction to her work.
