A Room of One's Own

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1

I'm back from speaking of Girton in

floods of rain starve but valiant young

women that's my impression intelligent

eager poor and destined to become school

mistresses in shoals I blandly told them

to drink wine and had a room of their

own

I felt elderly and mature and nobody

respected me they were very eager

egotistical or rather not much impressed

by age group you did a little reverence

or that sort of thing about in 1928.

Virginia Woolf was invited to Cambridge

to talk to a small group of young women

at Girton College the title of her

lecture was a Room of One's Own but you

may say we asked you to speak about

women and fiction what does that got to

do with a room of one's own

I will try to explain when you asked me

to speak to you about women and fiction

I sat down on the banks of the river

here in Cambridge and began to wonder

what the words meant they might mean a

few remarks about Fanny Burney a few

more by Jane Austen a tribute to the

bronty's with a sketch of how earth

passed near jaundice know some

witticisms if possible about miss.

Medford a respectful allusion to George.

Eliot a reference to mrs. Gaskill one

would have done but but second side the

word seemed not so simple the title

women and fiction might mean and you

might have meant it to mean women and

what they are like or women and the

fiction they write or women and the

fiction that is written about them or it

might mean that somehow all three are

inextricably linked and when I came to

consider that this was the most

interesting possibility I soon saw that

it had one fatal drawback

I should never be able to come to a

conclusion I should never be able to

fulfill what I understand is the first

duty of a lecturer to hand you

after an hour's discourse a nugget of

pure truth for you to wrap up between

the pages of your notebooks and keep on

the mantelpiece

all I can do is offer an opinion upon

one minor point

a woman must have money and a room of

her own if she is to write fiction.

I was sitting on the banks of the river

for week or two ago and fine October

weather lost in thought the river

reflected whatever it shows of sky and

bridge and burning tree and an

undergraduate was poling his boat

through the reflections women and

fiction and the need to come to some

conclusion bowed my head to the ground

there I might have sat the top rung lost

in thought when you know the little tug

the sudden conglomeration of an idea at

the end of one's line it became all at

once very exciting and important and set

up such a tumult of ideas that it was

impossible to sit still that I found

myself walking with extreme rapidity

across a grass plot

instantly a man's figure rose to

intercept me nor did I first understand

but the gesticulations of a curious

looking object in a cutaway coat an

evening shirt were fingered me his face

expressing horror and indignation he was

a Beadle I was a woman

this was the turf

there was the path only a fellows and

scholars are allowed here the gravel was

the place for me such thoughts were the

work of a moment as I regained the path

the arms of the Beatles sang his face

regained its usual repose and although

turf is better walking than gravel no

very great harm was done the spirit of

peace descended like a cloud for if the

spirit of peace dwells anywhere it is in

the courts and quadrangles of Cambridge

on a fine October day

as chance would have it some stray

memory of some old essay about

revisiting Cambridge in the long

vacation brought Charles lab to mind

certainly he wrote an essay the name

escapes me about seeing the original

manuscript of one of milton's poems

there lissa death perhaps and land road

had shocked him to think that any word

of listeners could be different from

wattages I amused myself by guessing

which word it could have been that

milton had altered and why when it

suddenly occurred to me that the very

manuscript itself which lamb had looked

at was only a few hundred yards away and

I could follow Lambs footsteps across

the quadrangle to the famous library

where the treasure is kept

I was just opening the door which leads

to the library when as instantly they

issued like a guardian angel barring the

way with a flatter a black gown instead

of white wings a deprecating silvery

kindly gentleman who regretted in a low

voice as he waved me back that ladies

were only admitted to the library if

accompanied by a fellow of the college

or furnished with a letter of

introduction

but a famous library has been cursed by

a woman is a matter of complete

indifference to a famous library

venerable and calm its treasure safe

locked within its breasts it sleeps

complacently and well so far as I'm

concerned so seek forever

never will I wake those echoes never

will I ask for that hospitality again I

vowed as I descended the steps in anger

but the clock stuck it was time to make

my way to garden for dinner.

Deena was being served in the Great Hall

everybody was assembled dinner was ready

here was my soup it was a plane gravy

soup there was nothing to stir the fancy

in that one could see through the

transparent liquid any pattern that

might have been on the plate itself but

there was no pattern the plate was plain

next came beef with its attendant greens

and potatoes a homely Trinity suggesting

the romps of cattle in a muddy market

and straps curled and yellowed at the

edge and bargaining and cheering and

women with string bags on Monday

mornings there was no reason to complain

of human nature's daily food seeing that

the supply was sufficient and coalminers

darkness was sitting down to this

prunes and custard followed now if

anyone complains the prunes

even when mitigated with custard are an

uncharitable vegetable for fruit they

are not stringy as amazed as heart and

exuding a fluid such as might run in a

misers veins

you should affect that there are people

whose charity embraces even the Putin

biscuits and cheese came next to clear

the water jug was passed liberally round

the table for it is the nature of

biscuits to be dry and these were

biscuits to the core but that was all

the meal was over everybody spread their

chairs back soon the hall was emptied of

any sign of food and made very no doubt

for breakfast the next morning up to

staircases and down corridors the youth

of England went banging and seen and was

it for the guests a stranger to say

dinner was not good

by now I was alone with my friend

let us call her Mary Seaton in her

sitting-room and happily at my friend

who taught science had a cupboard where

there was a squat bottle and little

glasses so we were able to draw up to

the fire and repair some of the damages

of the day's living I thought it best to

expose what was in my mind the air so I

asked miss Seaton this college where

when are sitting what lies beneath it's

gallant red brick and wild unkempt

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