GLEANINGS - LYTTON STRACHEY

GLEANINGS FROM LYTTON STRATCHEY

“As I passed up Lord Street on my bicycle I saw that one of the Book Shops had a ‘selling off’ going on and ‘Removal of premises’ etc. I eagerly rushed to see if there was anything decent, though I had not over much ‘cash’ to spare. I saw nothing of interest but a Byron – in fact two Byrons: one large, and probably, I surmised, complete; t’other small, and probably, I concluded extracted. I went in boldly; my surmise was correct. The large one was pub. By Murray 1837 and was called at any rate complete. The small one was a ratlike edition of extracts – foul! I can’t conceive; that is to say to buy an extract and nothing more. I refused the 1/4d and took (rather extravently) the 2/6d.  (Diary 1898)

+

I walked entranced; that feeling of a sudden explanation came upon me – a sudden easy mysterious mysterious explanation of all the long difficult mysterious embroilments of the world. ‘Est-ce que j’ai trouvé le grand Peut-être”?’ I thought ‘Am I I luckier even than Rabelais? -... And I sat down, absolutely comfortable, with a little bank of earth under the hedge for4 my back to lean against, and the charming English prospect before my eyes. I thought of my friends, and my extraordinary happiness. I thought of Death, of Keats and the Ode to the Nightingale, of ‘easeful Death’ – ‘half in love with easeful death’ – and I was convinced, … that if De3ath would onoy come to one in a mood of serene happiness, he would be very welcome. I thought of suddenly dying, painlessly, where I lay. (Diary – Monday June 26^th 1916)

Otherwise a book that I’ve long wanted to have – ‘Ėloges de Madame Geoffrin”, which I discovered in a second-hand bookshop here two days ago – has been entertaining me. (A Fortnight in France – Sept 11^th 1931)

To-day at any rate shall be devoted to absolute drifting – looking at old books and pictures – errand boys and aged whores- gardens and street- corners. (A Fortnight in France – Sept. 15. 1931)

FROM

LETTERS: VIRGINIA WOOLF AND LYTTON STRACHEY

“…and the naked boys run like snipe along the beach, balancing their buttocks in the pellucid air.”

“Why is everything that is satisfactory  in this life impregnated with unsatisfactoriness?”

“The French seem to me a melancholy race – is it because they have no imagination, so that they have no outlets when thy find themselves (as all intelligent people must) vis-à-vis with the horrors of the world? There’s a sort of dry desperation about some of them which I don’t believe exists with the English – even with Swift.”

OF DOSTOIEVSKY-

“Such an anaesthetic view of life.”

“If I could my way, I should go out to dinner every night, and then to a party or an opera, and then I should have a champagne supper, and then I should go to bed in some wonderful person’s arms.”

“Just about this moment, you’re settling down over the fire, having returned from a brisk walk among the Scotch firs in a Scotch mist, and saying (something I can’t spell – it’s French) to the effect that life holds nothing copulation, after which you groan from the profundities of the stomach…”

“My state has long been quite deplorable. I put it down to the Winter-the agony of thick underclothes, etc. etc.; but of course it may be sheer deliquescence of the brain.”