Vita Sackville-West

by Vita Sackville-West

  Among the verbal portraits of Vita offered by those who knew her best, those by Virginia and Leonard Woolf stand out sharply. After a dinner in December 1924, which Roger Fry attended, Virginia Woolf described the difference between her friends and Vita: “She has the habit of praising & talking indiscriminately about art, which goes down in her set, but not in ours.… dear old obtuse, aristocratic, passionate, Grenadier-like Vita.”21 It is that very enthusiasm that attracts many of us to Vita the writer: She was passionate to the point of irritating others—how very wonderful indeed.

  In a letter of the same period to Jacques Raverat in France, the very ill husband of her friend Gwen Darwin and recipient of many of her letters, Virginia Woolf gave her famous description of Vita’s legs: “Oh they are exquisite—running like slender pillars up into her trunk, which is that of a breastless cuirassier (yet she has 2 children) but all about her is virginal, savage, patrician; and why she writes, which she does with complete competency and a pen of brass, is a puzzle to me. If I were she, I should merely stride, with 11 Elk hounds behind me, through my ancestral woods.”22 That “pen of brass” should be taken here in context, as it often is not, with its admixture of understandable envy and of admiration for her other qualities.

  Leonard’s own description is no less vivid: “To be driven by Vita on a summer’s afternoon at the height of the season through the London traffic—she was a very good, but rather flamboyant driver—and to hear her put an aggressive taxi driver in his place, even when she was in the wrong, made one recognize a note in her voice that Sackvilles and Buckhursts were using to serfs in Kent 600 years ago, or even in Normandy 300 years before that. She belonged indeed to a world which was completely different from ours.”23 The very difference of her world remains part of her appeal for present day readers—not so much the envy of it, as its foreignness to many, and its naturalness to her.

  A Note on Vita’s Irony

  Vita, in her awareness of emotions, style, and language, had—even in her moments of intensity or despair—what I would like to call the dignity of irony. This preserved for her a certain distance from her involvements and, in my view, made the quite extraordinary marriage of herself and Harold, whom she never ceased to cherish, a success. One example may suffice. In her best-known novel, All Passion Spent, the last part of which is included in this volume, Vita, in the voice of the elderly and nonconformist Lady Slane, reflects on happiness in this fashion: ironic, scholarly, and precise: “But what was happiness? Had she been happy? That was a strange, clicking word to have coined—meaning something definite to the whole English-speaking race—a strange clicking word with its short vowel and its spitting double p’s and its pert tip-toe at the end.”24

  Writing and Reception

  In a real sense, the life pictured in Vita’s garden writings, in her reflections on the architecture of various country houses, in her explicit poem “Sissinghurst,” and in the long poems “The Land” and “The Garden” is her true life. Against the current of what we think of as the poetry of the early to middle part of the twentieth century, she composed long poems of epic nature, taking as theme and backdrop the world of nature and its loving cultivation. Yes, she would have preferred to be remembered as a poet rather than a novelist. During her lifetime she was known and celebrated as one, and both her Georgic poems, “The Land” and “The Garden,” won prestigious prizes, respectively the Hawthornden and the Heinemann. Yet something that she found hurtful in the extreme happened in March of 1946. At a meeting of the poetry committee of the Society of Authors (a committee that included Edith Sitwell, Walter de la Mare, Dylan Thomas, and Louis MacNeice), she was not asked to participate in a poetry reading to be held in Wigmore Hall in the presence of the Queen. Four years later she wrote in her diary of her despair over that: “I don’t think I will ever write a poem again. They destroyed me for ever that day…”25 Clearly, they did not think her poetry good enough to read. The problem was not her voice or her presence, since she was continually lecturing on the radio and in public. She always valued her critical writing and even her novels—for which she is best known—less than her poetry, a judgment with which the present day reader may argue. Her poetry has, on the whole, been far less appreciated than her other work, particularly her fiction and her essays.

  As for the writing on gardening, that simply encompassed her passionate knowledge and practice. In any case, most of her novels (except Dark Island, Grand Canyon, and La Grande Mademoiselle—which she herself disliked) were immediate successes, particularly All Passion Spent and Seducers in Ecuador, which upon its appearance took top billing over Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. In Seducers, it was often said, she had “out-Bloomsburied Bloomsbury.”

  Her own idiosyncratic nature is apparent in her other writings as well. One of my favorites is the delightful, if eccentric, series of reflections on dog portraits collected in her late work called simply Faces, many of which have autobiographical reflections about her reactions to those portraits based on her own dog family. These quieter musings make a high contrast to her travel writings, particularly those about Persia and the Bakhtiari Mountains, and the hitherto unpublished diary of her travel in the United States. The extraordinary range of her activities, her writing genres, and her knowledge, together with her own dual nature, as documented in her fiction and letters and in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, render her, as Nigel Nicolson so rightly terms it, a subject of growing fascination.

  The enthusiasm with which she entered her various love affairs always helped her to produce quantities of work: translations (of Rilke’s Duino Elegies, with Margaret Goldsmith Voigt and later with Eddy Sackville-West) as well as fiction and more learned material. Writing in 1931 to Evelyn Irons, with whom she traveled in Provence and to whom many of the poems in Les Baux are dedicated, Vita remarked on her own prolific output: She said she never stopped “writing stories and articles.… I must make the most of it while the fit is on me—but they are cheap stuff.”26

  In Vita’s prose and poems, the details are resoundingly clear, especially those of food, clothes, colors, landscapes, and seascapes. Her highly visual sense of things is evident in her dream book, as in all her writing. Everywhere her wit manifests itself in her discussion of external details that seem often to give the essential clue to the characters in and the character of her fiction. What is most credible about them is not so much their personal makeup as the things they love and the roles they play in relation to them. They are, more often than not, possessed by the houses and traditions they inhabit, the worlds they live in, and the things they love. They can have, as Vita did, a passion for their land—as in Dark Island and in her long poems “The Land” and “The Garden”—for their inherited traditions—as in Family History or The Edwardians—or, perhaps no less believably, for their dog—as in Easter Party. All these passions were so strongly part of Vita that they give her, together with her acknowledged dual nature, a particular fascination for those who were close to her and for her readers then and now. Fully conscious of this double-sidedness, she explored it in many of her writings in different guises.

  Her sense of self, of land, and of work, was always a positive one. As an example, take the way in which her long poem “The Land” is a response to T. S. Eliot’s “Waste Land”:

  The land and not the waste land celebrate,

  The rich and hopeful land, the solvent land,

  Not some poor desert strewn with nibbled bones,

  A land of death, sterility, and stones.

  As for her fictional self, she portrays herself and her impassioned love of Knole as a dark and romantic lover torn between sentiment and a sense of land. Perhaps the most vivid picture she gives of herself as a writer, picturing that self from within and without, is found in the odd story “The Poetry Reading,” in which the poet (and Vita always thought of herself as that) has a special allure for the young person listening, who is enchanted by the dress and the person, the appearance and the reality of the poet as wom
an.

  Charlotte was also surveying Sackville-West; she saw the dark felt hat, the heavy cream lambskin coat, black dress, scarlet earrings, scarf, and shoes, yet apart from these externals the quality that held the audience and Charlotte in particular was not the beauty of the rather tired face, but its exceptional sincerity.

  Charlotte was interested in her personally, what did such a face reveal? So many things, almost everything that is save happiness; it was passionate, instantaneously receptive, sometimes childish, discontented, shy, imperious.

  That story, included in this volume, reveals her willed duality as well as anything could.

  Vita was a feminist of true stripe. Incensed at being addressed as Mrs. Harold Nicolson, she was “flung into a rage.” “You know,” she wrote Harold, “I love you more than anybody has ever loved anybody else, but I really do resent being treated as if I were your dog. The whole thing is an insult to human dignity.… Why not get me a collar with your name and address engraved upon it?”27 She was no more pleased by the title Lady Nicolson. As Victoria Glendinning points out, when Harold and Vita became Sir Harold and Lady Nicolson in 1953, after the publication of his biography of George V, they considered turning down the honor, which seemed to them “dreary and middle class.” Vita greatly disliked being called Lady Nicolson and remained V. Sackville-West.28

  Finally, although her upbringing in privilege and her decidedly chilly attitude toward those of different classes might seem to disqualify Vita Sackville-West for the idealized role of female intellectual, her extraordinary production and passion in relation to creativity and the literary life go far to override that perception. She spent much of her life writing and lecturing for radio and literary audiences on society; on gardening; on England and its literature and history; on the various figures of interest to her, from saints (such as Saint Teresa)—she went through a mystic phase—to royal mistresses (La Grande Mademoiselle), from writers like Andrew Marvell to typical Edwardian figures. Her courageous old women (as in All Passion Spent) encourage the younger women to eschew normal values of society and take up what they really care about. Traditions can be profited from and overcome. Few things hold Vita back: She is a true representative of critical excitement, of creative passion, and of female rebelliousness against masculine-set mores. It was this that Virginia Woolf admired and loved in her, along with much else.

  In a sense, Vita Sackville-West personified the best and most valorous part of what the Bloomsbury culture has come to mean to us: an unending enthusiasm for creation and for life and a nonchalance in regard to what a generally normative society believes one’s behavior should be and represent. Vita did exactly as she pleased, worked double-time at her poetry and her other writing, as well as her gardening, she traveled immensely and with resourcefulness and knowledge, and excelled in multiple genres she encompassed as fearlessly in her writing as in her living. Overall, and most crucial to her reception as author and person now, I believe that her essential quality was her great and lasting courage: in the vast range of the things she did, the people she loved and was loved by, and in her intensity of living, in which she never failed.

  PART I

  DIARIES

  The best way to approach the workings of Vita’s mind and her occupations, and those of her mother, is through their personal diaries, which are therefore transcribed here at length.

  Comparing Vita’s diaries with those of her mother is certainly instructive about the kind of relationship they had as well as about the kind of lives they lived. Victoria’s diaries, often reading like some sort of caricature of high society, are fascinating for what they reveal of another epoch. (“It was such a pretty sight, as so few people were asked and all had their best clothes and diamonds on.”) We see her dresses and those of the upper-class ladies surrounding her, see their emeralds and rubies and diamonds (pale pink and pale green, in her own case), and follow their ups and downs in relation to the Palace. Of course, given Vita’s attachment to Violet Keppel, Victoria’s reflections on Violet’s mother (the king’s mistress) wearing a Cartier copy of Marie Antoinette’s famous necklace is all the more riveting.

  Vita’s diaries, on the other hand, are concerned with her extensive travels, with her professional life, and with her numerous friends. These journals are far more down-to-earth than those of her mother Of especial interest is the way she transcribes her encounters with Virginia Woolf, the most intimate of these simply marked as “X” or “!” in her diaries.

  In Vita’s memoirs, as in her daily life, her keen eye for detail is responsible for the accurate tone of presentation. It is never hard to picture what she describes; so acute is her description—one stroke, as with a painter’s brush, can define a portrait or place.

  In order to preserve the feeling of the diaries, such things as exclamation marks, capitalizations, and ampersands are left intact.

  SELECTIONS FROM VICTORIA SACKVILLE-WEST’S DIARIES, 1902–1905 AND 1922

  In the diaries of Vita’s mother, Victoria Sackville-West, the main topics of interest are, as one might expect of an Edwardian aristocrat, her clothing: the dresses from Lucile and Paquin, the jewels worn with them, and the occasions on which she wore them. Her social sphere is of primary importance, of course: this dinner, that visit, the frequent encounters with royalty. She notes her own sensitivity and various nervous states: she weeps at Lady Windermere’s Fan and is unable to sleep with the noise above her flat. As for her commentary on the perhaps unusual, but in fact, highly successful relationship between Vita and Harold, it, too, is more or less what might be expected.

  Regarding Vita’s writing, her mother might have wished her to choose another subject matter, but her reflection on her daughter’s carrying over her personal style of calm poise to her writing is perceptive. This poise gives us a clue as to the workability of Vita’s wide range of subjects: her general calm, a sort of detachment, permits this imaginative stretch.

  1902

  18th June. Opera to hear Caruso and Pancini in “Lucia.” Have been invited to the abbey by the King; have ordered white dress at Lucile’s. Gave Lionel a Cartier pin today.

  29th June. London. The poor king had to be suddenly operated on the 24th, just 2 days before the coronation. Every one was stunned! Lucile had made me a beautiful cream salon dress for the “Loose Box!”—

  No time for diary writing.

  I have got a lovely pendant with a pale pink and a pale green diamond from Cartier, also a pair of tiny diamond and ruby aiguillettes from Cartier too. He is mounting, according to my design and suggestion, my fine alexandrite as a ring.

  1903

  10th March. London. Small dance at Buckingham Palace. Wore lovely new gauze dress—trimmed lace and pink chiffon from “Berthe.” Emerald and diamonds. I hoped to escape having to shake hands with the king, but I had to come in, quite at the end of the line, & shook hands with King, Queen, Prince of Wales & Princess, they were standing in the middle of a big room and no one was announced; they knew everybody by name at once.

  I had a long talk with the Prince of Wales. It was such a pretty sight, as so few people were asked and all had their best clothes and diamonds on; Mrs. G. [George] Keppel has had Marie Antoinette’s famous necklace copied by Cartier! The Queen looked so lovely & not a day over 30. I saw her so well, under a blaze of electric light; she has no wrinkles and is not painted up; her hair only is too young to be natural; her neck, shoulders, figure are truly wonderful.

  18th December. We also went to Lady Windermere’s Fan; where I cried stupidly—I can’t go to the play without crying, as my nerves are in such a weak state. [ … went] to see Sir Anderson Critchett for my weak eye; he said the same as Dr. Ferrier as to my nervous system. Have new palpitations all the week. Have ordered spectacles!!!

  1904

  Christmas Day. I had 45 presents & Vita had 50 (Reference for details to my red Book) The local band played on the 24th. We are very short of servants, our 2 footmen have influenza. Stubbs is dying of Deliri
um Tremens and poor Papa never knew that Stubbs drank! A “nipper.” My best presents have been the lovely pink enamel frame from Fabergé from Lio & the Fabergé Clock from Seery and Vita had such a nice book-cover designed by her for me.

  1905

  January. I am not going to write any more my journal very regularly, but only now and again.… My sittings with [the American painter John Singer] Sargent are quite pleasant, as he is very sympathique and talks well and all the time. I am done in a simple black dress and a lovely lace scarf and I wear some of my fine emeralds. I go 4 times a week—and sit over three hours. He wants to do it with my mouth slightly open, but I don’t like that.

  24th January. Bought some table-linen at the sale yesterday, as Lionel did not think our tablecloths were good enough!!! [ … ] Awful riots in Petersburg. The Czar will not listen to the strikers and has fled from the Winter Palace. He is very much blamed in England for having the mob fired at, women & kids.

  12th February. London & St. Albans. We motored over to lunch with George & Jenny Cornwallis West at Salisbury Hall near St. Albans; a charming small old place—very well done up. We took Hans von Pless in the motor. The others were: Lady Lester-Kay & W. de Cuadra, Mr. Jack Churchill, Lady C. Hatch. Lionel had a game of golf there; he often goes out of London with Connie Hatch to play golf.

  17th February. London. We have decided to go to Monte Carlo, so I am ordering a dress at Paquin’s: light fawn voile, with big high sleeves again! We dined at Mrs. Hope Vere’s on the 15th. I saw again that nice Marquis de Villavieja, whose death was reported from Ostend (playing polo) last July. I took Lucienne Grosvenor to Derby House where there are some delightful lectures on the 18th century.