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SUSAN M. KENNEY Two Endings: Virginia Woolfs Suicide and Between the Acts Virginia Woolf's last novel, Between the Acts, although it contains an undercurrent of fear and pessimism, is on the whole a book that affirms the indomitability of man in the face of intractable circumstances. Not only do the characters finally challenge fate to do its worst, but as both artists and human beings they continue to create new art and new life in the face of destruction. Virginia Woolf finished her revisions of Between the Acts, a book she claimed to have enjoyed writing, on 26 February "94". For the next few weeks she rested, read, followed the progress of the war, entertained friends, wrote letters, and embroidered. She began to plan two new books she wanted to write after Between the Acts went to the printer's. On 28 March "94", after spending the morning making notes for a new collection of essays, she took her walking stick, her hat and coat, and instead of going in to lunch, walked a few hundred yards to the Sussex Ouse and drowned herself.' She left behind her three notes of explanation, two to Leonard Woolf, and one to her sister Vanessa. Two of the notes I quote in full, because they give what Virginia Woolf thought to be the reasons for her suicide. The first is the note Leonard Woolf found propped on the mantelpiece in their sitting room at lunch time. Dearest. I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I Know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is that lowe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that - everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. The second note was a letter to Vanessa Bell, her sister, dated almost a week earlier. UTQ, Volume XLIV, Number 4, Summer 197.5 266 SUSAN M. KENNEY You can't think how I loved your letter. But I feel that I have gone too far this time to come back again. I am certain now that I am going mad again. It is just as it was the first time, I am always hearing voices, and I know I shan"t get over it now. All I want to say is that Leonard has been 50 astonishingly good, every day, always; I can't imagine that anyone could have done more for me than he has. We have been perfectly happy until the last few weeks, when this horror began. Will you assure him of this. I feel he has 50 much to do that he will go on, better without me, and you will help him. I can hardly think clearly any more. If I could I would tell you what you and the children have meant to me. I think you know. I have fought against it, but I can't any longer. The third note, written in her writing room in the garden and left there, is shorter than these, but reiterates the same themes, that she and Leonard have been perfectly happy, that she will waste his life if she goes on, that she cannot recover. Only one line is significantly different in tone, 'Nothing anyone says can persuade...

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