Family Matters

Angelica Garnett, Vanessa Bell's only daughter, shared invaluable information about both her Aunt Virginia and her mother. Although Garnett's recollections and descriptions about these two women differ from others, I think it is important to see how Virginia and Vanessa were portrayed in the domestic sphere. Viewing these prominent women in literature and art is only half the observation; the other half is seen through the eyes who saw them on a daily basis.

One of Bell's prominent recollection about her sister is that of an opinionated, vocal little girl. "When Thoby and I were angry with each other or with [Virginia], we used good straightforward abuse, or perhaps told tales if we felt particularly vindictive. How did she know that to label me 'The Saint' was far more effective, quickly reducing me to the misery of sarcasm from the grown-ups as well as the nursery world?" (332)

Although being labeled as a religious entity, Bell saw this language as such a mean form of sarcasm that it was as if she was struck physically by Woolf's speech, her own "the deadliest weapon."

This recollection of Woolf as a young girl is a little different from that of Garnett's memory of her, with some obvious similarities:

"Virginia, on the contrary, was shy and awkward, often silent or, if in the mood to talk,

would leap into fantasy and folly and terrify the innocent and unprepared. This combination of limpid beauty and demon's tongue proved fatal to those who were too timid to respond and who, ensnared while unconscious, woke like Bottom to find themselves in a fairyland echoing with malicious laughter" (174).

Here, Garnett remembers her aunt as "shy and awkward, often silent," which differs greatly from Bell's remembrance of her giggling during a lecture about Good Friday, it being "too much and Virginia [being] hurriedly banished, shrieking with laughter" (334-5). However, both Bell and her daughter had the opportunity to see Virginia Woolf in her relentless criticisms, using a "demon's tongue," as Garnett called it. Ironic how Woolf calls Bell "The Saint" and Bell's daughter gives Woolf reference to a demonic entity. This also subtly implies the stark differences of personality: meek and strong, serene and (almost) impudent. She does, however, go as far to admitting that, "when [she] knew her best, age and experience had softened her and lit her with a more tender light" (174). This, incidentally, is the Virginia Woolf--"Billy Goat or The Goat"--that Garnett remembers.

As far as Bell goes, Garnett describes her mother as "calm, like a pool on which the coloured leaves slowly change their pattern. She accepted, rather than protested; was passive, rather than avid" (175). Calling her a "primitive Aphrodite," Garnett holds her mother in such a light by which her Aunt Virginia could not stand in comparison. It is interesting to note that both Woolf and Garnett give Bell this goddess-like quality, Woolf refering to her as "The Saint" and Garnett referring to her as a "primitive Aphrodite." Although Woolf praises her sister for being an artist transcendental to most others, she finds it not as necessary to recall what her childhood with her sister was like, as Bell so clearly does. How Woolf describes her is as "tantalising, so original, and so satisfying as a painter. One feels that if a canvas of hers hung on the wall it would never lose its lustre" (172). Clearly Woolf is in clear admiration of her sister's talent, although Bell feels more inclined to touch on her subtle jealousy of Woolf: "I don't remember being jealous of the fact that her appearance and her talk had obviously the greatest success with the grown-ups" (333). Her rhetoric here implies that she realized Woolf's charm to be superior than her own, although she'd like to admit that it was not as bothersome.

Briefly, we can see little pieces of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf through familial bonds. The tension, brief friction and overall love these sisters shared for each other was apparent to Angelica Garnett, who was able to produce an intimate image of these women to us through her own observations.