My objective is to focus on character development, specifically how an author uses physical features, as for example facial features, to bring a character or event to life and how by doing this she brings me into her world. I have chosen two works each related to Virginia Woolf: Carlyle’s House and Other Sketches (1909) and Night and Day (1919). Carlyle’s House is a monograph in a form critiqued by David Bradshaw and with a forward by Doris Lessing, published by Hesperus in 2003. Lessing, the well known author and Nobel Laureate provides an incisive comment on Woolf’s early writing and describes the work as:

            “These pieces are like five-finger exercises for future excellence. Not that they are negligible, being lively, and with the direct and sometimes brutal observations, the discriminations, the fastidious judgment one expects from her…”

David Bradshaw MA, D.Phil., FEA is well-known, as Reader in English Literature at Oxford University specializing in late nineteenth and early Twentieth Century literature. According to his resume his field of research is Modernism particularly the works of Virginia Woolf. 

The sketches allow us to analyze Woolf’s craft during the year 1909, two years after she began her first novel and half-dozen years before it was published. She was 27 years old and still an apprentice, but one who knew where she was headed and what habits she would maintain on her journey. Bradshaw quotes a passage from her later autobiographical work the Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals, 1897-1909:

            “…I wish for the sake of this book that I had anything more brightly coloured & picturesque to write here; it seems to me that all my events have been of the same temperate rather cold hued description; I haven’t had to use many superlatives. I have sketched faint outlines with a pencil. But the only use of the book is that it shall serve for a sketch book; as an artist fills his pages with scraps & fragment, studies in drapery-legs, arms & noses-useful to him no doubt, but no meaning to anyone else-so I…take up my pen & trace here whatever shapes I happen to have in my head…It is an exercise-training for eye & hand…”

            Below I refer to passages from Carlyle’s House, either those authored by Lessing, Bradshaw, or Woolf herself as examples of where this habit plays out in the work. After reading the sketches, I became curious to read how her early “…training for eye & hand…” manifested in a later work and examined Night and Day, (1919) Virginia Woolf's second novel written a decade after Carlyle’s House. I observed that with one small exception Carlyle’s House only treats the features of women. In Night and Day she ventures into the descriptions of men as well. Below, I draw on further examples in this second work, which provided material for the second reading requirement in January.

            In the first of the Carlyle’s House sketches, she records in her journal a visit to the famous poet’s home, a place she had visited on several occasions, once with her father and again with her sister.  She observes a portrait of Jane Carlyle the late wife of Thomas Carlyle, and writes:

                        “There were portraits of Mrs. Carlyle which seemed to look out quizzically upon strangers as though she asked what they really found to look at…”

In this instance, I and I assume other readers of the passage know quite well the look of “…quizzically upon strangers…” that Woolf observes in the visage. In this case it squares with the common experience of one suddenly meeting a stranger in a private part of one’s home, and perhaps where the stranger may not be openly welcome. But, Woolf does not stop there, she continues with a more precise examination of Mrs. Carlyle’s countenance:

                        “Her eyes droop in the pictures, and have a peculiar expression, of humour and melancholy lying dormant, which produces this quizzical look that I speak of; at any moment they might flash with passion, or kindle into tenderness. I think that in her life the expression must have been one of mockery for the most part, with a background of pathos; an unhappy face in spite of the brilliant eyes; the late photographs, which exaggerate the hollow of the cheeks, and the length of the upper lip, are horrid. The eyes are the only parts with warmth or depth in them: the rest is granulated skin tight stretched over a skull.”  

Having attended viewings of many deceased lying still in their coffins, I am struck by the accuracy of her image evoked by her metaphor “granulated skin tight stretched over a skull”. Although the eyes may shine bright, Mrs. Carlyle is dead, indeed, and, in some ways so is the home but a remnant of the poet’s past.

The second essay entitled Miss Reeves, introduces us to Amber Reeves a mid to late 19^th Century advocate of women’s causes and also a close friend of H.G. Wells. Woolf writes in the journal that she met Reeves at dinner the night before the entry:

“She has dark hair, an oval face, with a singular small mouth: a line is penciled on her upper lip. She reminds me of the girl whose mother was a snake. There is something of the snake in her. Her eyes are not large, but very bright, hazel colour. She always leans forward, as though to take flight; her whole figure and pose indicating an ardent spirit. When she is silent, she thinks-her eyes intent on one spot. But she talks almost incessantly launching herself with the greatest ease-but says nothing commonplace.”

Quoting one of Reeves fellow students, Bradshaw writes in his critique of the essay that Reeves was “intellect personified”. Woolf, according to my sensibilities captures a snap shot skillfully weaving in the image of a snake, eye having certain features, leaning forward, all to impose “an ardent figure”. This is not the description of a benign, dull woman, but one aware of her surroundings at every instant in time.

In the third essay, Cambridge, Woolf documents her visit with Sir George Darwin (second son of Charles Darwin) and his family, at the Darwin House which today is part of Darwin College. Woolf tells us that Sir Darwin:

 “…must have known great men, and who is at work always upon great problems, should have nothing distinguishable or remarkable about him.”

Later she describes Darwin, who died three years later, as:

            “…some elderly but wiry grey terrier, with short legs, and choleric eyes, rather watering at the corners.”

In this description, Woolf confirms the image set up earlier about having “nothing distinguishable or remarkable about him”.

The next essay entitled Hampstead has only two references to facial features and they each relate to Miss Margaret Davies a guest at Hampstead, a reference to a home in a small English village with the same name.

Davies is described in comparison to other guests:

“ … from a sterner stock. Her features are sharper, her eyes burn brighter; once she must have had something of the beauty of a delicate Greek head. Now being also past forty years of age, she has the same look of having passed a strenuous life in toil of some kind for others.  

Woolf continues by then drawing the features referred to in speculating about the character:

“Women who have worked but have not married come to have a particular look; refinement, without sex; tending to be austere. Miss Davies, it is clear, has far less tolerance than her friend; and has done what she has done through the force of conviction. She has organized a great co-operative movement in the North, Her eyes have a way of growing dark, as though clouds crossed them, when she is in earnest.”

            Unlike her other descriptions in the sketches, here the specification for the “…the same look of…” and “…particular look…” seems to be missing. I cannot logically or emotionally align the passage “…sharper, her eyes burn brighter; once she must have had something of the beauty of a delicate Greek head…” with what evaluation she wishes us to draw. Nonetheless, we observe Woolf using the technique of equating physical features with a behavioral feature that manifests in an enduring character, habit, passion or simply an idiosyncrasy.

In A Modern Salon, she sets out to describe Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938) who became well known for her Thursday soirees in Bedford Square where authors and artists were invited to her home. She herself was neither author nor artist, and Woolf records in her journal:

“Like other people who are passive rather than active, she is very careful and elaborate in her surroundings. It seems that they too play a part.” …She is curiously passive, even in her expression; and the pallor of her cheeks, the clean cutting of her features, the way she draws her head back and she looks at you blankly give her the appearance of a cast from some marble Medusa.”

            I have a small replica of Cellini’s Perseus holding the decapitated head of Medusa and visualize one possible description—a gruesome one. So, I think that Woolf likely had in mind the Medusa Rondanini, regarded as the best late Roman marble copy of the head and considered more human-like and archetypically  beautiful than Cellini’s no less magnificant work of art, albeit grotesque portrayal of fate.

In Jews, Woolf considers Mrs. Loeb, a woman caught up in the throes of divorce court. This piece is put forth by both Lessing and Bradshaw as evidence of Woolf’s tendency towards semetic prejudice  At page 40, Bradshaw writes: “Apart from the odd passing slur in her earlier journals (citation ommited), Jews’ from now on, will bear the doubtful distinction of being Woolf’s first significant anti-Semitic smear.” Woolf”s (neé Stephen) husband was Jewish, which seems to raise all sorts of questions about the evaluation, however none pertinent here. Bradshaw figures that Mrs. Loeb, in the essay is Annis Loeb, widow of Siegmund Loeb a German Jew from Franfurt to “purse his business interests”.

Contrary to Woolf’s delicate pen-like rendering of her previous female subjects, she leaves nothing to the imagination in decribing Mrs. Leob with a rather heavy chalk lined:

“She is a fat skinned, with drooping eyes, and tumbled hair.”

The balance of Woolf’s characterization of the woman is less than flattering, from the food she served, “…swam in oil and was nasty” to “…a shrewd woman of business…moving in a circle of city people; ‘young people’ tickle her course palate…she wishes to be popular, and is perhaps, kind, in her vulgar way, ostentatiously kind to poor relations…very little disguised, and very unpleasant.”

            Putting aside the personal animosity Woolf may have felt for Loeb, reasons she personally and objectively justified or those of shear bigotry, she does paint a picture of a woman having physical features that square with an unflatering life style. Again, we observe how Woolf skillfully uses one’s physical atributes to draw us into a framework of character and behavior.

            In Divorce Courts, Woolf attends the infamous trial between Alice Mary Fearnley-Wittingstall and the Reverend Herbert Oakes Fearnley-Wittingstall, where the wife petitioned the court for a legal separation. In this essay there is only one noteworthy reference when Woolf writes in reference to the Mrs. Fearnley-Wittingstall,

“She had a bold, course face, strained with the tensions of brazening it out before the world. It was old and joyless; but perhaps she was not forty.”

I note that her association of features in each of the sketches is one of  either a thing, state, such as a place, or human quality, or event. Here, Woolf artfully aligns a human quality one of emotional condition as lining the face, with the very proceedings. Anyone having to attend such an event would  recognize the metaphor. Having attended many divorce proceedings myself, (not my own thankfully), I think that I know well the mold the author’s casts the subject.

Turning now to Night and Day, (1919) a novel Virginia Woolf's authored a decade after the Carlyle’ House sketches, she takes us into the lives of friends, Katharine Hilbery, Ralph Denham and Mary Datchet. The novel uses a mixture of dialogue and description in dealing with not only ordinary lives, but women's suffrage. The book amplifies Woolf’s early use of anatomical description to complement character, scene and action. She expands on the use of Carlyle’ House sketches, both in the draft of longer passages and perhaps yielding richer embroidery with which she threads her characters. Essentially, a stronger linkage also exists between the feature being described and the metaphor for which it stands. For example:

"With the omnibuses and cabs still running in his head, and his body still tingling with his quick walk along the streets and in and out of traffic and foot-passengers, this drawing-room seemed very remote and still; and the faces of the elderly people were mellowed, at some distance from each other, and had a bloom on them owing to the fact that the air in the drawing-room was thickened by blue grains of mist. She could see that he was nervous; one would expect a bony young man with his face slightly reddened by the wind, and his hair not altogether smooth, to be nervous in such a party. Further, he probably disliked this kind of thing, and had come out of curiosity, or because her father had invited him--anyhow, he would not be easily combined with the rest.”

In this passage the author captures the image of a hurried young man attending a soiree in terms of his perception of the faces of the elderly men, “… the faces of the elderly people were mellowed, at some distance from each other, and had a bloom on them…”. This describes the sense I certainly experience after physical exertion, probably caused by blood rushing to my head. It often seems that every thing is at a distance. 

Another example below,…” a habit of moving his head hither and thither very quickly without altering the position of his large and rather corpulent body…” describes an elderly man while creating the image of a grandfather clock, which seems to not only describe the static features of the individual, such as the framework or casing of a clock, but adds a dynamic in the form of pendulum-like motion:

“He was an elderly man, with a pair of oval, hazel eyes which were rather bright for his time of life, and relieved the heaviness of his face. He played constantly with a little green stone attached to his watch-chain, thus displaying long and very sensitive fingers, and had a habit of moving his head hither and thither very quickly without altering the position of his large and rather corpulent body, so that he seemed to be providing himself incessantly with food for amusement and reflection with the least possible expenditure of energy.”

In yet another example, she uses a man’s physical description to keep the reader’s mind moving forward in time. Her earlier Carlyle’s House essays did not seem to enjoy the added dimension of likening the features of an individual to some external physical phenomenon. In one instance with the image of “…deeply running tide of red blood” and in another instance “…slight vibrating or creaking sound in it.” Each of these metaphors draws on natural physical entities.

“He had a singular face a face built for swiftness and decision rather than for massive contemplation; the forehead broad, the nose long and formidable, the lips clean-shaven and at once dogged and sensitive, the cheeks lean, with a deeply running tide of red blood in them. His eyes, expressive now of the usual masculine impersonality and authority, might reveal more subtle emotions under favorable circumstances, for they were large, and of a clear, brown color; they seemed unexpectedly to hesitate and speculate; but Katharine only looked at him to wonder whether his face would not have come nearer the standard of her dead heroes if it had been adorned with side-whiskers. In his spare build and thin, though healthy, cheeks, she saw tokens of an angular and acrid soul. His voice, she noticed, had a slight vibrating or creaking sound in it, as he laid down the manuscript …”

In her passage,”…his spare build and thin, though healthy, cheeks, she saw tokens of an angular and acrid soul…”, delve into not only the observable world, but the man's character in the spiritual world.

What follows are three excerpts that serve as examples of the skill with which Woolf  animates her characters, not through behavioral features, but clear description base on physical features: 

“She was a remarkable-looking woman, well advanced in the sixties, but owing to the lightness of her frame and the brightness of her eyes she seemed to have been wafted over the surface of the years without taking much harm in the passage. Her face was shrunken and aquiline, but any hint of sharpness was dispelled by the large blue eyes, at once sagacious and innocent, which seemed to regard the world with an enormous desire that it should behave itself nobly, and an entire confidence that it could do so, if it would only take the pains.”

"… Denham found himself looked down upon by the eyes of the great poet, Richard Alardyce, and suffered a little shock which would have led him, had he been wearing a hat, to remove it. The eyes looked at him out of the mellow pinks and yellows of the paint with divine friendliness, which embraced him, and passed on to contemplate the entire world. The paint had so faded that very little but the beautiful large eyes were left, dark in the surrounding dimness.”

“Although he was still under thirty, this forecasting habit had marked two semicircular lines above his eyebrows, which threatened, at this moment, to crease into their wonted shapes. But instead of settling down to think, he rose, took a small piece of cardboard marked in large letters with the word OUT, and hung it upon the handle of his door. This done, he sharpened a pencil, lit a reading-lamp and opened his book.”

In Night and Day I observed that the greater attention to physical descriptions in rounding out the characters occurred in the early stages of the 442 page book. Thereafter the author depended less on references to “eyes, nose, or mouth”, but resorted to words such as smile, frown, that suggest behavioral rather than physical attributes. In each case these devises carry forward the story and its characters.

In conclusion, neither story is about a cultural experience I can identify with, but Woolf nonetheless balances her perspective with that of the reader, so in each case she skillfully puts her world at my disposal. I find that Woolf impliedly knows that the real world contains only three entities: physical things having tangible and intangible existance, states of affairs, and events. In her descriptions she seems to draw on one’s physical countance to make connections to the real world, to everyman’s world. Her artful use of physical features imparts the quality of authenticity in emotions, it fills in the structure of the world she creates for the reader, and adds an energy between and among the people, things, time and events that fill her pages.