Memorable Letters II | Virginia Woolf to her husband before her suicide: "I can't take it anymore."

We continue this summer series of some of history's most unforgettable letters, based on those included in the book New Memorable Letters compiled by Shaun Usher (Salamandra) and translated by María José Díez, Enrique de Hériz, and Jofre Homedes. In this chapter, we publish the one Virginia Woolf wrote to her husband Leonard Woolf , speaking of the pain caused by her fragile mental health; the one a mother sent to the Foundling Home to take her son (the poor writing is maintained in the translation); and the one writer Henry James sent to a friend to console her for a recent loss. Sad, tragic, beautiful.

Tuesday.

Darling:

I'm certain I'm going to go crazy again . I feel like we can't go through one of those terrible phases again. And this time I'm not going to recover. I'm starting to hear voices and I can't concentrate. So I'm going to do what seems like the best course of action . You've given me the greatest happiness possible. You've been, in every way, everything there is to be. I don't think two people could be happier than we were until this terrible illness came along. I can't fight it anymore. I know I'm ruining your life, that without me you'd be able to work. And I know you will. Look, I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I mean is, I owe you all the happiness in my life. You've had absolute patience with me and incredible kindness. That's what I mean: everyone knows it. If anyone could have saved me, it would have been you . I have nothing left now, except the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on ruining your life . I don't think two people could be happier than we were.

V.

March 1941. At just twenty-two years old, the influential novelist Virginia Woolf had already suffered two nervous breakdowns , believed to have been brought on by the deaths of her mother and stepsister in quick succession, followed a few years later by that of her father. Sadly, Virginia's struggle did not end there, and she faced numerous bouts of depression throughout her life, right up to the very end. One afternoon in March 1941, Virginia attempted to end her life by jumping into a river, but was unsuccessful and, soaked, chose to return home. Unfortunately, she persisted, and a few days later, on March 28, 1941, she tried again; this time she managed to escape a lifetime of mental illness. On the day of her death, Virginia's husband, Leonard, still unaware of her whereabouts, discovered this heartbreaking letter on the mantelpiece. The body was found a few weeks later in the River Ouse , his coat pockets stuffed with heavy stones .

Letter from a mother to the Foulding Hospice in New York

New York, Tuesday

Kind sisters

They will find a little boy tomorrow he will be one month old his father is not going to do anything and he is a poor boy and his mother has to work to support three others and she cannot do anything for this one his name is Walter Cooper and he has not yet been baptized and if you would be so kind as to do it because I would not like for him to die without being baptized and his mother may come looking for him someday I was married five years and married respectfully and I did not believe that my husband was a bad man I had to leave him and now I could not leave my children with him because I do not know where he is and he has not seen this one yet and I do not have a single dollar to give him or I would give it to him I hope you can keep him for 3 or 4 months and if nobody claims him then you will know for sure that his mother cannot support him and maybe someday she will send him some money do not forget her name.

He greets them respectfully

Mrs. Cooper

1870s. In the late 1860s, in direct response to a sharp increase in the number of abandoned children in New York City and, even more disturbingly, cases of infanticide , Sister Irene Fitzgibbon campaigned for The Foundling Asylum , which she would eventually found; essentially a home in Greenwich Village dedicated to taking in and caring for the city's unwanted children. Opening to the public in 1869 with a single white crib in the doorway, it immediately began providing shelter for abandoned children. In its first two years alone, it took in 2,500 children, often accompanied by handwritten explanatory letters from grieving parents; many of these notes are preserved at the New-York Historical Society. The New York Foundling , as the institution is known today, is still operating 140 years later and provides a foster home as well as other support services for local families.

Letter from Henry James to his friend Grace Norton

131 Mount Vernon St., Boston

July 28

My dear Grace:

I tend to act powerless in the face of the suffering of others, and the letter you sent me reveals a suffering of such depth that I practically don't know what to say to you. That is certainly not my last word, but it must be the first. You are certainly not alone in this kind of feeling; that is, in the sense that you seem to make all of humanity's misfortune your own. But I have the terrible feeling that you give everything and receive nothing back, that there is no reciprocation in your compassion, that you suffer all the affliction it provides and none of its compensations. However, I have decided not to speak to you except in the voice of Stoicism . I do not know why we live. The gift of life comes to us from I know not what source, nor for what purpose; but I believe we can go on living for the reason that (always, of course, up to a point) life is the most precious thing we know, and consequently, presumably, it is a great mistake to give it up while we have some of it left in the cup. In other words, consciousness is an unlimited power, and although it sometimes seems to give us only a notion of misfortunes, in its way of spreading from wave to wave in such a way that we never stop feeling, although sometimes we pretend, try, pray for something to keep us in our place , it establishes a point of view of the universe that perhaps it is good not to forget.

The pain comes in great waves, but we know that if he is strong, we are stronger; because the pain passes and we remain.

You are right in your awareness that we are all echoes and reverberations of the same thing , and you behave nobly when your interest and pity for what surrounds you seem to have the power to sustain and harmonize. But, I beg you, do not lavish your compassion and tenderness too much . Remember that every life is a special problem not yours but someone else's, and be content with the terrible algebra of your own. Do not merge too much with the universe; on the contrary, be as solid, dense, and firm as you can. We all live together, and those we love and know experience it all the more so. We help one another, even unconsciously ; each of us by our effort relieves that of others, we contribute to the sum of achievement, we make it possible for others to live. Grief comes in great waves—no one knows that better than you—but it rolls over us, and though it could have suffocated us, it leaves us standing, and we know that if it is strong, we are stronger; Because pain passes, but we remain . It wears us down, it uses us, but in return we do the same to it; and pain is blind, while we, in a way, see.

Don't think, don't feel, as far as you can help it, don't draw any conclusions or decide anything; just wait.

My dear Grace, you are passing through a darkness in which I myself, in my ignorance, can only see that it has made you terribly ill; but it is only a darkness, it is not an end, nor the end. Don't think, don't feel, to the extent that you can avoid it, don't draw any conclusions or decide anything; just wait. Everything will pass, and the mysteries and disappointments that we do accept will come , as well as the tenderness of a few good people and new opportunities, and, in short, there will still be a lot of life ahead of you. You will still do many different things, and I will help you. The only thing is not to melt into the moment. I insist on the need for a kind of mechanical condensation , so that no matter how fast the horse runs, when it decides to stop, a somewhat agitated but perfectly identical GN will remain in the saddle. Try not to get ill : that's all; because in that, there is a future. You are marked for success and you must not fail. You have my most tender affection and all my trust.

Always your loyal friend:

Henry James

July 28, 1883. In July 1883, the celebrated novelist responsible for writing The Portrait of a Lady , to name his most notable work, received a disturbingly emotional letter from Grace Norton, a friend of his for some years and a successful essayist who, following the recent death of a relative, was apparently depressed and in desperate need of advice. James, no stranger to depression himself, responded with an astonishing letter which, despite beginning "...I practically don't know what to say to you," contains some of the most important and merciful advice ever committed to paper, an achievement all the more impressive considering that it was written just months after the death of her parents.