Sun 23 June 1929

I now begin to see the Moths rather too clearly, or at least strenuously, for my comfort. I think it will begin like this: dawn; the shells on a beach; I dont know—voices of cock & nightingale; & then all the children at a long table-lessons. The beginning. Well, all sorts of characters are to be there. Then the person who is at the table can call out any one of them at any moment; & build up by that person the mood, tell a story; for instance about dogs or nurses; or some adventure of a childs kind; all to be very Arabian nights; & so on: this shall be Childhood; but it must not be my childhood; & boats on the pond; the sense of children; unreality; things oddly proportioned. Then another person or figure must be selected. The unreal world must be round all this—the phantom waves. The Moth must come in: the beautiful single moth. There must be a flower growing.

Could one not get the waves to be heard all through? Or the farmyard noises? Some odd irrelevant noises. She might have a book—one book to read in-another to write in—old letters.

Early morning light—but this need not be insisted on; because there must be great freedom from 'reality'. Yet everything must have relevance.

virginia woolf, diary