Surdos

“Esta é uma crítica bem conhecida e tão difícil de refutar como os comentários que um surdo possa fazer quando Figaro é tocado. Vê a orquestra e ouve ao longe sons esbatidos, arranhados; os seus próprios comentários são interrompidos, e, muito naturalmente, conclui que os objectivos da vida seriam mais bem servidos se, em vez de arranharem Mozart, aqueles cinquenta violinistas estivessem a partir pedras na calçada. Como vamos nós convencê-los de que a beleza ensina, de que a beleza é disciplinadora, uma vez que os seus ensinamentos são inseparáveis do som da sua voz, que eles, surdos, não conseguem ouvir?”

Virginia Woolf, "Joseph Conrad" em 48 Ensaios

Personagens

“homens e mulheres escrevem romances porque são seduzidos a criar uma personagem que se lhes impôs (...) os romancistas diferem do resto do mundo porque não param de se interessar pela personalidade, pelas «personagens», quando já aprenderam o suficiente a esse respeito para fins práticos. E vão ainda mais longe; sentem que há permanentemente algo de interessante na personagem em si mesma. Quando todos os aspectos práticos da vida são relegados para segundo plano, há algo nas pessoas que continua a parecer-lhes de extrema importância apesar de não ter qualquer relação com a sua felicidade, conforto ou rendimento. O estudo da personalidade, da personagem, torna-se para eles uma busca absorvente; transmitir a personalidade, uma obsessão.”

Virginia Woolf, "Mr. Bennett e Mrs. Brown" em 48 Ensaios

Dá-lhes, Woolf

“but it appears that Mr. Hamilton and his industrious band see far off upon the horizon a circle of superior enlightenment to which, if only they can keep on reading long enough, they may attain. Every book demolished is a milestone passed. Books in foreign languages count twice over. And a book like this is of the nature of a dissertation to be sent up to the supreme examiner, who may be, for anything we know, the ghost of Matthew Arnold. Will Mr. Hamilton be admitted? Can they have the heart to reject anyone so ardent, so dusty, so worthy, so out of breath? Alas! look at his quotations; consider his comments upon them:

‘The murmuring of innumerable bees.’… The word innumerable, which denotes to the intellect merely ‘incapable of being numbered,’ is, in this connection, made to suggest to the senses the murmuring of bees.

The credulous ploughboy could have told him more than that. (...) No; Mr. Hamilton will never be admitted; he and his disciples must toil for ever in the desert sand, and the circle of illumination will, we fear, grow fainter and farther upon their horizon. It is curious to find, after writing the above sentence, how little one is ashamed of being, where literature is concerned, an unmitigated snob.”

Virginia Woolf, “The Anatomy of Fiction” em 48 Ensaios

Dá-lhes, Woolf

“But this would never do for Mr. Hamilton. According to him every work of art can be taken to pieces, and those pieces can be named and numbered, divided and subdivided, and given their order of precedence, like the internal organs of a frog. Thus we learn how to put them together again — that is, according to Mr. Hamilton, we learn how to write. There is the complication, the major knot, and the explication; the inductive and the deductive methods; the kinetic and the static; the direct and the indirect with subdivisions of the same; connotation, annotation, personal equation, and denotation; logical sequence and chronological succession — all parts of the frog and all capable of further dissection. Take the case of ‘emphasis’ alone. There are eleven kinds of emphasis. Emphasis by terminal position, by initial position, by pause, by direct proportion, by inverse proportion, by iteration, by antithesis, by surprise, by suspense — are you tired already? (...)
Still, as Mr. Hamilton uneasily perceives now and then, you may dissect your frog, but you cannot make it hop; there is, unfortunately, such a thing as life. Directions for imparting life to fiction are given, such as to ‘ train yourself rigorously never to be bored’, and to cultivate ‘a lively curiosity and a ready sympathy’. But it is evident that Mr. Hamilton does not like life, and, with such a tidy museum as his, who can blame him? He has found life very troublesome, and, if you come to consider it, rather unnecessary; for, after all, there are books.” 

Virginia Woolf, “The Anatomy of Fiction” em 48 Ensaios