Life, it has been agreed by everyone whose opinion is worth consulting, is the only fit subject for novelist or biographer; life, the same authorities have decided, has nothing whatever to do with sitting still in a chair and thinking. Thought and life are as the poles asunder. Therefore since sitting in a chair and thinking is precisely what Orlando is doing now there is nothing for it but to recite the calendar, tell ones beads, blow ones nose, stir the fire, look out of the window, until she has doneSurely, since she is a woman, and a beautiful woman, and a woman in the prime of life, she will soon give over this pretence of writing and thinking and begin at least to think of a gamekeeper (and as long as she thinks of a man, nobody objects to a woman thinking). And then she will write him a little note (and as long as she writes little notes nobody objects to a woman writing either) and make an assignation for Sunday duskShe was kind to dogs, faithful to friends, generosity itself to a dozen starving poets, had a passion for poetry. But love as the male novelists define it and who, after all, speak with greater authority? has nothing whatever to do with kindness, fidelity, generosity, or poetry. Love is slipping off ones petticoat and But we all know what love isIf then, the subject of ones biography will neither love nor kill, but will only think and imagine, we may conclude that he or she is no better than a corpse and so leave her.