aside from the ghoulishness. nothing flags someone's shallow understanding of Woolf's life like glamourizing the passive, Sad Virginia. this was the least interesting thing about her. her actual work wasn't even sad. it was full of staggering achievements and moments of the sublime. even in her morbid moments (as in The Death of the Moth) she was lucid rather than mopey.

this is a particular curse laid on female geniuses, to cast them in the light of frailty and weakness rather than strength. what's the first thing you think of when you think of Virginia Woolf? if it isn't her achievements but her illness then there is something wrong with this picture.