The memory of that last evening is so curious: your voice & Vanessa's voice in the dark, as it were -- white rings of plates floating in the air -- a smell of strawberries and coffee....My God I love to think of you, Virginia, as my friend. Dont cry me an ardent creature or say, with your head a little on one side, smiling as though you knew some enchanting secret: 'Well, Katherine, we shall see....' But pray consider how rare it is to find some one with the same passion for writing that you have, who desires to be scrupulously truthful with you -- and to give you the freedom of the city without any reserves at all.
- Katherine Mansfield to Virginia Woolf, June 1917 (quoted in Hermione Lee biography)
descensus Averno facilis est