Mrs Dalloway’s Party Poopers: A Quarrel on Cue

Abstract

Virginia Woolf’s novelMrs Dalloway, published on 14 May 1925, depicts upper-middle-class society in the aftermath of the Great War (1914–18). The significance of fifty years is gathered up through description of a single day.1 In the evening there is an awkward meeting of minds at a party when Professor Brierly and ‘little’ Jim Hutton quarrel over the poet and polemicist John Milton (1608–74).2 This short scene generally escapes attention from Woolf’s editors and critics while the author herself describes it as ‘an attempt at literary criticism’.3 Its interest and its importance justify its inclusion in full: For there was Professor Brierly, who lectured on Milton, talking to little Jim Hutton (who was unable even for a party like this to compass both tie and waistcoat or make his hair lie flat), and even at this distance they were quarrelling, she could see. For Professor Brierly was a very queer fish. With all those degrees, honours, lectureships between him and the scribblers, he suspected instantly an atmosphere not favourable to his queer compound; his prodigious learning and timidity; his wintry charm without cordiality, his innocence blent with snobbery; he quivered if made conscious, by a lady’s unkempt hair, a youth’s boots, of an underworld, very creditable doubtless, of rebels, of ardent young people; of would-be geniuses, and intimated with a little toss of the head, with a sniff – Humph! – the value of moderation; of some slight training in the classics in order to appreciate Milton. Professor Brierly (Clarissa could see) wasn’t hitting it off with little Jim Hutton (who wore red socks, his black being at the laundry) about Milton. She interrupted. She said she loved Bach. So did Hutton. That was the bond between them, and Hutton (a very bad poet) always felt that Mrs Dalloway was far the best of the great ladies who took an interest in art. It was odd how strict she was. About music she was purely impersonal. She was rather a prig. But how charming to look at! She made her house so nice, if it weren’t for her Professors. Clarissa had half a mind to snatch him off and set him down at the piano in the back room. For he played divinely. ‘But the noise!’ she said. ‘The noise!’ ‘The sign of a successful party.’ Nodding urbanely, the Professor stepped delicately off. ‘He knows everything in the whole world about Milton,’ said Clarissa. ‘Does he indeed?’ said Hutton, who would imitate the Professor throughout Hampstead: the Professor on Milton; the Professor on moderation; the Professor stepping delicately off.4