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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 one__ beads, blow one__ nose, stir the fire, look out of the window, until she has done_Surely, 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 dusk_She 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 one__ petticoat and _ But we all know what love is_If then, the subject of one__ 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.