What an irony that going with the flow, and taking the path of least resistance, may be the biggest energy sapper after all. In this new phase of her life Lady Slane reflects on frustrated artistic passions, on being young and growing old and on the nature of happiness.

I used to be entirely “death of the author” but my position now is that the author is writing to us, that the story contains a message, and we need to know what context she is writing from to be able to decipher the message. Part Two is where VSW displays her strongly feminist (though she would vigorously object to the word, preferring human rights) viewpoint, particularly in Lady Slane's recollection of her internal struggle over the meaning of her impending marriage to Henry. Lady Slane however has already been in touch with an agent – in fact the elderly owner, Mr Bucktrout – of a house in Hampstead (which feels separate from London and a bit rural, but which I understand is quite close to the City) in which she will see out her days with her servant Genoux, who was 16 when she married at 18 Slane, then plain Mr Holland (though probably an Hon. I loved the scenes where Lady Slane and her young (er) friend Mr Fitz-George stroll slowly on Hampstead Heath, stopping frequently because they’re tired (though they pretend they want to admire the view). In doing so and in the relationship between FitzGeorge and other characters Lady Slane finds the strength to make decisions that truly reflect her character and infuriate some of the rather smug entitled members of her family.

In 1922 Sackville-West began a long relationship with Virginia Woolf, documented by VSW’s son Nigel Nicholson in Portrait of a Marriage (1973), during which time it is felt both women did their best work, surrounded by the artists and thinkers of the Bloomsbury Set. This book would have Milton defines Samson’s act of heroism as spiritually inspired but also dependent on the physical violence of the crashing pillars.

After a lifetime of doing what society expects of her, she makes a decision to retire from the public eye and live in a small house, out of the spotlight. She however surprises them all by deciding to live on her own in a house she'd spotted years earlier, and settling in a quiet life surrounded by a few confidants, avoiding the limelight and the attentions of her greedy and mean-spirited children unable to see their mother's true needs.Maybe British people studied it regularly in earlier times, and it was assumed that they understood French? The film of Orlando with Tilda Swinton is really good, and that’s an amazing book, but I’ve also loved all of Vita’s I’ve read, plus her pieces on gardening, of course. Sackville-West had a considerable output in fiction, poetry and non-fiction – I should have remembered she wrote The Incomparable Astrea (1927) about Aphra Benn, who pops up as well in Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929). All Passion Spent echoes some of Sackville-West's primary concerns: [2] people's place in society, society's constrictions on people, and women's control of their lives.

Lady Slane distributes her jewelry, her only private asset, with little regard as to fairness; rather she seems faintly amused at the egotistical frailties this gesture reveals among her offspring and their spouses.An acquaintance from Lady Slane's distant past as Vicereine of India, millionaire by inheritance, lover of beauty and fine art. Now I have reread it thirty years later and am still enchanted by the study of a family stripped bare of their values by the honesty of their Victorian mother/grandmother/ great grandmothers review of a life well lived but based on a contractual lie that undermines the whole of Lady Slanes life. The author, who was only about forty when she wrote the book, showed remarkable insight into what old age is like although it was difficult to imagine the heroine of 88 taking the tube and walking in Hampstead when she could have taken a taxi. This is a book that looks at the position of Victorian and Edwardian women and foresees the changes in status to come.