The following is a quote from a speech given by writer Virginia Woolf to a graduating class in 1931. I’m not sure why, when reading the transcript of the speech, this hit me so hard. But, when I did read it, I found myself laughing aloud (something that generally doesn’t accompany my school-related reading).

“But to tell you my story—it is a simple one. You have only got to figure to yourselves a girl in a bedroom with a pen in her hand. She had only to move that pen from left to right—from ten o’clock to one. Then it occurred to her to do what is simple and cheap enough after all—to slip a few of those pages into an envelope, fix a penny stamp in the corner, and drop the envelope into the red box at the corner. It was thus that I became a journalist; and my effort was rewarded on the first day of the following month—a very glorious day it was for me—by a letter from an editor containing a cheque for one pound ten shillings and sixpence. But to show you how little I deserve to be called a professional woman, how little I know of the struggles and difficulties of such lives, I have to admit that instead of spending that sum upon bread and butter, rent, shoes and stockings, or butcher’s bills, I went out and bought a cat—a beautiful cat, a Persian cat, which very soon involved me in bitter disputes with my neighbours.”

I guess I just see this little quip as so indicative of the strong, female artist. Woolf’s anecdote is presumably true, maybe unintentionally comical, yet remains full of character and strength without loosing it’s feminine appeal. As a male observer, this exert typifies what a truly remarkable woman is. The story would likely not be told by a man, and thus it retains it’s femininity, but still maintains an eccentric confidence that is disconcerting to patriarchs the world over.