One hundred years ago today, on Dec 3, 1923, Virginia Woolf began a long diary entry about her brother Adrian’s separation from his wife Karin with a rumination on writing vs. reading:

Back from Rodmell; unable to settle in; therefore I write diary. How often I have said this! An odd psychological fact–that I can write when I’m too jangled to read. Morever, I want to leave as few pages blank as possibe; & the end of the year is only some three weeks off. – Diary 2, p. 276.