25 November

Born in 1870 – Maurice Denis, French painter.

Above: Malon et les hortensias, 1920

Also, born in 1880, British political theorist, author, publisher, and civil servant Leonard Woolf.

From Woolf’s Downhill All the Way: An Autobiography Of The Years 1919 To 1939:

I will end…with a little scene that took place in the last months of peace. They were the most terrible months of my life, for, helplessly and hopelessly, one watched the inevitable approach of war.

One of the most horrible things at that time was to listen on the wireless to the speeches of Hitler—the savage and insane ravings of a vindictive underdog who suddenly saw himself to be all-powerful. We were in Rodmell during the late summer of 1939, and I used to listen to those ranting, raving speeches.

One afternoon I was planting in the orchard under an apple-tree iris reticulata, those lovely violet flowers… Suddenly I heard Virginia’s voice calling to me from the sitting room window: “Hitler is making a speech.”

I shouted back, “I shan’t come. I’m planting iris and they will be flowering long after he is dead.”