I thought of you, as the flames shot up

Remember, remember the 5th of November

(Photo: Getty)

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I write even less connectedly and legibly than usual, because 3 or 400 years ago a wretched Italian tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament! So we English are celebrating the day at this moment—which would be all very well if the children in the mews opposite didn’t think it necessary to join in with horrible crackers and bonfires and shoutings and whoopings. It seems quite superfluous.

Virginia Woolf
Letter to Thoby Stephen
5th November 1901
Letters of Virginia Woolf