Dear Ric, Marie

That men and women generally value praise seems very obvious, this is only surprising in Keynes if one thinks of him (misguidedly I judge) as somehow superhuman.

I wonder how well informed readers are concerning the context of this Woolf/Keynes passage?  As is well known, the inner circle of Bloomsbury crew, rather led by Keynes, indulged as a group in publicly confessing their personal responses to normally very private matters.  In her “George” piece (1939) Woolf was reminiscing to the group about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of much older male relatives.  Some have since suggested that this matter contributed to her suicide (1941).

Thus Keynes' quoted comment, that this made for great literature, seems rather callous.  That whole Bloomsbury carry on seems to me both prurient and potentially dangerous.  Bertrand Russell and D H Lawrence both made somewhat parallel comments on Keynes’ inclinations.

There is a now a huge hero worshiping literature, a kind of “positive ad hominem”, devoted to Keynes’s very close associate Wittgenstein.  I fear we see something similar here concerning Keynes.

Robert Tye, York, UK