The resistance which Three Guineas aroused went beyond rational objections. The essay was a threat. A Room of One's Own, charming, witty and urbane, had slipped down deliciously, like the famous lunch in the men's college it described; Three Guineas, furious, lacerating, harsh and awkward, stuck in many of its readers' throats. But though there was so much derision and opposition to Three Guineas from her close circle, farther afield, especially among women, there was a great deal of rational support and enthusiasm.

She had tapped into some readers' feelings in a very profound and vivid way. Letters came in from all quarters, many enthusiastically greeting her idea of a society of "outsiders," and some, it must be said, very odd indeed (like the 60-page disquisition on sex and the working classes from Ernest Huxley, of Rock Ferry, Birkenhead). A self-educated Yorkshire mill-worker, Agnes Smith, wrote from Holmfirth, near Huddersfield, to complain that the essay had not dealt with the problems of working-class women. "It is true that I have to cook my own dinner while you do not--but that does not make me any more free from the problems which beset women as a whole." But Three Guineas still seemed very important to her, and their correspondence developed into friendly exchanges on education, the importance of public libraries, and the class system. Advising her to continue writing about politics only in her own way, Agnes Smith wrote, conclusively: "After all, A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas were politics." Tributes to Woolf's "politics" circulated among a distinguished cross-section of women. Edith Somerville wrote to Ethel Smyth: "How admirable Three Guineas is!" She had read it "with ecstasy and fury"; but "only those of our persuasion will read it. It cuts too deep for men to endure." Nelly Cecil wrote to Virginia: "I hope the leading gentlemens get it stuffed down their throats again & again -- & the backward gentlewomens too--that is the sad part of the story--if we stuck together as men do--wouldnt we have got everything worth having long ago?"

Virginia WoolfBy Hermione LeePages 681-682