Journal Entry 2

This essay is in form true to its content. Virginia Woolf seems to ramble in her writing even as she writes about ambling through the streets of London, seeking adventure above any other petty goal. That's really what this essay is about. It's about the idea that you can journey just for the sake of journeying, because you never know what you might find and so you could be rewarded far more than if you had a fixed goal from the start. Woolf uses the idea of buying a pencil, such a menial task, to represent starting a journey with a set goal in mind. It never really amounts to much, she seems to comment, for if you know your goal at the start, the amount of journeying you undergo is necessarily limited. I very much agree with Woolf's sentiment, and greatly admire the randomness of some of her observations in the essay. In some ways, it's harder to write without a set topic in mind, but maybe it's more rewarding. Thus I think it is with a bit of irony when Woolf conclues her essay by saying, "the only spoil we have retrieved from all the treasures of the city, a lead pencil."