After Leonard went to his office, Woolf put on her fur coat and Wellington boots, exited the front gate, and made her way to the River Ouse next to their house. When Leonard went upstairs to check on her a couple of hours later, he found two suicide notes in the place of his wife. One was addressed to him, and the other to her sister, Vanessa.
Virginia Woolf’s suicide note to her husband read, “Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do.”
Virginia Woolf’s suicide note continues:
“What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me, it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness… I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.”
Frantic upon reading Virginia Woolf’s suicide note, Leonard Woolf searched nearby for her. He soon found her footprints and walking stick on the river bank, but the water had already swept her body away. It would be found three weeks later, washed up near Southease, England.