Looking at her ring, Orlando wonders if this century, the Victorian Age, would approve of her marriage. While she is married, her husband is often away, and Orlando is left alone. Testing whether her finger will tingle, Orlando attempts to write poetry and finds that she can write again. Realizing how much she wants to write poetry, she observes that a great writer must strike a delicate balance: She must acknowledge the spirit of the age while not needing to completely submit to it. She can remain herself while continuing to write.

A year passes, as the biographer bemoans his predicament. Orlando is a boring subject, doing nothing but thinking and loving. The biographer takes that moment to describe the nature outside the window. At this moment, Orlando announces that she has finished “The Oak Tree.”

Orlando feels that her manuscript is begging to be read, so she travels to London. In her search for someone who will read her manuscript aloud, she meets Sir Nicholas Greene, whom she is surprised to see. Apparently, he too does not age typically. Unlike in her first encounter with him, Greene is now nicely dressed and a knighted influential critic.