“How far has our set justified its promise? Lytton maintains that in ourselves we are as remarkable as the Johnson set, though our works may perish — still we’re at the beginning of our works.” VW diary, p. 64

It would be interesting to know if Boswell compared his own set to anything preceding it, or if he distinguished between set and Club. And if by set, Strachey meant The Club, then we have to compare Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell to Reynolds, etc, and immortality certainly falls short. A discussion on immortality was the context for the quotation above in September 1920 (recorded in Virginia Woolf’s diary). Lytton was the believer, and Leonard Woolf the skeptic. “It was an amusing talk,” wrote Virginia, and it apparently included comparisons involving Madame de Sevigné and Macaulay.

http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitLarge/mw85227/The-Memoir-Club