BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 28 MAY 1917
BRACERS 19168. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
The Manor House
Garsington
Oxford1
28 May ’17

My dearest Darling

Your dear letter has just come. I love it — My Heart, I wonder if you have any conception how important you are to me — how my life is filled with happiness through you, and the future is all warm with the hope of you. I did love being with you all through Friday, which was such a wonderful day — I shall be back late tomorrow (Tuesday) — probably 10.57 Waterloo.

Massingham2 is ill and not here. Old Birrell3 is here — rather lovable and very amusing, but of course useless politically. I am just resting — the country is heavenly.

Post going. My dear dear love, my life is yours. I love you more deeply every day — every day I give myself more completely to you —

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200144.

• 2

  Massingham (1860–1924), radical journalist and founding editor in 1907 of The Nation, which superseded The Speaker and soon became Britain’s foremost Liberal weekly. Almost immediately the editor of the new periodical started to host a weekly luncheon (usually at the National Liberal Club), which became a vital forum for the exchange of “New Liberal” ideas and strategies between like-minded politicians, publicists and intellectuals (see Alfred F. Havighurst, Radical Journalist: H.W. Massingham, 1860–1924 [Cambridge: U. P., 1974], pp. 152–3). On 4 August 1914, BR attended a particularly significant Nation lunch, at which Massingham appeared still to be in favour of British neutrality (see Papers 13: 6) — which had actually ended at the stroke of midnight. By the next day, however, Massingham (like many Radical critics of Britain’s pre-war diplomacy) had come to accept the case for military intervention, a position he maintained (not without misgivings) for the next two years. Massingham was still at the helm of the Nation when it merged with the more literary-minded Athenaeum in 1921; he finally relinquished editorial control two years later. In 1918 he served on Miles and Constance Malleson’s Experimental Theatre Committee.

• 3

  Old Birrell Augustine Birrell (1850–1933), politician and author. He resigned from cabinet in May 1916 after the Easter Rising in Ireland.