Testament of Youth

Winifred and Brittain live at home to save money in the three months before finding themselves in Bloomsbury, London, where they later rent a studio in which to live and work. Brittain writes to Winifred, in Yorkshire, from her parents’ flat in South Kensington. Both women intend to take on part-time lecturing and teaching jobs in order to earn money that will enable them to devote time to writing and politics. After the end of the war, Brittain’s father had given her a portion of paper-mill shares, and this income continues to support her in London. Before traveling to Italy with Winifred, Brittain had confirmed she would be teaching in South Kensington and at her old school, St. Monica’s, and at this time, she had also written to the League of Nations Union offering her services as a lecturer. Brittain is invited to the offices of the Union and asked to prepare a sample lecture. This sample meets with the approval of the secretary to whom she sends the lecture. 

In December 1921, Winifred and Brittain move into their tiny studio off a lodging-house near the British Museum. They adapt to the close quarters and the cold, “drafting the final sections of our novels, getting up speeches, preparing classes, correcting childish essays, and writing scores of permanently homeless articles” (501). Both young women revel in the freedom of their lifestyle and enjoy each other’s stimulating companionship. Though she does not find teaching fulfilling, Brittain realizes that her weekly visits to students are nothing like the full-time teaching posts taken by some of her Somerville contemporaries after finishing at Oxford. Though Brittain tries to engage her students in politics, they are more interested in the British expedition to Mount Everest, until Sir Henry Wilson is assassinated by the IRA in June 1921, starting the Civil War in Ireland. 

In February 1922, Brittain receives a message from the League of Nations Union, asking her to fill in for a lecturer who is ill. Brittain goes to Watford to deliver her lecture to a small group of elderly women. A day later, Brittain is asked again to speak, thus beginning a three-year stint delivering speeches for the League of Nations Union. In the fall of 1922, Brittain is asked to speak about the conflict between Greece and Turkey and the rebuilding of Austria. At times, she delivers single stand-alone lectures, and she also offers audiences an entire series of four to six lectures on a particular topic. Brittain recalls that her youthful appearance often seemed to disappoint listeners at first. Winifred also becomes a speaker for the Union, and together, the friends travel to Geneva in August 1922 to attend a League of Nations Union Summer School. Brittain collects information for her first commissioned article for Time and Tide magazine, to be titled “Women at Geneva.” The following September, Brittain travels to Geneva for her first assembly meeting, where the discussion around Mussolini’s bombardment of Corfu is her most significant memory of the whole experience.

During the discussion about the Greek-Italian crisis, Brittain notes that “the simple and obvious solution of an international problem disappeared into the depths of verbosity as a diamond might vanish in a reedy whirlpool” (515). She observes competing priorities amongst the representatives of the countries participating as well as unhelpful verbal sparring. Within two months, Brittain notes, the League of Nations is widely criticized for this dispute. More political trouble in Europe in the months and years to come means that Brittain is busy with more lectures for the League of Nations Union, but in retrospect, she regrets speaking on these topics “until I had been in the occupied areas, sensed their bitter psychology, and seen at least the external aspect of post-war hostilities for myself” (520). After much deliberation, Winifred and Brittain begin to save money to travel to Central Europe to learn about the effect of the war on Germany. 

During Brittain’s work for the League of Nations Union, she meets a Mr. Percy Harris, who asks Brittain to be his secretary during the next election when he intends to run for a position as a Member of Parliament as a Liberal and Labour candidate. Though Brittain’s interest in politics is primarily international, she is tempted by the role; ultimately, Winifred takes the full-time position as Brittain’s teaching commitments take up too much of her time. Mr. Harris wins the election, during which the number of Labour representatives doubles, and Brittain and Winifred take part in Liberal efforts in London alongside their duties for the League of Nations Union. At this time, women are being included more and more in Liberal politics, being admitted as members and elected to the committee of the National Liberal Club, and at one meeting, Brittain is invited to offer her views; the men, however, are shocked when she accepts. Brittain and Winifred both gradually find their way towards the Labour party as it becomes more apparent that women are not completely welcome to participate in Liberal discourse. 

Brittain elaborates on her notion of “the superfluous woman,” a woman who has lost a husband or potential husband to the war and is therefore unlikely to be able to change her unmated status. Brittain does not long for a domestic life, so these discussions enable her to clarify her position as a woman who believes marriage and children are “irrelevant to the main purpose of life” (531). As well, Brittain feels that love is a notion reserved for the young, especially as she is soon approaching the age at which unmarried women become spinsters. Social changes for women are underway, at least, despite the effects of the misogynistic Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act which limits women even after all of their contributions during the war; Brittain explains the neuroses behind this post-war reaction as ones related to fear of women. The establishment of the Six Point Group, a feminist campaign led by Lady Rhondda, leads to some progress, according to the political meetings Brittain attends, eventually finding a way to “use a measure of power instead of merely to agitate for it” (540). As women candidates for Parliament make their way closer to the rooms of Parliament thanks to votes of other women, male candidates are shocked to learn about the reforms they sought. Brittain and Winifred work in their capacity as members of the Six Point Group, protesting laws and conditions that sent a “pompous wink at masculine irregularities” (542). Though Brittain is consumed by these issues, she explains that she becomes distracted by her attempts to publish her novel The Dark Tide.

Brittain reflects on her literary ambitions from the young age of 17 and her grim satisfaction at having some definitive life experience about which she can write. Throughout her novel The Dark Tide, Brittain draws on her time at Oxford, giving life to her characters by basing some of their characteristics on real people. Alongside Brittain, Winifred is writing her novel, titled Anderby Wold, set on a Yorkshire farm. Both women experience rejections from publishing houses, but Brittain’s period of rejection lasts well over a year, while Winifred receives an offer for her novel quickly. Winifred’s success is difficult for Brittain; Winifred is younger, and at Oxford, she appeared less ambitious than Brittain, so her novel’s acceptance is an unpleasant and unexpected surprise. Brittain starts a second novel, resigned to her first novel’s failure, but in spring of 1923, publisher Grant Richards accepts The Dark Tide. Positive reviews follow, as well as attacks on Brittain for her rendition of a woman’s time at Oxford, and Brittain credits Richards for her lifelong writing career.

In August 1923, Brittain receives a book and a letter, and the handwriting is identical to the script on a note she had received earlier in the summer but ignored. The letter compliments Brittain on her novel The Dark Tide, and she is affected by the author’s attentions. Brittain reflects on her feelings about marriage at this stage of her life; her attitude towards men in general and marriage are dismissive due to the losses she has sustained. Her work is satisfying and stimulating, and the thought of giving up even a little bit of her time to the demands of married domesticity is abhorrent to her. Brittain answers the letter, and when the writer, G., responds to her response from America, she is intrigued and defies her impulse to end the correspondence.

Brittain and G. write to each other throughout the fall and winter months of 1923, and Brittain worries that he has romantic designs on her. These worries are somewhat mitigated by her growing awareness that they “might have even more in common than our political ideals” (563), but Brittain’s emotional weariness is significant. G. writes in the spring of coming to England from America, where he has an academic post, and arranging to meet with Brittain in person in London. Though Brittain deliberately tries to avoid meeting him, she accepts his invitation to tea, feeling alarmed at her own feelings of anticipation.

By the end of G.’s visit to England in the fall of 1924, during which he and Brittain spend time together in both London and Oxford, “my resistance was done for, and I was right, for I returned to London, engaged, once more, to be married” (567). G. returns to America, and though Brittain looks forward to going to America herself when they are married, she is rueful at her decision to go abroad yet again even when no war warrants it. 

They spend the next ten months apart, writing frequently while Brittain and Winifred travel to Europe, first to Geneva for the September League of Nations Assembly, where much discussion over allowing Germany’s admission gives Brittain a feeling of hope and cooperation. From Geneva, the two women travel on towards Germany, but Brittain falls ill in Basel; they continue on after Brittain rests for a day, and when they arrive to Saarbrück, Germany, they use their letters of introduction from various connections at the League of Nations Unions to meet different people who can help them on their learning mission. Brittain admires the natural beauty of Germany and notes that religious men and professors are the most willing to speak with them. In Essen, Brittain and Winifred meet with a group of American Quakers who speak with them about the difficulty of the lives of the Germans. Brittain and Winifred return home to London, wondering to themselves if “the new generation [could] be taught to perceive that logic [of internationalism] before the hatreds and passions generated by the last war led a tired and tormented world into yet another” (590). 

As spring 1925 approaches, Brittain’s thoughts of politics and the global political condition are interrupted by her impending marriage to G. She becomes a Socialist, writes articles, and creates a plan for another book, but her anxiety grows as her marriage looms. Brittain finds relief in her acknowledgement that for her, marriage to G. means she is breaking ranks with the past; she finds courage to take on the emotional risks of marriage and motherhood as well as the fight against the domestic traditions so incompatible with her own goals. In June 1925, G. travels to England, and Brittain meets him at the train station. She takes his hands in hers feeling certain that “it is not inappropriate that the years of frustration and grief and loss, of work and conflict and painful resurrection, should have led me through their dark and devious ways to this new beginning” (608).