Ronald would have to tolerate Edith’s absorption in the daily details of life, trivial as they might seem to him. She would have to make an effort to understand his preoccupation with his books and his languages, selfish as it might appear to her. Neither of them entirely succeeded. Their letters were full of affection but also sometimes of mutual irritation. Ronald might address Edith as ‘little one’ (his favourite name for her), and talk lovingly of her ‘little house’, but she was far from little in personality, and when they were together their tempers would often flare.
