the exchange between Smuts and Churchill regarding Gandhi<\/a> that occurs on the same page.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
This morning, the PM spoke with me about the long and painful learning period that he had to pass through.\u00a0 Few people have worked with such almost religious dedication on the craft of using words.\u00a0 In peacetime, he used it to make his political fortune; in wartime, he won everybody\u2019s heart by means of it.\u00a0 \u201cIt began already at Harrow,\u201d he said.\u00a0 Sitting in the back of the class, always in others\u2019 shadow, he discovered that he could do something that others couldn\u2019t: write.\u00a0 From the beginning, it was his goal \u201cto distinguish myself personally,\u201d and, in particular, he wanted to become a great orator.\u00a0 He read everything he could find about Lord Chatham [William Pitt the Elder], the mighty eighteenth century statesman; he studied his father\u2019s [Lord Randolph Churchill\u2019s] speeches, and practiced his own in front of the mirror.<\/span><\/p>\nHe told me this very plainly.\u00a0 Occasionally, he interrupted himself when his voice disobeyed him out of sheer emotion.\u00a0 As I listened to him, I saw the sensitive boy, beaten up and tyrannized, grow to be a man, short of stature, with thin, unmuscular limbs and the white, delicate hands of a woman.\u00a0 He lisped and stuttered a bit.\u00a0 Whenever he began to give a speech in the House of Commons, he was always anxious lest something come out that would blight his prospects.\u00a0 \u201cAt that time,\u201d he reported, \u201cI absolutely could not speak without the most careful preparation.\u201d\u00a0 On one occasion, he stood up in Parliament and realized that his mind had gone completely blank; there was respectful silence all around him that was interrupted only by a few friendly calls of encouragement.\u00a0 He returned to his place and hid his face in his hands.\u00a0 Thereafter, he was even more reluctant than before to try to put in a word.\u00a0 But he refused to recognize defeats.<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019m astonished at his willpower and his dedication to his goals.\u00a0 He was determined to become robust and hardy, and, in wartime, he deliberately exposed himself to danger.\u00a0 In France, during the First World War, he rode a white horse in the front lines because he wanted to test his nerve.\u00a0 And he worked hard on himself to cope with the humiliations and injustices of life and overcome them. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWhen I was young,\u201d the PM reflected, \u201ca deep depression came over me that lasted two or three years.\u00a0 As soon as I spoke with Clemmie, though, it got better.\u00a0 Still today, though, I don\u2019t like to stand on a train platform when an express train races by; I also don\u2019t like to stand at the railing of a ship and look down into the water.\u00a0 A second\u2019s decision, a few drops of despair \u2014 and everything would be at an end.\u00a0 And yet, at such moments, I really don\u2019t want to depart this world.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cDo you know much of grief, Charles?\u00a0 It helps me to try to write down a half dozen things that trouble me.\u00a0 Two of these problems, let\u2019s say, will solve themselves.\u00a0 Two of them can\u2019t be changed, so there\u2019s no point in driving oneself crazy over them; and two of them might be manageable.\u201d . . .<\/span><\/p>\nHe called his bouts of depression \u201cthe black dog.\u201d\u00a0 I said \u201cYou inherited \u2018the black dog\u2019 from your ancestors and you\u2019ve fought against it y0ur entire life.\u00a0 That\u2019s why you don\u2019t visit military clinics or hospitals.\u00a0 You always avoid anything that might bring you down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nHe stared at me as if I knew too much.\u00a0 Finally, he said \u201cPresumably you believe in a life after death.\u00a0 You\u2019ve surely learned to think logically.\u00a0 Please explain to me how you can believe in such a thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nI had the feeling that he desperately wanted to believe in something too, but that it wasn\u2019t easy for him.\u00a0 (London, 29 October 1943; pages 289-291)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s something reminiscent of Theodore Roosevelt in Churchill\u2019s determination to overcome youthful weakness and become \u201crobust and hardy.\u201d\u00a0 And, ironically, Churchill\u2019s practice of rehearsing his speeches in front of a mirror, at least in his early political career, recalls Adolf Hitler\u2019s similar practice.\u00a0 In a sense, World War Two was a contest between two master orators.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Posted from Richmond, Virginia<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 In scattered moments at the beginning of the day and at its end, I\u2019ve been reading a condensed version of Churchill \u2014 Der Kampf ums \u00dcberleben 1940\/65, which is a German translation of Winston Churchill \u2013The Struggle for Survival 1940-1965, which (in its turn) is allegedly (though somewhat controversially) based on the diary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27111,27114,25235,7347,27120,23447,23450,23444,27099,27096,27117,14276,5526,27102,8460,27105,25232,27108,5529,5532],"class_list":["post-93621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-black-dog","tag-charles-wilson","tag-churchill","tag-depression","tag-fdr","tag-franklin-d-roosevelt","tag-franklin-delano-roosevelt","tag-franklin-roosevelt","tag-jan-christian-smuts","tag-lord-moran","tag-mackenzie-king","tag-roosevelt","tag-second-world-war","tag-smuts","tag-south-africa","tag-struggle-for-survival","tag-winston","tag-world-war-2","tag-world-war-ii","tag-world-war-two"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Churchill](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2016\/12\/Shah_churchill.jpg\")
<\/a>