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Writers and Writing: Churchill to the Authors’ Club
- By WINSTON S. CHURCHILL
- | January 22, 2024
- Category: Explore The Literary Churchill
Speaking to the Authors’ Club in 1908, Winston Churchill made one of his most eloquent speeches.1 It was, of course, a tribute to writers. He was replying to a toast offered to him by the great novelist Anthony Hope, best known for The Prisoner of Zenda. Churchill’s words were so singular that we are prompted to share them with readers. His testimony to the joys of writing are profound. He reminds us that writers are among the few creative folk who, choosing their moments, can always be at their best. His reverence for English also shines through, together with his belief in its close study. Endnotes are provided to words and issues now forgotten, which entertained his 1908 audience. His remarks were drawn to our attention by a curious misquote by H.H. Asquith, the first prime minister Churchill served in Cabinet, explained in a following note.
The Joys of Writers
The fortunate people in the world—the only really fortunate people in the world, in my mind—are those whose work is also their pleasure. The class is not a large one, not nearly so large as it is often represented to be; and authors are perhaps one of the most important elements in its composition. They enjoy in this respect at least a real harmony of life.
To my mind, to be able to make your work your pleasure is the one class distinction in the world worth striving for. And I do not wonder that others are inclined to envy those happy human beings who find their livelihood in the gay effusions of their fancy, to whom every hour of labour is an hour of enjoyment, to whom repose—however necessary—is a tiresome interlude, and even a holiday is almost deprivation.
Whether a man writes well or ill, has much to say or little, if he cares about writing at all, he will appreciate the pleasures of composition. To sit at one’s table on a sunny morning, with four clear hours of uninterruptible security, plenty of nice white paper, and a Squeezer pen (laughter)—that is true happiness.2 The complete absorption of the mind upon an agreeable occupation—what more is there than that to desire?
* * *
What does it matter what happens outside? The House of Commons may do what it likes, and so may the House of Lords. (Laughter.)3 The heathen may rage furiously in every part of the globe. The bottom may be knocked clean out of the American market. Consols may fall and suffragettes may rise. (Laughter.) Never mind, for four hours, at any rate, we will withdraw ourselves from a common, ill-governed, and disorderly world, and with the key of fancy unlock that cupboard where all the good things of the infinite are put away. (Cheers.)4
And speaking of freedom, is not the author free, as few men are free? Is he not secure, as few men are secure? The tools of his industry are so common and so cheap that they have almost ceased to have commercial value. He needs no bulky pile of raw material, no elaborate apparatus, no service of men or animals. He is dependent for his occupation upon no one but himself, and nothing outside him that matters. He is the sovereign of an empire, self-supporting, self-contained. No one can sequestrate his estates. No one can deprive him of his stock in trade; no one can force him to exercise his faculty against his will; no one can prevent him exercising it as he chooses.
The pen is the great liberator of men and nations. (Cheers.) No chains can bind, no poverty can choke, no tariff can restrict the free play of his mind. Even The Times Book Club (laughter) can only exert a moderately depressing influence upon his rewards. Whether his work is good or bad, so long as he does his best, he is happy.5
* * *
I often fortify myself amid the uncertainties and vexations of political life by believing that I possess a line of retreat into a peaceful and fertile country where no rascal can pursue and where one need never be dull or idle or even wholly without power. It is then, indeed, that I feel devoutly thankful to have been born fond of writing. It is then, indeed, that I feel grateful to all the brave and generous spirits who, in every age and in every land, have fought to establish the now unquestioned freedom of the pen. (Cheers.)
And what a noble medium the English language is. It is not possible to write a page without experiencing positive pleasure at the richness and variety, the flexibility and the profoundness of our mother-tongue. If an English writer cannot say what he has to say in English, and in simple English, it is probably not worth saying. What a pity it is that English is not more generally studied. (Hear, hear.)
I am not going to attack classical education. No one who has the slightest pretension to literary tastes can be insensible to the attraction of Greece and Rome. But I confess our present educational system excites in my mind grave misgivings. I cannot believe that a system is good, or even reasonable, which thrusts upon reluctant and uncomprehending multitudes treasures which can only be appreciated by the privileged and gifted few. To the vast majority of boys who attend our public schools, a classical education is from beginning to end one long useless, meaningless rigmarole.
* * *
If I am told that classics are the best preparation for the study of English, I reply that by far the greater number of students finish their education while this preparatory stage is still incomplete and without deriving any of the benefits which are promised as its result.
And even of those who, without being great scholars, attain a certain general acquaintance with the ancient writers, can it really be said that they have also obtained the mastery of English? How many young gentlemen there are from the universities and public schools who can turn a Latin verse with a facility which would make the old Romans squirm in their tombs. (Laughter.)
How few there are who can construct a few good sentences, or still less a few good paragraphs of plain, correct, and straightforward English. Now, I am a great admirer of the Greeks, although, of course, I have to depend upon what others tell me about them. (Laughter.) I would like to see our educationists imitate in one respect, at least, the Greek example.
* * *
How is it that the Greeks made their language the most graceful and compendious mode of expression ever known among men? Did they spend all their time studying the languages which had preceded theirs? Did they explore with tireless persistency the ancient root dialects of the vanished world? Not at all. They studied Greek. (Cheers.) They studied their own language. They loved it, they cherished it, they adorned it, they expanded it, and that is why it survives a model and delight to all posterity. Surely we, whose mother-tongue has already won for itself such an unequalled empire over the modern world, can learn this lesson at least from the ancient Greeks and bestow a little care and some proportion of the years of education to the study of a language which is perhaps to play a predominant part in the future progress of mankind.
* * *
Let us remember the author can always do his best. There is no excuse for him. The great cricketer may be out of form. The general may on the day of decisive battle have a bad toothache or a bad army. (Laughter.) The admiral may be seasick—as a sufferer I reflect with satisfaction upon that contingency. (Laughter.) Caruso may be afflicted with catarrh, or Hackenschmidt with influenza. As for an orator, it is not enough for him to be able to think well and truly. He must think quickly. Speed is vital to him. Spontaneity is more than ever the hallmark of good speaking. All these varied forces of activity require from the performer the command of the best that is in him at a particular moment which may be fixed by circumstances utterly beyond his control.
It is not so with the author. He need never appear in public until he is ready. He can always realise the best that is in him. He is not dependent upon his best moment in any one day. He may group together the best moments of twenty days. There is no excuse for him if he does not do his best. (Hear, hear.) Great is his opportunity: great also his responsibility.
* * *
Someone—I forget who—has said: “Words are the only things which last forever.” That is, to my mind, always a wonderful thought. The most durable structures raised in stone by the strength of man, the mightiest monuments of his power, crumble into dust, while the words spoken with fleeting breath, the passing expression of the unstable fancies of his mind, endure not as echoes of the past, not as mere archaeological curiosities or venerable relics, but with a force and life as new and strong, and sometimes far stronger than when they were first spoken. And, leaping across the gulf of three thousand years, they light the world for us today. (Cheers.)
Note: Asquith on the text
We were reminded of this wonderful speech when asked to check a bowdlerized version of it in H.H. Asquith’s memoirs, several times requoted.6 All these were inaccurate. Not until Robert Rhodes James’s Complete Speeches in 1974 did the true text appear in volume form.
Asquith was the first prime minister Churchill served in Cabinet,7 and they had their ups and downs. But Asquith recognized WSC’s talents. Recalling the Authors’ Club address, he noted that
Mr. Churchill was by that time already the father of a small family of books, and his “Life” of his own father, Lord Randolph, then only recently published, had given abundant proof of exceptional literary gifts…. Mr. Churchill—when he conjured up this breezy and exhilarating vision of the war-worn politician finding a haven of refuge from the “vexations” of his profession in the quietude of his study, with “plenty of nice white paper and a Squeezer pen”—was still a young man. If my dates are right, he had quite recently added to the vocabulary of politics a terse circumlocution for an unparliamentary term.8 Happily he still finds time, in the interludes allowed him by the “uncertainties of political life,” to ply his pen and cover his “white paper” for the benefit and enjoyment of all who can relish the art of English composition.9
Endnotes
1 Winston S. Churchill, “The Joys of Writing,” Authors Club, London, 17 February 1908, in Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, 8 vols. (New York: Bowker, 1974), I: 903-05.
2 “Squeezer” was then a common name for the fountain pen, containing a bladder squeezed with a lever to draw ink. The concept dates back to 10th Century Egypt.
3 Churchill’s Liberals had declared they would limit the powers of the House of Lords. The campaign took three years, culminating in the 1911 Parliament Act.
4 Consols (government bonds) were first issued by the Bank of England in 1751. The campaign for women’s suffrage was heating up and Suffragettes rather unfairly deemed Churchill as opposed as Asquith was. See “Churchill, Women’s Suffrage and Black Friday.”
5 The Times Book Club had upset Churchill by printing a cheap edition of Lord Randolph Churchill. He was convinced that it was cutting into sales of the trade edition.
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6 The Earl Oxford and Asquith, Memories and Reflections, 2 vols. (London: Cassell, 1928), I: 241. Peter de Mendelssohn, The Age of Churchill, vol. 1 (all published), Heritage and Adventure 1874-1911 (New York; Alfred Knopf, 1961), 270. Frederick Woods, Artillery of Words: The Writings of Sir Winston Churchill (London: Pen and Sword, 1992), 1.
7 WSC served as President of the Board of Trade (1908-10), Home Secretary (1910-11) and First Lord of the Admiralty (1911-15).
8 The “unparliamentary term” was “lie,” a word proscribed by Parliament. In 1906, WSC had denied the term “Chinese slavery” for workers in South Africa. Since they were paid volunteers, he argued, they could not be called slaves “without some risk of terminological inexactitude.” Asquith mistook Churchill’s term as a polite euphemism for “lie,” which it clearly was not. Richard M. Langworth, Churchill by Himself (New York: Rosetta Books, 2016), 45.
9 Asquith, Memories and Reflections, I: 241-42. We have corrected misquotes in Asquith’s passage.