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Articles
Churchill’s Novel “Savrola” (3): Statesmanship Ennobles Ambition
- By PATRICK J. C. POWERS
- | March 12, 2022
- Category: Explore The Literary Churchill
“It is possible that Savrola ought to be read as the polestar of Churchill’s statesmanship and future literary efforts, rather than as a temporary poetic deviation from prose writing that would hereafter characterize the greater part of his literary effort….” Concluded from Part 2.
Why Savrola matters
For Churchill, the secret of balanced and moderate statesmanship is the popular leader’s capacity for disinterested and noble concern for the common good that shapes and directs his own self-interested ambition. It is often said that the distinctive mark of Churchill’s life at this time was his overweening ambition for recognition. Savrola in this dispensation is the autobiography of that ambition.
True, Churchill did tell his mother that “Fame, sneered at, melodramatized, degraded, is still the finest thing on earth.”64 And Savrola’s personal motive for his public activity is also ambition.
But Churchill also knew that fame was accorded to those whose ambition was directed to some high purpose like statesmanship. As Churchill says in the Malakand, “Everyone clings to some thought he thinks is high and noble, or that raises him above the rest of the world in the hour of need.”65 Likewise, Savrola tells Lucille that honor has no true foundation, no trans-human unchanging sanction. One must look beyond honor for an ultra-human foundation, an eternal ideal of beauty and virtue.66
It is to Churchill’s eternal credit that he devoted himself in an exceptionally disciplined way during time when he wrote the novel. By means of a character of his own invention, he recognized that high and noble statesmanship to which he should direct his ambition. For that he would deserve fame.
“The ascendancy of civilization”
What is most important to Savrola is not the changing fortunes of personal ambition and honor, but the discovery of an eternal ideal: “The superiority of fitness over relative unfitness [in which] I include all kinds of fitness—moral, physical, mathematical.”67 The morally fitting task worthy of the highest ambition is to contribute to the ascendancy of civilization. This is understood as “a state of society where moral force begins to escape from the tyranny of physical forces….”68 Savrola devotes his life to applying this standard of the morally fitting, eventually resorting to force, to Laurania’s public affairs. His aim was, as he says, to “discharge a duty to the human species.”69
Churchill’s effort at this time was to formulate a morally superior civic horizon. This, consistent with Savrola’s ideal of civilization defined as moral human fitness—are reflected in his first public speech at Bath and the last paragraph of the Malakand. At Bath, he states boldly what he believes to be England’s particular destiny: “To pursue that cause marked out for us by an all-wise hand, and carry out our mission of bearing peace, civilization and good government to the uttermost ends of the earth.”70
Advancing civilization to the ends of the earth requires overcoming lawless forces threatening India beyond the Himalayas. In the Malakand, the frontier wars are “but the surf that marks the edge and the advance of the wave of civilization.” There Churchill repeats nearly verbatim the last line of his Bath speech. But importantly he substitutes happiness, learning and liberty for peace, civilization and good government.71 For Churchill, happiness, learning and liberty are the fruits of peace, civilization and good statesmanship. They should in his view constitute the mission of democratic leaders.
Mission supersedes ambition
Churchill’s personal ambition is never mentioned in the novel. Seemingly, it has been absorbed by the common mission of the whole country. Savrola teaches why the deference of personal ambition to political duty is the mark of a civilized person. It demonstrates how civilized rule or statesmanship ennobles that ambition. These lessons are conveyed in the explanation for Savrola’s preoccupation with Macaulay’s Essays.
One should recall that a volume of the Essays in Savrola’s library is opened to lines immortalizing an unnamed genius. In fact, they are the concluding lines of Macaulay’s elegy for William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham. No one buried in Westminster, Macaulay asserts, has “left a more stainless and none a more splendid name.”72
In searching Macaulay for the reason Pitt deserved this reputation, one finds lines which could apply as well to Savrola:
It was everywhere said with delight and admiration that the great Commoner, without any advantages of birth and fortune, had, in spite of the dislike of the Court and of the aristocracy, made himself the first man in England, and made England the first country in the world….73
Pitt’s ambition to be the first man in England focused on making England the first country in the world. One cannot distinguish the individual good of Pitt from the common good of England.
His blood boiled at the degradation of his country. Whatever lowered her among the nations of the earth, he felt as a personal outrage to himself. And the feeling was natural. He had made her so great. He had been so proud of her; and she had been so proud of him.74
Pitt as Savrola’s model
Churchill acknowledges that his own philosophy is bound up with Savrola’s. In choosing Pitt as the model for Savrola’s life, he therefore implies that Pitt would also be his own model. Henceforth, Churchill will cause his own “vehement, high, and daring nature” to serve the greater good. He will support Britain’s mission to advance civilization, understood as involving the activities of a high-minded civic life.
The early Churchill biographer “Ephesian” recognized the shared statesmanship of Savrola, Churchill and Pitt. They are gathered under the same civilized standard of citizenly service to the country. Ephesian’s last chapter opens with the observation that Savrola knew himself as a factor to be reckoned with. Churchill’s future is then compared favorably with the accomplishments of Pitt. The day may come, Ephesian concludes, when the Pitt in Churchill will be called upon. His task will be to restore the Empire’s affairs in another supreme crisis like that of 1914.75
Churchill’s conception of statesmanship, as service in advancing civilization, was established at the time of writing Savrola. In a letter to his mother he seems to take an oath: “I shall devote my life to the preservation of this great Empire and to trying to maintain the progress of the English People. Nor shall any one be able to say that vulgar considerations of personal safety ever influenced me.”76
To his brother Jack Churchill had similarly referred to “this great Empire of ours.”77 In this letter, however, he acknowledges that “many problems and difficulties are coming near in India….” Meeting them will require “courage and wisdom. These qualities are rarely possessed by a bureaucracy.”78 Thus Churchill acknowledges that the civic duty of statesmanship is not an automatically successful task. It is a challenge demanding uncommon qualities of moral and mental strength, with no guarantee of success in advancing civilization.
Dual endings, dual possibilities
Churchill’s concern in Savrola with the political effectiveness of democratic statesmanship is evidenced by the novel’s double ending. As Savrola leaves Laurania for exile, after the apparent failure of the revolution he triggered by his rhetoric and tried to restrain by the example of his own moderate conduct, he pauses to reflect that the city, now in ruins, “is my life’s work.”79 Only Lucille’s beautiful presence reassures him that he has not lived in vain.
Here it seems that the private life of eros, not the civic life of politics, endows one’s existence with meaning. If the novel were to end at this point, Churchill would have to agree with the view of his own character. Earlier Savrola has predicted to Lucille: “Decay will involve all, victors and vanquished, life will die out, and the spirit of vitality become extinct.”80 But, there is an Epilogue, in which Laurania “turned again to the illustrious exile who had won their freedom.”81 In the final analysis, there seems to be some hope that Laurania’s civic life is redeemable.
In the Macmillan’s serialization and the final book versions of Savrola, the Epilogue reveals few great events under Savrola’s rule. Colleges, railways and canals open,82 but no climacteric vies with the democratic revolution that restored Laurania’s ancient liberties. Then, as if to avoid falling into criticism of the absence of exciting events during peacetime, Churchill quotes Gibbon. And Gibbon reminds us to be thankful for such a morally quiet and useful peace.
In his discussion of the decent Antonine emperors, Gibbon singles out Titus Antoninus Pius for his “love of religion, justice and peace.”83 In fact, because the reign of Titus was orderly, tranquil and peaceful, his rule furnished few reports of history. Thus Gibbon, quoted in a line quoted at the end of the Epilogue: History is “little more than the register of crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.”84 Churchill concludes that the chronicler should “rejoice” at the absence of great events to report. This means that under Savrola, Laurania was free of crimes and follies.
Savrola’s epilogues and the greater good
The absence of follies in Laurania under Savrola is not, however, greeted with unqualified joy by the author. The Macmillan’s and book versions of the Epilogue differ at the end, over what constitutes the civic good. The difference reflects Churchill’s early understanding of the permanent tension between the civic aims of democrats and the people they lead. It also points to the civic virtue needed by statesmen to endure that tension.
In the first (Macmillan’s) Epilogue, Churchill “rejoices” in the absence of great events “after many troubles.” The Lauranians, he writes, “conduct their affairs with dignity and justice under the presidency of Savrola.”85 Here Churchill suggests that an exceptionally thoughtful ruler can provide a high moral direction of dignity and justice. The final book version alters that line. It now reads simply that “after many troubles, peace and prosperity came back to the Republic of Laurania.”86
Dignity and justice not necessarily the same as peace and prosperity, and Churchill’s emphasis on leadership in resolving Laurania’s troubles has been dropped. In the final version, Churchill lowers Laurania’s public goals, peace and prosperity being more attainable than a just life. The absence of Savrola’s influence suggests Churchill’s awareness of how difficult it is for any leader, no matter how politically and rhetorically talented, to sustain a high level of public-minded conduct among any people.
***
As the two different Epilogues suggest, Churchill’s reading in philosophy and history had taught him that every democratic leader is destined to confront Savrola’s conflict of trying to conduct public affairs with dignity and justice, while the people prefer only peace and prosperity. The same problem of balance today confronts today’s leaders, 120 years since Savrola’s time.
Apparently, what distinguishes the genuinely admirable statesman is his ability to rejoice “at the presence of peace and prosperity,” without succumbing to cynicism at the absence of dignity and justice. Composing Savrola challenged Churchill to articulate clearly the principle of tempered or moderate democratic statesmanship that he would henceforth endeavor to live by: namely, the joyful acceptance of whatever minimal civilizing benefits are possible, while continually persevering in an effort to elevate their common civic life in accordance with a standard of the greater good of civilization.
A statement of principle and prudence
Viewed in the light of Churchill’s entire life, Churchill’s novel should be recognized for what it really is. In it Churchill enunciates the philosophical basis of his most important political principles. The book gives public voice to his political-philosophical knowledge, acquired through reading and experience. It depicts a statesman serving the common good in a morally honest, courageous and just way. This, Savrola suggests, is the genuine seed as well as the finest fruit of civilization.
The book gives testimony to the extent of Churchill’s early self-knowledge. Aged only 23. he could already appreciate why such a civic life would ennoble his own. Likewise, it was ingenious to invent the character Savrola. Here was the vehicle for testing and evaluating his beliefs of how civic-minded principles should govern an eminent public life. The necessary and noble bond between statesmanship and the benefits of civilization was expressed by Churchill throughout his life. That expression and understanding were first articulated in Savrola.
Over the next four decades, Churchill’s immense powers of expression to the advancement of civilization. Likewise, he continually bore witness to the prudence required of the statesman in word and deed. As a statesman he “rejoiced” at the choices of a free people, even when they aimed less high than their capacities allowed. It is for these reasons that Savrola should be appreciated as Churchill’s premier, and not merely his first, literary work.
Endnotes
64 Randolph S. Churchill, ed., The Churchill Documents, vol. 2, Young Soldier 1896-1900 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2006), 774. Hereinafter cited as DV2.
65 Winston S. Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (New York: Norton, 1990), 208.
66 Winston S. Churchill, Savrola, Second American Edition (New York: Random House, 1956), 80f.
67 Ibid., 81.
68 Ibid., 81f.
69 Ibid., 87.
70 Churchill Documents vol. 2 (hereinafter DV2), 774.
71 Churchill, Malakand Field Force, 217.
72 Thomas Babington Macaulay, “The Earl of Chatham,” in Essays and Poems, Vol. 3 (New York: Lovell, Coryell), 239.
73 Ibid., 168.
74 Ibid., 236.
75 Ephesian (Bechhofer Roberts), Winston Churchill, Third Revised Edition (London: Newnes, 1936), 316.
76 DV2, 839f.
77 DV2, 836.
78 Ibid.
79 Churchill, Savrola, 240.
80 Ibid., 83.
81 Ibid., 240.
82 Ibid., 241.
83 Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 3 vols. (New York: The Modern Library, 1990), I, 68.
84 Churchill, Savrola, 241; Gibbon, The History, I, 69.
85 Churchill, “Savrola,” serialized in Macmillan’s Magazine, December 1899, 89.
86 Churchill, Savrola, 241.
The author
Dr. Powers is editor of an upcoming new edition of Savrola including the famous 1950 woodcut illustrations by André Collot. This three-part article is based on his introduction.
Further reading
Patrick Powers, “Savrola (1): Polestar of a Statesman’s Philosophy.”
Patrick Powers, “Churchill’s Novel Savrola, Part 2.”
Antoine Capet, “Savrola: Churchill’s Novel and Its Most Beautiful Appearance.”