1 - Winston Churchill

mous expressions throughout his written works andspeeches. The authors claim to have read 40,000 pagesin its compilation, and I don't doubt them. For instance,if you want to trace the development of "blood, toil,tears and sweat," you will find that WSC joined "bloodand tears" as early as 1900 and added "sweat" in 1931.Indeed the authors have gone overboard: it was Rooseveltwho told Churchill, "we are all in the same boatnow," but the expression makes the book because, inproposing that they meet following Pearl Harbor, WSCquoted the phrase back to FDR.You search the book using "key-words," which arearranged alphabetically over 300 pages. For example,under "curtain" (not "iron" — one must take care to tryall possible key-words) you find Churchill's evolution ofthe term "iron curtain": he first referred to a figurativecurtain falling in 1906, and wrote that a "curtain fellbetween Britannia and the Continent" while writing hisHistory of the English-Speaking Peoples in 1939.When Churchill himself puts quotemarks around aphrase, the authors track it. For example, "Africa forthe Africans" (WSC 1906), is said to appear in Urdang'sSlogans, page 273, Urdang being one of several "quotationdictionaries" consulted. Unfortunately the list ofthese is obscure. (It starts on page 127; be sure to flagit. For ease, it should be printed on the endpapers.)There are several thin appendices listing the numberof proverbial references in Churchill's works,speeches, letters and the Official Biography; a list offrequency for his favorite phrases ("to play a part" isthe leader with forty-three appearances; "John Bull,""no-man's land" and "in cold blood" rate high). More interesting— indeed the best part of the book — is a 100-page essay about how Churchill acquired and exploitedhis expansive repertoire of proverbs, editing them whenit suited him, not always to his advantage. His comment,"Consistency is the last resort of feeble and narrowminds" (1947 speech) "seems pale and wan," commentthe authors, when compared with the original(from Emerson): "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblinof little minds."Churchill's ability to "bend" proverbs to suit his purposes— "Beg while the iron is hot" . . . "make hell whilethe sun shines" . . . "physician, comb thyself ... "I donot wish to cast my pearls before . . . those who do notwant them" (88-91) is rightly emphasized by the authors,who amusingly designate them "anti-proverbs."Too many examples are noted to recount here, but oneshrewd piece of insight involves Churchill's attitude towardclassical quotes, most of which he often altered tosuit himself:... for the proponents of the "new" Latin pronunciation, hehad nothing but opprobium. He complained, "They have distortedone of my most serviceable and impressive quotationsinto the ridiculous booby Wainy, Weedy, Weeky'" (My EarlyLife, page 23). Although Julius Caesar's remark may havebeen "serviceable," Churchill seems never to have used it inits pristine form, save for the modern English variant "Theycame, they saw, they ran away" (The River War, 1933 edn.,page 16). That and numerous other classical references reinforcedhis stylistic arsenal, but at times the muse was fugitive.At a critical juncture he once said, "There ought to be agood Latin quotation which would come in here, but I cannotfind one in my repertoire." (Official Biography, CompanionVolume I, US edn., Part 3, page 1634.)They then list a small number of "pristine" Latin expressionswhich Churchill used without alteration: theytake up little more than a page!Winston Churchill clearly had a photographic memory,as the authors point out, listing his numerous referencesto the Bible (King James version, of course);French history, poetry and literature (despite his abominablepronunciation he freely read French); and suchstandard works as Bartlett's Quotations, which he committedto memory in India in 1896. This rich assortmentis the joy of the book, serving to remind and astonishus with the depth of Churchill's largely self-imposededucation.There are a few faults which perhaps should not bemade much of, since the book is a major contribution toour knowledge of Churchill's works. Despite their40,000 pages of reading, the authors display no deepknowledge of the canon. Publication dates are sometimeswrong. They make the same mistake as the publishersof the "Collected Works" in consulting only theabridged edition of The River War; excerpts from theoriginal which were culled from that volume, publishedin Finest Hour 86, display what they missed. Mr. Brodrick'sArmy is represented as Mr. Broderick's [sic]War; the American edition of Into Battle is renderedBlood, Sweat, Toil and Tears; the Companions to VolumeI of the Official Biography are said to numberthree; the huge Companion Volume Part 3 to Volume Vis left out entirely; and the authors fail to consult therecent Companions to Volume VI (The Churchill WarPapers) because the series "still appears incomplete."(Indeed, and let us hope that appearance is correct!)Churchill's works are clumsily referenced by numbers(001-965), which are listed obscurely on pages 96-126. The list itself has no logical order. "001" is Londonto Ladysmith, "003" is Volume I of Kimball's Churchill-Roosevelt Correspondence; next come a hodgepodge ofessays not published in book form, followed by books inno apparenjt order, orations from the Rhodes JamesComplete Speeches, with The World Crisis bringing upthe rear. This gets especially confusing when the referencenumber is strung together with volume, part andpage references, such as "272, IV, 3, p.1988, 1922" (84).Surely in the case of Churchill's books and speeches,and the Official Biography, a brief reference (e.g. CV4pt3 pp 1988/1922) would take up hardly more spacethan these mysterious codes, especially if a slightlysmaller size type were used (it looks like 13 point, couldFINEST HOUR 89 / 42