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| Winston Churchill in 1933, the "Glow Worm" |
Churchill “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.”
Churchill on Paper - Charles C. W. Cooke - National Review Online
In War and Peace, Tolstoy contends that Great Men have no agency; instead, they are merely slaves to Providence. British philosopher Herbert Spencer liked this idea, but he put it a little differently: “Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.” There is certainly value in this view of the world, but taken ad absurdum it will lead to a rejection of exceptionalism — and even of free will: “His society” may well have led to the content of Shakespeare’s plays, but how to explain his facility for language?
One might well ask the same question about Winston Churchill, of whose literary output New York City’s Morgan Library has just opened an exhibition. In war and in peace Churchill was a human force field whose time was as much a product of him as he of it. In his magisterial biography, Churchill, Roy Jenkins implored us to appreciate how much of a tangible difference to the course of history Churchill made, and how adroitly he drew on his understanding of the past to predict the future. Contra Spencer, Churchill was special. He seems to have known it himself, telling Violet Asquith at a dinner party in 1906, “we are all worms, but I do believe I am a glow worm.”Later, modesty obtained. “I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion’s roar,” was his verdict on his role. It is perhaps more accurate to say that he was not the only lion. But whatever he was, his resolution to achieve victory “whatever the cost may be” stood him in dramatic contrast with many of his peers. The similarly bred Lord Halifax, who came perilously close to the premiership on the eve of the fall of France, was in favor of a negotiated peace with Hitler. Those who had recently occupied 10 Downing Street had been faced with a choice between war and dishonor: “They chose dishonor. They will have war,” Churchill warned. Given the unfavorable circumstances in which his judgment was issued, he could hardly have guessed that when its full fury came he would be sitting in their place. We should be thankful that he was.
Churchill’s qualities transcended his gift for rhetoric. Evelyn Waugh’s biting characterization of the man as “simply a radio personality who outlived his prime” was a cheap and witless shot. His indomitable courage and instinctive understanding of the Nazis’ true station in the “dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime” played an equally critical role in his contribution to British survival. But a voice ringing out in the darkness will not resonate without the right words to shape it, and it was his command of ideas and mastery of language that gave his roar its bite. As Edward R. Murrow put it, Churchill “mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” This is the exhibition’s central theme.
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