Churchill's Black Dog and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind

by Anthony Storr

  Depressives, in contrast to these normal folk, are much more vulnerable. If one thing in the external world goes wrong, they are apt to be thrown into despair. Even if people attempt to comfort them, they are likely to dismiss such efforts as futile. Disappointment, rejection, bereavement may all, in a depressive, pull a trigger which fires a reaction of total hopelessness: for such people do not possess an inner source of self-esteem to which they can turn in trouble, or which can easily be renewed by the ministrations of others. If, at a deep internal level, a person feels himself to be predominantly bad or unlovable, an actual rejection in the external world will bring this depressive belief to the surface; and no amount of reassurance from wellwishers will, for a time, persuade him of his real worth.

  Psychoanalysis assumes that this vulnerability is the result of a rather early failure in the relationship between the child and his parents. In the ordinary course of events, a child takes in love with his mother’s milk. A child who is wanted, loved, played with, cuddled, will incorporate within himself a lively sense of his own value; and will therefore surmount the inevitable setbacks and disappointments of childhood with no more than temporary sorrow, secure in the belief that the world is predominantly a happy place, and that he has a favored place in it. And this pattern will generally persist throughout his life.

  A child, on the other hand, who is unwanted, rejected, or disapproved of will gain no such conviction. Although such a child may experience periods of both success and happiness, these will neither convince him that he is lovable nor finally prove to him that life is worthwhile. A whole career may be dedicated to the pursuit of power, the conquest of women, or the gaining of wealth, only in the end to leave the person face to face with despair and a sense of futility, since he has never incorporated within himself a sense of his value as a person; and no amount of external success can ultimately compensate him for this.

  On one of his birthdays a few years before, in answer to my sister Diana’s exclamation of wonderment at all the things he had done in his life, he said: “I have achieved a great deal to achieve nothing in the end.” We were listening to the radio and reading the always generous newspaper eulogies. “How can you say that?” she said. He was silent. “There are your books,” I said. “And your paintings,” Diana followed. “Oh yes, yes, there are those.” “And after all, there is us,” we continued. “Poor comfort we know at times: and there are other children who are grateful that they are alive.” He acknowledged us with a smile.…22

  Sarah Churchill, in her book A Thread in the Tapestry, begins her portrait of her father with these sentences; and it is surely percipient of her to do so. For she, and other members of the family, must have realized, in those last sad years, that in spite of the eulogies, the accolades, the honors, Winston Churchill still had a void at the heart of his being which no achievement or honor could ever completely fill.

  It is interesting to compare this passage with another written by Churchill himself, emanating not from his old age, but from his early manhood. Savrola, Winston Churchill’s only novel, was the first book upon which he embarked, though it was actually the third to be published. Though half completed in 1897, it was not in print till 1900, since The Story of the Malakand Field Force and The River War intervened. Savrola, the orator and revolutionary, is, it has often been observed, a picture of Churchill himself. We are introduced to him in his study, surrounded by Gibbon, Macaulay, Plato, and Saint-Simon.

  There were still some papers and telegrams lying unopened on the table, but Savrola was tired; they could, or at any rate, should wait till the morning. He dropped into his chair. Yes, it had been a long day, and a gloomy day. He was a young man, only thirty-two, but already he felt the effects of work and worry. His nervous temperament could not fail to be excited by the vivid scenes through which he had lately passed, and the repression of his emotion only heated the inward fire. Was it worth it? The struggle, the labour, the constant rush of affairs, the sacrifice of so many things that make life easy, or pleasant—for what? A people’s good! That, he could not disguise from himself, was rather the direction than the cause of his efforts. Ambition was the motive force and he was powerless to resist it.23

  “Was it worth it?” The question recurs again and again in the lives of people who suffer from depression. At the end of Savrola, the query is reiterated. The revolution has been successful, but “a sense of weariness, of disgust with struggling, of desire for peace filled his soul. The object for which he had toiled so long was now nearly attained and it seemed of little worth.…”24 Savrola has to go into exile, and looks back on the city he has liberated, now partially destroyed by shell fire:

  The smoke of other burning houses rose slowly to join the black, overhanging cloud against which the bursting shells showed white with yellow flashes.

  “And that,” said Savrola after prolonged contemplation, “is my life’s work.”25

  Even more interesting is the passage in which Savrola, “weary of men and their works,” ascends into his observatory to “watch the stars for the sake of their mysteries.” He contemplates the beauty of Jupiter:

  Another world, a world more beautiful, a world of boundless possibilities, enthralled his imagination. He thought of the future of Jupiter, of the incomprehensible periods of time that would elapse before the cooling process would render life possible on its surface, of the slow steady march of evolution, merciless, inexorable. How far would it carry them, the unborn inhabitants of an embryo world? Perhaps only to some vague distortion of the vital essence; perhaps further than he could dream of. All the problems would be solved; all the obstacles overcome; life would attain perfect development. And this fancy, overleaping space and time, carried the story to periods still more remote. The cooling process would continue; the perfect development of life would end in death; the whole solar system, the whole universe itself would one day be cold and lifeless as a burnt-out firework.

  It was a mournful conclusion. He locked up the observatory and descended the stairs, hoping that his dreams would contradict his thoughts.26

  The underlying despair, so characteristic of the depressive temperament, could hardly be better demonstrated. However successful Savrola is, he is still left uncertain as to the value of his achievement. His fantasy of life attaining “perfect development” in some far-distant future is automatically cancelled by his belief that the universe must finally cool to a lifeless stop. The man who, a few years before his death, said to his daughter, “I have achieved a great deal to achieve nothing in the end,” is displaying an absolutely consistent emotional pattern, already evident in early manhood.

  What were the childhood origins of Churchill’s depressive disposition? Any answer must necessarily be partly a matter of guesswork, but certain obvious factors present themselves for consideration, of which parental neglect is the most striking.

  Winston Churchill was a premature child, born two months before he was expected. No one can say with certainty whether prematurity has an adverse effect upon future emotional development, but we do know that the way in which a baby is nursed and handled affects the rate of its physical and mental progress, and that even the youngest child is sensitive to the environment. A premature child is unexpected and, therefore, something of an embarrassment. We know that preparations for Winston Churchill’s appearance were incomplete, for there was a lack of baby clothes; and a first child, in any case, is apt to be somewhat of an anxiety to an inexperienced mother. How was Churchill handled as a baby? All we know is that, in accordance with the custom of those days, he was not fed by his mother, but handed over to a wet nurse about whom we know nothing.

  His mother, Lady Randolph, was only twenty when Winston was born. She was a girl of exceptional beauty, far too engaged in the fashionable social life of the time to be much concerned about her infant son. Lord Randolph, deeply involved in politics, would not have been expected to take more than a remote interest in his son and heir, and he more than fulfilled this expe
ctation. In fact, Churchill received remarkably little affection or support from either parent in the vital years of early childhood. The person who saved him from emotional starvation was, of course, Mrs. Everest, the nanny who was engaged early in 1875 within a few months of his birth, and who remained his chief support and confidante until her death when Churchill was twenty. Her photograph hung in his room until the end of his own life. She is immortalized as the housekeeper in Savrola, and although Randolph Churchill makes use of the same quotation in his biography of his father, it is worth repeating here, since it reveals something of Winston Churchill’s attitude to love:

  His thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of the old woman with a tray. He was tired, but the decencies of life had to be observed; he rose, and passed into the inner room to change his clothes and make his toilet. When he returned, the table was laid; the soup he had asked for had been expanded by the care of his housekeeper into a more elaborate meal. She waited on him, plying him the while with questions and watching his appetite with anxious pleasure. She had nursed him from his birth with a devotion and care which knew no break. It is a strange thing, the love of these women. Perhaps it is the only disinterested affection in the world. The mother loves her child; that is maternal nature. The youth loves his sweetheart; that too may be explained. The dog loves his master; he feeds him; a man loves his friend; he has stood by him perhaps at doubtful moments. In all there are reasons, but the love of a foster-mother for her charge appears absolutely irrational. It is one of the few proofs, not to be explained even by the association of ideas, that the nature of mankind is superior to mere utilitarianism, and that his destinies are high.27

  Churchill’s concept of “disinterested affection” is worth comment. For it is surely not as astonishing as he implies that a nurse should love her charge. A nanny is a woman without children of her own, and without a husband. What could be more natural than that she should devote herself to the child who is placed in her care, and give him all the affection and love for which she has no other outlet? In the passage quoted above, Churchill is showing surprise at being loved, as if he had never felt that he was entitled to it. In the ordinary course of events, a small child receives from his mother and father love which he neither questions nor doubts. And he will generally extend his expectation of love to nannies, relatives, and other members of the family circle. As he grows up, he will find that not everyone loves him as he has come to expect; and this may surprise and disappoint him. But his surprise will surely be evoked by the discovery that some people do not love him, rather than by the fact that people other than his parents do love him.

  Happy children do not ask why their mothers or anybody else love them; they merely accept it as a fact of existence. It is those who have received less than their early due of love who are surprised that anyone should be fond of them, and who seek for explanation of the love which more fortunate children take for granted. People who suffer from depression are always asking themselves why anyone should love them. They often feel entitled to respect, to awe, or to admiration; but as for love, that is too much to expect. Many depressives only feel lovable insofar as they have some achievement to their credit, or have given another person so much that they feel entitled to a return. The idea that anyone might give him love just because he is himself is foreign to the person of depressive temperament. In showing astonishment at Mrs. Everest’s disinterested love, Churchill is surely revealing what one would expect from his emotional disposition, that he had not experienced from his parents that total, irrational acceptance which we all need, and which is given by most mothers to a wanted baby. And although Mrs. Everest’s affection made up for what was missing to some extent, it could not replace the love of parents.

  We cannot now obtain as much information as we would like about Churchill’s very early childhood, but that his parents were neglectful is undoubted. As Randolph Churchill says in his biography:

  The neglect and lack of interest in him shown by his parents were remarkable, even judged by the standards of late Victorian and Edwardian days. His letters to his mother from his various schools abound in pathetic requests for letters and for visits, if not from her, from Mrs Everest and his brother Jack. Lord Randolph was a busy politician with his whole interest absorbed in politics; Lady Randolph was caught up in the whirl of fashionable society and seems to have taken very little interest in her son until he began to make his name resound through the world. It will later be seen how neglectful she was in writing to him when he was for three years a subaltern in India and when his father and Mrs Everest were dead. His brother Jack, more than five years younger, could not be a satisfactory correspondent and Winston was to feel exceptionally lonely and abandoned.28

  We are, I believe, entitled to assume that Winston Churchill was deprived by parental neglect of that inner source of self-esteem upon which most predominantly happy persons rely, and which serves to carry them through the inevitable disappointments and reverses of human existence. What were the ways in which he endeavored to make up for this early lack and to sustain his self-esteem in spite of lack of parental affection?

  The first and most obvious trait of character which he developed as a response to his deprivation was ambition. As he himself wrote of Savrola, “Ambition was the motive force and he was powerless to resist it.” And in a letter to his mother, written in 1899 in India, he writes: “What an awful thing it will be if I don’t come off. It will break my heart for I have nothing else but ambition to cling to.…”29 Children who have been more loved and appreciated than Winston Churchill do have something other than ambition to cling to. Ambition is, of course, a perfectly “normal” trait, to be expected in any young man reared in the competitive climate of Western civilization. But Churchill’s ambition was certainly inordinate; and it made him unpopular when he was young. Sir Charles Dilke is reported as writing that Rosebery was the most ambitious man he had ever met; but later he amended this opinion by writing alongside it, “I have since known Winston Churchill.”30 Ambition, when, as in Churchill’s case, it is a compulsive drive, is the direct result of early deprivation. For if a child has but little inner conviction of his own value, he will be drawn to seek the recognition and acclaim which accrue from external achievement. In youth, especially, success, or even the hope of success, whether financial, political, or artistic, can be effective in staving off depression in those who are liable to this disorder. It is the inevitable decay of hope as a man gets older which accounts for the fact that severe attacks of depression become more common in middle age. It may be argued that very able people are always ambitious, since it is natural enough for a gifted man to require scope for his abilities and to want those ambitions to be recognized. In Lord Reith’s phrase, to be “fully stretched” is a pleasure in itself.31 But the compensatory quality of Churchill’s ambition is not difficult to discern. Even his famous remark to Lady Violet Bonham Carter, “We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glow-worm,”32 is revealing, in that it combines self-abasement and self-glorification in a single phrase.

  Extreme ambition, of the Churchillian variety, is not based upon sober appraisal of the reality of one’s gifts and deficiencies. There is always an element of fantasy, unrelated to actual achievement. This may, as it did with Churchill, take the form of a conviction that one is being reserved for a special purpose, if not by the Deity, then at least by fate. One of the most remarkable features of Churchill’s psychology is that this conviction persisted throughout the greater part of his life, until, at the age of sixty-five, his fantasy found expression in reality. As he said to Moran, “This cannot be accident, it must be design. I was kept for this job.”33 If Churchill had died in 1939, he would have been regarded as a failure. Moran is undoubtedly right when he writes of “the inner world of make-believe in which Winston found reality.”34 It is probable that England owed her survival in 1940 to this inner world of make-believe. The kind of inspiration with which Churchill sustained the nation is not
based on judgment, but on an irrational conviction independent of factual reality. Only a man convinced that he had an heroic mission, who believed that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, he could yet triumph, and who could identify himself with a nation’s destiny could have conveyed his inspiration to others. The miracle had much in common with that achieved by a great actor, who, by his art, exalts us and convinces us that his passions are beyond the common run of human feeling. We do not know, and we shall never know, the details of Churchill’s world of make-believe. But that it was there, and that he played an heroic part in it, cannot be gainsaid. Before the invention of nuclear weapons, many a schoolboy had dreams of military glory which are hardly possible today. To be a great commander, to lead forces in battle against overwhelming odds, to make an heroic last stand, to win the Victoria Cross, are ambitions which have inspired many generations in the past. Churchill was born in an age when such dreams were still translatable into reality; and he sought to realize them in his early career as a soldier. But, unlike many soldiers, he did not become disillusioned. Even as an old man, it was difficult to restrain him from deliberately exposing himself to risk when he went out to France after the second front had been embarked upon. The schoolboy’s daydream persisted: and his search for danger was not simply a desire to prove his physical courage, a motive which was undoubtedly operative in early youth. It also rested upon a conviction that he would be preserved, that nothing could happen to a man of destiny—a belief which he shared with General Gordon, who likewise, throughout his life, exposed himself deliberately to death, and who inspired others by his total disregard of danger.

  The conviction of being “special” is, in psychoanalytic jargon, a reflection of what is called “infantile omnipotence.” Psychoanalysis postulates, with good reason, that the infant has little appreciation of his realistic stature in the world into which he is born. Although a human infant embarks on life in a notably helpless state, requiring constant care and attention in order to preserve him, his very helplessness creates the illusion that he is powerful. For the demands of a baby are imperious. A baby must be fed, cleaned, clothed, and preserved from injury, and, in the normal course of events, these demands are met by a number of willing slaves who hasten to fulfill them. As the child matures, he will gradually learn that his desires are not always paramount, and that the needs of others must sometimes take precedence. This is especially so in a family where there are other children. The hard lesson that one is not the center of the universe is more quickly learned in the rough and tumble of competition with brothers and sisters. Only children may fail to outgrow this early stage of emotional development; and, although Winston Churchill was not an only child, his brother Jack, born in 1880, was sufficiently younger for Winston to have retained his solitary position during five crucial years. Paradoxically, it is children who are deprived as well as solitary who retain the sense of omnipotence. A failure to meet a child’s need for total care and total acceptance during the earliest part of his existence leaves him with a sense of something missing and something longed for; and he may, in later life, try to create conditions in which his slightest whim is immediately attended to, and resent the fact that this is not always possible.