7 Shortly before World War I Nancy Astor, the American-born wife of Waldorf, Viscount Astor, visited Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home of the Churchill family. In conversation with Churchill, she expounded on the subject of women’s rights, an issue that was to take her into the House of Commons as the first woman member of Parliament. Churchill opposed her on this and other causes that she held dear. In some exasperation Lady Astor said, “Winston, if I were married to you, I’d put poison in your coffee.” Churchill responded, “And if you were my wife, I’d drink it.”
8 Despite holding important posts in the Liberal administration just before World War I, Churchill found that his salary from the government did not cover the expenses of his growing family. He was obliged to supplement his income by lecturing and journalism. “I live from mouth to hand,” he remarked.
9 At one stage of World War I Churchill went across to France as a volunteer to observe the fighting at first hand. In his sandbagged shelter at the front line, he was brought a message from a visiting general, a former acquaintance, who wanted to see him. He was to walk to a crossroads about three miles away, where a car would pick him up and take him to the general. After waiting at the crossroads for nearly an hour, Churchill was joined by one of the general’s officers. The car had been sent to the wrong crossroads and now it was too late for the meeting to take place.
Churchill began the long trudge back to the trenches in the dark and the rain, in a very bad humor, cursing the thoughtless general. When he got back to his shelter, however, he found that it no longer existed. Five minutes after he had left a shell had come through the roof, killing the man left inside. As Churchill records, “Suddenly I felt my irritation against General X pass completely from my mind. All sense of grievance departed in a flash. As I walked to my new abode, I reflected how thoughtful it had been of him to wish to see me again, and to show courtesy to a subordinate when he had so much responsibility on his shoulders.”
10 Winston Churchill’s powers of oratory became a legend; his broadcasts to the nation and his speeches in the House of Commons during World War II are world famous. Not all his friends, however, were complimentary. In the 1920s, for example, F. E. Smith complained, “Winston has devoted the best years of his life to preparing his impromptu speeches.”
11 In the House of Commons one afternoon, Churchill was attacking a certain aspect of government policy. Referring to Stanley Baldwin, then prime minister, Churchill declared: “History will say that the right honorable gentleman was wrong in this matter.” After a brief pause, he added, “I know it will, because I shall write the history.”
12 In 1938 Churchill published a collection of his speeches under the titles Arms and the Covenant. There was to be an American edition of the work, but the publishers felt that the title would not mean much to US readers, who were not very interested in the League of Nations. Churchill was asked to suggest an alternative. In due course he sent a cable suggesting “The Years of the Locust.” Somehow the phrase got garbled in transmission and arrived in the publishers’ offices as “The Years of the Lotus.” The editors puzzled over what was intended and eventually, following through the association of lotuses and slumber, came up with the title While England Slept. The book duly appeared under this title and was a great success.
13 When Winston Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty at the outbreak of World War II, he visited a naval base to see the Asdic antisubmarine defense system in operation. He was taken on board a warship, which sailed to an area in which there were known to be submerged wrecks. In due course the Asdic located one. Churchill asked what happened next. The naval officer in charge explained that they would then depth-bomb the target. Churchill asked to see this part of the operation as well, so a depth-charge was dropped overboard. A few seconds later there was a tremendous underwater explosion and quantities of water and wreckage erupted. Amid the wreckage was an apparently intact door bearing upon it the letters W. C. Churchill afterward observed, “The navy always knew how to pay proper compliments, bless them.”
14 Churchill made his first address to the US Congress on Boxing Day 1941. He remarked on this occasion, “If my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way round, I might have got here on my own.”
15 In the summer of 1941 Sergeant James Allen Ward was awarded the Victoria Cross for climbing out onto the wing of his Wellington bomber, 13,000 feet above the Zuider Zee, to extinguish a fire in the starboard engine. Secured only by a rope around his waist, he managed not only to smother the fire but also to return along the wing to the aircraft’s cabin. Churchill, an admirer as well as a performer of swashbuckling exploits, summoned the shy New Zealander to 10 Downing Street. Ward, struck dumb with awe in Churchill’s presence, was unable to answer the prime minister’s questions. Churchill surveyed the unhappy hero with some compassion. “You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” managed Ward.
“Then you can imagine how humble and awkward I feel in yours,” said Churchill.
16 “Before the Battle of El Alamein, he summoned General Montgomery and suggested that he study logistics. Montgomery doubted that he should become involved in such technical matters. ‘After all, you know,’ he said, ‘they say that familiarity breeds contempt.’ Churchill replied: ‘I would like to remind you that without a degree of familiarity we could not breed anything.’ ”
17 Churchill was accosted at a wartime reception by a rather overbearing American lady. “What are you going to do about those wretched Indians?” she demanded. “Madam,” replied Churchill, “to which Indians do you refer? Do you refer to the second greatest nation on earth, which under benign and munificent British rule has multiplied and prospered exceedingly? Or to the unfortunate North American Indians, which under your present administration are almost extinct?”
18 Once when Churchill was visiting the White House, President Roosevelt wheeled himself along to the British premier’s bedroom and opened the door unexpectedly. Churchill was standing in the middle of the room stark naked and unembarrassed. “You see, Mr. President,” he said, “we British have nothing to hide.”
19 F. D. Roosevelt had expressed hopes that the Yalta conference would not last more than five or six days. Remarked Churchill: “I do not see any way of realizing our hopes about world organization in five or six days. Even the Almighty took seven.”
20 President Charles de Gaulle, a six-foot-four-inch humorless Frenchman with “a head like a banana and hips like a woman” (as Hugh Dalton remarked), did not hit it off with the much more compact and sparkling Churchill. Each had his own ego problem; each saw himself as the embodiment of his nation. On one occasion, during dinner at Chequers, Churchill was informed by his butler that de Gaulle wished to speak to him on the phone. Churchill, in the middle of drinking his soup, refused to take the call. De Gaulle, vehemently persisting through the intermediary of the butler, eventually persuaded the British leader to abandon his soup. When Churchill returned to the table ten minutes later, he was still crimson with rage. “Bloody de Gaulle! He had the impertinence to tell me that the French regard him as the reincarnation of John of Arc.” Pause. “I found it necessary to remind him that we had to burn the first one.”
21 Churchill’s actress daughter Sarah was married for a time to the music-hall entertainer Vic Oliver. Churchill did not particularly like him. Out walking one day, Oliver asked his father-in-law whom he had admired in the war. “Mussolini,” growled Churchill surprisingly, adding, “He had the courage to have his son-in-law shot.”
22 During a visit to America, Churchill was invited to a buffet luncheon at which cold fried chicken was served. Returning for a second helping, he asked politely, “May I have some breast?”
“Mr. Churchill,” replied his hostess, “in this country we ask for white meat or dark meat.”
Churchill apologized profusely.
The following morning, the lady received a magnificent o
rchid from her guest of honor. The accompanying card read: “I would be most obliged if you would pin this on your white meat.”
23 George Bernard Shaw sent Churchill a note inviting him to the first-night performance of Saint Joan. He enclosed two tickets, “One for yourself and one for a friend — if you have one.” Expressing his regret at being unable to attend, Churchill replied, asking if it would be possible to have tickets for the second night — “if there is one.”
24 A critic (or editor) once had the temerity to correct a Churchillian sentence on the grounds that he should not have ended the sentence with a preposition. Churchill scribbled a note of his own: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.”
25 A proud mother remarked that her baby looked exactly like Churchill. “Madam, all babies look like me,” said Churchill.
26 He had few illusions about his oratorical effectiveness. When one of his friends asked, “Aren’t you impressed to see ten thousand people gather to hear you speak?” he replied, “No — because ten times as many would come to see me hanged.”
27 At a dinner for Commonwealth dignitaries, a chief of protocol approached Churchill, who was presiding, and whispered in his ear that one of the distinguished guests had been seen to slip a silver salt shaker into his pocket. Churchill promptly pocketed the matching pepper shaker. At the end of the meal he slid up to the offending guest, murmuring, “Oh, dear, we were seen. Perhaps we had both better put them back.”
28 During an after-dinner conversation Churchill’s son Randolph was trying to make a point when his father interrupted him to express his own opinion. Randolph listened for a moment, then attempted to bring the conversation back to his own line of reasoning. “Don’t interrupt me when I am interrupting!” snapped his father.
29 Entering the men’s room in the House of Commons one day, Churchill found Clement Attlee already standing at the urinal. Churchill took up his stance at the opposite end of the urinal. “Feeling standoffish today, are we, Winston?” asked Attlee. “That’s right,” replied Churchill. “Every time you see something big, you want to nationalize it.”
30 At a dinner party one evening, there was a heated exchange between Churchill and a female MP. At the end of the exchange the lady scornfully remarked, “Mr. Churchill, you are drunk.”
“And you, madam,” replied Churchill, “are ugly. But I shall be sober tomorrow.”
31 Returning home exhausted one evening, Churchill felt he could not face his last appointment of the day — a visit from a rather tiresome colleague who always outstayed his welcome. “When Sir ——— arrives,” he told his valet, “tell him I’m out.” Then, after a moment’s thought, he added, “And to convince him, smoke one of my cigars when you open the door.”
32 While in New York, Churchill visited publisher Henry Luce, who had one of the former prime minister’s landscapes hanging in his private office. “It’s a good picture,” remarked Luce, “but I think it needs something in the foreground — a sheep, perhaps.” The following morning, Luce was horrified to receive a call from Churchill’s secretary, requesting him to send the painting back. Luce complied, distressed to think that his criticism had caused such offense. A few days later, however, the canvas was returned — with a single sheep grazing placidly in the foreground.
33 One of Churchill’s bodyguards also enjoyed painting in his spare time. He showed a few of his canvases to the former prime minister, who was quite impressed. “They’re much better than mine,” he remarked. “But yours will have to be judged on merit.”
34 Asked why he chose to paint landscapes rather than portraits, Churchill replied: “Because no tree has ever complained about its likeness.”
35 The photographer who had been photographing Churchill on his eightieth birthday said courteously that he hoped he would photograph him on his hundredth. “I don’t see why not, young man,” said Churchill. “You look reasonably fit to me.”
36 In his eighties, Churchill paid a visit to the House of Commons. His appearance distracted attention from the debate then in progress. An MP said irritably, “After all, they say he’s potty.”
“They say he can’t hear either,” said the aged former prime minister.
CHWOLSON, Daniel Abramovich (1819–1911), Russian archaeologist.
1 Asked whether his decision to join the Orthodox Church had been made through conviction or for expediency, Chwolson replied: “I accepted baptism entirely out of conviction — the conviction that it is better to be a professor in the Academy in St. Petersburg than a teacher in a cheder in Vilna.”
CIBBER, Colley (1671–1757), British actor and dramatist who became poet laureate.
1 Colley Cibber worked his way up in the theater from the humblest of beginnings. His very first role was a brief appearance to hand a message to a character played by the great Thomas Betterton. Paralyzed with stage fright, he made a mess of it and upset the other actors. Afterward, Betterton angrily asked the prompter for the name of the youth who had caused the disturbance. “Master Colley,” replied the prompter.
“Master Colley. Then fine him!”
“But, sir, he has no salary.”
“No?” said Betterton. “Then put him down for ten shillings a week and fine him five shillings.”
CICERO, Marcus Tullius (106–43 BC), Roman orator and statesman.
1 Caesar greatly increased the number of Roman senators, a practice that caused much resentment among those who were already entitled to senatorial rank. One day at the games a newly created senator walked along the rows, looking for a seat. As he passed Cicero, the latter said to him, “I should have been happy for you to sit beside me were I not already short of room,” intending both to snub the interloper and to make plain his contempt for the enlarged senate. Mindful of Cicero’s reputation for political fickleness, the man replied, “I am surprised that you of all people should be short of room, since you make a habit of sitting on two seats at once.”
2 Caninius Rebilus was consul for only one day. Cicero, who deplored the disintegration of the ancient and dignified offices of the Roman Republic, made several observations on this event, including, “We have a consul of such vigilance that during his entire term he never slept a wink.” And, on being reproached for not practicing the usual courtesy of calling on the consul during his consulship, Cicero explained, “I was on my way, but night overtook me.”
CIMON (d. 499 BC), Athenian admiral and statesman.
1 A barbarian prince who had formerly supported the Persian cause abandoned his ally and came to Athens, seeking to place himself under Cimon’s protection. To ensure his welcome he brought two vessels, one filled with gold pieces and the other with silver, and placed them before Cimon’s door. Cimon looked at them and smiled. “Would you prefer to have me as your mercenary or as your friend?” he asked.
“As my friend,” replied the man.
“Go,” said Cimon, “and take these things away with you. For if I am your friend, your money will be mine whenever I have need of it.”
CINQUE, Joseph (?1813–80), African slave who led the mutiny aboard the Spanish ship Amistad in 1839.
1 In his later years Cinque became an interpreter at a Christian mission in Sierra Leone. He was asked whether, if he were faced with the situation aboard the Amistad again, he would not now pray for the captain and cook instead of killing them. “I would pray for them,” he replied, “and kill them too.”
CLAIRE, Ina (1895–1985), US actress.
1 Between 1929 and 1931 Ina Claire was married to John Gilbert, the romantic hero of the silent screen. A reporter asked her how it felt being married to a celebrity. “Why don’t you ask my husband?” replied Mrs. Gilbert.
CLARK, George Rogers (1752–1818), US soldier.
1 Impoverished and crippled, Clark applied to the Virginia legislature for a military pension. He was sent a ceremonial sword in token of his many heroic exploits. “When Virginia needed a sword, I gave her one. Now she sends me a toy,” the old hero s
aid. “I want bread.” So saying, he broke the sword in two with his crutch.
CLARK, Mark Wayne (1896–1984), US general.
1 Clark was once asked what was the best advice he had ever been given. “To marry the girl I did,” he replied.
“And who gave you that advice?” was the next question.
“She did,” said the general.
CLAY, Cassius Marcellus, Sr. (1810–1903), US abolitionist and diplomat.
1 A cousin of the great Henry Clay, he remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War and fought numerous duels with fellow Kentuckians who disagreed with him. Though he was an expert duelist (he never lost an encounter), his first confrontation was a failure. As both he and his opponent missed their allowed three shots, the encounter was called off. It was well known that Clay could normally hit a suspended string at ten paces three times out of five. Asked to explain his inaccurate fire, he replied, “That damned string never had no pistol in his hand.”
CLAY, Henry (1777–1852), US statesman and orator, nicknamed “the Great Compromiser” on account of his compromises to preserve the Union over the issue of slavery.
1 Henry Clay’s forceful and brilliant style of oratory won him the acclaim of the House but also the jealousy of certain older and more ponderous speakers whose long-windedness showed up badly in comparison. One such speaker approached Clay and tried to deflate him by pointing out that Clay’s speeches, aimed at immediate impact, were for the present generation while most senior orators were speaking for posterity. “And it seems, sir, that you are resolved to speak until the arrival of your audience,” retorted Clay.
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