The Mirrors of Downing Street / Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster

ures.... He was too heedless of his good name and too blind to the truth that though right and wrong may

uded Joseph Chamberlain, Charles Dilke, and George Wyndham. With the fading exception of M

first entrance into politics has interested both the public and the House of Commons. He has disappointe

in a unique degree the fighting qualities of the born politician. No man is more difficult to shout down, and no man responds more gratefully to

lf. He loved war for its dangers, he loves politics for the same reason, and himself he has always loved for the knowledge that his mind is dangerous-dangerous to h

cs were more to him than an

re almost as exciting as w

th the n

"you can only be killed once,

n antagonistic elements in a single mind, giving them not merely force, which is something, but direction, which is much more. He is a man of truly brilliant gifts, but you cannot depend upon him. His l

articular party's programmes. Most of us, I think, will agree that a man who never changes his opinion is a stupid person, and that one who boasts in grave and hoary age of his lifelong political consistency is merely confe

r a deliberate refusal to acknowledge an intellectual mistake, who can doubt that this quality of the mind creates confidence? On the other hand, who can doubt t

, does not encourage the judicious reader to look for guidance in its editorial pronouncements. But the newspaper which felt itself obliged to offer France a respectful admonition on one occasion and even to oppose French policy with firmness and to express sym

times without losing our confidence, deeply as we may deplore his change. Goodness has an effect on men's minds which can hardly be exaggerated. Conduct is the one sphere in which consistency has an absolute merit. A man whose whole life is governed by moral

alty. His power is the power of gifts, not character. Men watch him, but do not follow him. He beguiles the reason, but never warms the emotions. You may see in him the wonderful and lightning movements of the brain, but never the beating of a steadfast he

consistencies have been dangerous to his career. Th

nalism, with whom a man of Mr. Churchill's power and position should hold no personal relations. His is a mind which stands in need of constant communion with men of culture and refinement. H

emerge out of the ashes of temperament. It is not to be thought that Mr. Churchill is growing a character which will presently emerge and create devotion in his countrymen. Character for him must lie in those very qualities which

He is a Saul on the way to Damascus. Let him swing clean away from that road of destruction and he might well become Paul on his way to immortality. This is to say, that to be saved from himself Mr. Churc

business." But politics for Mr. Churchill, if they are to make him, if they are to fulfil his promise, must be a rel

ime, he hitched hi

nd misunderstood figures in public life. People have got it into their heads that he is a noisy, shameless, truculent, a

vented many men from even attempting to enter public life; it has always been a handicap to Mr. Churchill, but he has never allowed it to stop his way, and I think it is significant both of his courage and the nervousness of his temperament that while at the beginning of a speech this thickness of utterance is most noticeable, the speaker's pale face showing two patches of fiery pink in his cheeks, the utterance becomes almost clear, the face sho

perately with both body and mind to keep his place in the firing line. Some of his friends have seen him in a state of real weakness, particularly of physical weakness, and for myself I have never once found him in a truc

cians; certainly they are more deadly than such a phrase as "spiritual home," for although the world may be ignorant of the fact, every honest, educated man must acknowledge a debt of gratitu

emn the Allies for their initial failure to make Antwerp a sea-fed menace to the back of the German Armies; while even in our own day no one doubts that if Lord Kitchener, in one of his obstina

highest kind both before and at the outbreak of war, but his colleagues in the Cabinet never realized the importance of this work, judging it merely as "one of Winston's new crazes," Ministers speak of him in their confidences with a certain amount of affection, but never with real respect. Many of them, of cour

ld Mr. Churchill that he stood in need of "conversi

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Andrew's University; Barrister, 1879; Q.C., 1890; created 1st Viscount, 1911; M.P. from Haddingtonshire, 1885-1911; S