Saturday,
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
August 2, 1941.
He speaks as ono who relishes his own rolling rhythms.
BLIND HOSPITALITY
No, Sir, the Black Out does not start for forty minutes. Captain Jenkins and five other gentlemen coming over with you from the Mess- very good, Sir I'll put out drinks in the billiard room. You think they'll be staying late, Sir? Then I'll tell cook to prepare sandwiches. And a piano? Certainly, Sir. Might I suggest the coltage piano from the nursery, not the grand from the music room. No, Sir, no light showing through the blinds -- I have taken every precaution. And I will also make a point of leaving out six boules of Rose's Lime Juice to avoid any possibility of what are known in civilian life as hangovers. In times like the present, Sir, we must be prepared for any emergency. Goodbye, Sir, I'll be back about 5 a.m. No, Sir, 1 won't forget the Rose's. Goodbye, Sir.
There's nothing ersata about Rose's Lime Juica, Aik for Rose's and enjoy the pure juice of the time.
GROSSE & BLACKWELLS
The Concentrated
ENGLISH SOUPS
KIDNEY 30OP
CHURCHILL
The Right Honourable Wins- Primo Ministar he has half a
The ORATOR
Once he drew on Cervantes to
ton Leonard Spencer Churchill, dozon secretaries, and so fertile describo, the roturn of England's A STUDY OF HIS
Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
words
reading
the
the greatest orator of modern is his mind that he manages to and Foreign Secretary Sir John
Simon from Rome: "We have got our. times, began life with a lisp and keep them all busy.
modern Don Quixoto home again, In nervous moments stuttered.
By 10:30 he is dressed and with Sancho Panza at his tall, bear- He always has had difficulty
dubi- with words ending in the letter ready for cabinet meetings. On ing with them these comewhat "s," and even to-day, as his days when he has an important ous trophies which they have collect- words go out over the wave speech to make, he rises earlier ed amid the nervous twitterings of
Europe." lengths to the embattled Em- to practice it, sometimes before pire, listeners can detect. the a mirror, as he used to do when From Ancient History whistling of sibilants in his de. he was less sure of himself. Al-
Commenting on the Munich Pact, livery. For a time he avoided though he usually knows his
the troublesome speeches by heart, he has them he told the House that he had been thousand year - old with letter; now he speaks more typed for his guidance, all the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: "In my holt- slowly, with deliberate pauses sentences separately spaced, all day I thought it was a chalice to reign of King Ethelred to let the whistle die away. To- no longer than his eye can take study the
the Unready," day ho speaks as one who re- in or his breath ulter.
Whenever an apt allusion will lishes his own rolling rhythms While dictating, the forming help, his retentive memory reaches and his mastery over a medium of a felicitous phrase in his out to grasp it from a lifetime har- in which few have risen to mind brings a smile of triumph vest of reading
phrase-minker, as a creative literary greatness.
to his round cheeks. He loves artist himself, that he shines now, and probably will shine to fúlure Churchill has a mind formed alliteration. He goes over
many as ages: by Nature for images, and typed manuscript as
Blackout without gloom. "Never has so much been owed by figures of speech, a mind on six times, making corrections
so many to so few." riched by voluminous and varied and keeping his typists busy reading. He hates a platitude until all are wearied but him- as much as he hates the Nazis, self. Two of his favourite poets are the sublime and simple Hous man of "A Shropshire Lad" and Shakespeare, which he used to carry around with him in a poc-
ket edition.
Tut it is as
↓
"Early this morning the Yugoslav nation found its soul."
of
Figures Of Speech
On the platform he stands with feet slightly apart, a la
When England and the democru- Napolcon, rocking himself gen- tic world were aghast as the German fly back and forth on his heels, armies broke through the Frenen sometimes grasping the lapels lines, Churchill called it "the battle of his cont-n hulking, lovable, of the bulges," projecting an image
Bull cherub-faced John
swaying lines, the German might in bulging here, the anus of France and Morality, Metaphor
whose leadership in their hou? Britain thrusting there.
re. It
was b "Churchill's tastes are sim- of trial, as President Roosevelt reassuring Image which gave the British are people at home time to get set again. ple," said his friend, the late phrased it, the
In his memorable address Earl of Birkenhead. "He is blessed.
people of Italy after Britain's first ent victuries in Africa, he spoke easily contented with the best."
map-Imagery
and will
Influenced By Morley again in ter
in terms
which the
armies
to the
If he had not been born to
On which of the speakers of "Our common mind could grasp;
tearing are soldiering and statesmanship he might have been a pact himself. his time did Churchil model tear your African Empire to shreds His style is a mixture of morali- himself? In his delineation in and tatters." And it came to pass. After Dunkirk his phraseology be
the ty and metaphor, as in his "Great Contemporaries" of the came more vivid, more poetle;
1939-the political, oratorical and literary glow of the Luftwaffe's fires lights up speech of Sept. 3,
we shall prove John Morley it is possible to his emotion: " Sunday war was declared:
glimpse Churchill himself. ourselves able to defend our Island "Outside, the storms of war About Morley, who died in 1923, home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, Churchill wrote:
if necessary for years, it necessary may blow
alone." And again; And the lands may be lashed with the fury of its gales, But in our own hearts this
Sunday morning
There'is peace.
Our hands may be active,
+
"His manner and aspect were
"We shall not flag or fall. We shall There was a captivating....
110 011 to the end, we shall fight in quality about his rhetoric which France, we shall fight on the seas and arrested attention. He loved oceans, we shall fight with growing the pageantry as well as the dis- confidence and growing strength in But our consciences are at tinction of words, and many air, we shall defend our Island, what
ever the cost may be, we shall fight on passages in his speeches dwell the benches, we shati fight on the rest."
in my memory.. He pleaded landing grounds, we shall fight in No comparison seems possible unpopular causes with a cour the fields and in the streets, we shall between Churchill the orator age and sincerity which com- Aght in the hills; we shall never sur- and President Roosevelt, the manded the respect of the render."
greatest public speaker in the House." United States. FDR dignifies facts and issues by his master-
England's Finest Hour"
of the con-
flame
Written with skill and love, H toesin calls reached their ful delivery, drawing the in- the Prime Minister's speeches height on the first anniversary of the terest of the public up to his reveal the range of his reading, war, while the new, destructive Nazi own level; Churchill, a muster One of his father's favourite aerial raids were in progress:
"What (Hitler) has done is to of rhetoric, addresses his high, authors was the great Gibbon, kindle a are in British hear
hearts, here visionary gift of language down who lived in the age of Chur- and all over the world, which will
famous
the glow long after all i traces of to the broad level of the British chill's
ancestor, masses, yet is never too "Intel Duke of Marlborough. Lord flagration he has caused in London lectual" for the man in the Randolph could quote whole will have been removed. He has street and never too "simple" pages of the "Decline and Fall lighted a fire which will burn with
a steady and consuming And for the man in the library. of the Roman Empire."
And just as in 1933 he had warned: most when Lieutenant Winston Chur- "It may well be that the His Forthrightness chill was in Africa with the glorious chapters in our history are Fourth Hussars, his mother yet to be written," so in 1940, he was
able to
tell his people: "Let us Unquestionably,Ghurchill's.
̈sent him ̈ ̈ ̈Milman's-8-volume re ourselves to our duties and so-- forcefulness as a speaker is duc edition of Gibbon. Those who bear ourselves that, if the British in large part to his forthright- know the "Decline and Fall"! Empire and its Commonwealth Inst can see in Churchill's melodic for a thousand years, men will still His father. Lord Randolph and perspicuous prose the struc- say. This was their finest hour
The light of England's
"finest Churchill, onetime Chancellor of tores and rhythms of his cigh- hour" shines in the speeches of the Exchequer and leader of the teenth century master, as when Winston Churchill. He has raised House of Commons, once said: "I have never feared the British he warned: "The wars of peoples the level of oratory for generations
will be more terrible than the almost beaten people to fight back
to come. His addresses rallied an democracy", and again: "Trust wars of kings."
and fight back hard. Not only does the common people.'
he lead Britain's battle but he is - Churchill's Fable himself the chronicler of her herole efforts. Once more a crisis has It will take
ness,
In 1932 Winston Churchill told the House:
Or he could write with a titillating brought forth the man, "The habit of saying smooth irony, In 1928, speaking to his con- a major poet to surpass in verse things and uttering pious plati- stituents in Epping he delivered a what he has already accomplished In tudes and sentiments to gain ap. fable, instead of a speech, in the his prose, plause, without relation to the manner of Aesop:
12
underlying facts, is more pro- "Once upon a time all the animals nounced now than it has ever in the Zao deckled that they would disarm, and they arranged the matter; been in my experience.
So the RLinoceros sald when he Tell the truth to the British opened the proceedings that the use people. They are tough of teeth was barbarous and horrible people, a robust people. They and ought to be strictly prohibited may be a bit offended at the mo- by general consent. Horns, which defensive weapons, ment, but if you have told them were mainly
would, of course, have to be allowed. exactly what is going on you The Buffalo, the Stag, the Foscupine, have insured yourself against and even the little Hedgehog oil said complaints and reproaches they would vote with the Rhino, but Lion and the Tiger took a which are very unpleasant when the they come home on the morroie different view, of some disillusion."
even
15
uny
"They defended teeth and
they described elaws, which When he introduced his war honourable weapons of immemorial cabinet as Prime Minister he antiqully.. The Panther, the Leo- declared: "I have nothing to pard, the Puma, and the whole tribe offer but blood, toil, tears and of small eats all supported the Lion and the Tiger. Then the Bear spoke, sweat."
Ile proposed that both teeth and After a lifetime of arduous horns should be banned and never Inbour as
n writer-essayist, used again for fighting by Historian, biographer-Churchill animals were allowed to give each
animal. It would be quite enough can afford the luxury of dictat- other a good hug when they quarrell- ing at any hour of the day or ed. No one could object to that. It night. Essentially, however, he was so fraternal, and that would bo is still the crentivo artist, jeal- a great step towards peace. How- ous of words, whispering them ever, all the other animals were very offended with the Bear, and the under his breath to get their Turkey fell into a perfect panic. rhythm and sentence structure
to his taste, then speaking aloud Quotes Dr Johnson to secretary-still with his
IL
Twice in his speeches to the
lisp, still with an occasional House he found occasion to quote the stutter. His day begins at following from Dr Johnson, the grent 7:16; then, for a quarter of an eighteenth century stylist who In- hour, he marshals his thoughts, fluenced Gibbon himself:
At 7:30, before breakfast, and "Ye who Haten with credulity to while he is still in bed, he lights the whilapera of fancy, and pursua a cigara habit which the Earl with eagerness the phantoms of hope, of Birkenhead also had. From who expect that age will perform the his bed, or swishing around the promises of youth, and that the de
fieloncics of the present day will be room nervously in a dressing supplied by the morrow; attend to gown, ho dictates-letters, history 01 Rasselas, Prince memorandums, speeches. As ́Abyssinika,"
of
By
ART
CHARLES NORMAN
Photos from Movietone News, made during a Churchill spacch as First Lord of the Admiralty, 1939,
Good Whisky-
JOHNNIE
WALKER
BORN
1820
STILL GOING STRONG
Sole Agents for China: CALDBECK, MACGREGOR & CO. LTD. 1HANGHAI HONGKONG TIENTSIN
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