Oddly enough, this man of action's greatest joy was to sit for hours in a field painting the scene before him. He also liked to write, not least about himself nor his accomplishments. A classic Englishman, he grew up in perpetual awe of his wild, radiant American mother. Although he was wrong about many things, he was right about the big ones. By my count he lost a half dozen elections, including the cruelist of all when the war in Europe had been won.
Democracy is based on reason, a sense of fair play, and freedom, and a respect for other people.
It makes me happy just to read about this man, to know he was of us, that one of us was Winston Churchill. Of course, he probably drank too much. He most certainly lived the life of an aristocrat, never, ever, venturing into a kitchen or traveling, even to war, without a valet. But he paid for that aristocratic lifestyle by himself, through an endless stream of writing and lectures. One of my favorite portraits, given to us by William Manchester, is Churchill, climbing the stairs at midnight, leaving his dinner guests to their cigars and brandies, as he went off to dictate and edit well into the morning.