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Details
CHURCHILL, Winston S. Autograph letter signed ("W.") to Muriel Wilson, Queens Hotel, Manchester, 26 January 1905. 8 pages, 8vo, mourning stationery, with autograph envelope signed with initials ("WSC").
ROBERT BURNS'S POETRY, HIS LONELINESS, AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION"
A revealing letter, and a rare instance of Churchill revealing his loneliness and melancholia, all inspired by a discussion of Robert Burns's verse. Churchill identifies with the poet's gloominess as much as he admires his artistry. "The barque of his existence had a low freeboard, any depression however slight made it dip beneath the surface & the waters of the mournful deep flowed in & overwhelmed his soul...Do you ever read his poetry? It is full of true love, beautiful songs of joy rising from so much misery, like the nightingale singing in darkness...I think I could learn to make love myself on their inspiration..." Returning to his own moodiness, he writes of his frustrating life on the stump: "I have no time to live, because I have, apart from work, no life to live. You have too much life to live & not enough work to do. There's the difference." He then mentions the turmoil in Russia. "Poor impotent Czar...I think the numbers killed & wounded will turn out to be greatly exaggerated....As long as the soldiers shoot when told no forcible revolution is possible." He predicts peaceful change will occur by the force of public opinion "and as these fusdillades help to strengthen that opinion, I do not think their victims die altogether in vain."
ROBERT BURNS'S POETRY, HIS LONELINESS, AND THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION"
A revealing letter, and a rare instance of Churchill revealing his loneliness and melancholia, all inspired by a discussion of Robert Burns's verse. Churchill identifies with the poet's gloominess as much as he admires his artistry. "The barque of his existence had a low freeboard, any depression however slight made it dip beneath the surface & the waters of the mournful deep flowed in & overwhelmed his soul...Do you ever read his poetry? It is full of true love, beautiful songs of joy rising from so much misery, like the nightingale singing in darkness...I think I could learn to make love myself on their inspiration..." Returning to his own moodiness, he writes of his frustrating life on the stump: "I have no time to live, because I have, apart from work, no life to live. You have too much life to live & not enough work to do. There's the difference." He then mentions the turmoil in Russia. "Poor impotent Czar...I think the numbers killed & wounded will turn out to be greatly exaggerated....As long as the soldiers shoot when told no forcible revolution is possible." He predicts peaceful change will occur by the force of public opinion "and as these fusdillades help to strengthen that opinion, I do not think their victims die altogether in vain."