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In this crisis I think I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today, and I hope that any of my friends and colleagues or former colleagues who are affected by the political reconstruction will make all allowances for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act. I say to the House as I said to Ministers who have joined this government, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil,
sweat and tears. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and unpleasant catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs—victory in spite of all terrors—victory, however long and hard the road may be,
for without victory there is no survival. Let that be realized. No survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge, the impulse of the ages, that mankind shall move forward toward his goal. I take up my task in light heart and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. I feel entitled at this juncture, at this time, to claim the aid of all and to say, “Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”
My house is perfect. By great good fortune I have found a housekeeper no less to my mind, a low-voiced, light-footed woman of discreet age, strong and deft enough to render me all the service I require,
and not afraid of loneliness. She rises very early. By my breakfast-time there remains little to be done under the roof save dressing of meals. Very rarely do I hear even a clink of crockery; never the closing of a door or window. Oh, blessed silence! My house is perfect. Just large enough to allow the grace of order in domestic circumstance; just that superfluity of inner space,
to lack which is to be less than at one's ease. The fabric is sound; the work in wood and plaster tells of a more leisurely and a more honest age than ours. The stairs do not creak under my step; I am attacked by no unkindly draught; I can open or close a window without muscle-ache. As to such trifles as the color and device of wall-paper,
I confess my indifference; be the walls only plain, and I am satisfied. The first thing in one's home is comfort; let beauty of detail be added if one has the means, the patience, the eye. To me, this little book-room is beautiful, and chiefly because it is home. Through the greater part of life I was homeless. Many places have I lived, some which my soul disliked, and some which pleased me well; but never till now with that sense of security which makes a home. At any moment I might have been driven forth by evil accident, by disturbing necessity. For all that time did I say within myself: Some day, perchance, I shall have a home;
yet the "perchance" had more and more of emphasis as life went on, and at the moment when fate was secretly smiling on me, I had all but abandoned hope. I have my home at last. This house is mine on a lease of a score of years. So long I certainly shall not live; but, if I did, even so long should I have the money to pay my rent and buy my food. I am no cosmopolite. Were I to think that I should die away from England, the thought would be dreadful to me. And in England, this is the place of my choice; this is my home.
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey: but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone. “The fields his study, nature was his book.” I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time.
When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for criticizing hedges and black cattle. I go out for town in order to forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this purpose go to watering places, and carry the metropolis with them. I like more space and fewer obstacles. I like solitude, when I give myself up to it, for the sake of solitude; nor do I ask for “a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper solitude is sweet.” The soul of journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel,
do, just as one pleases. We go a journey chiefly to be free of all obstacles and all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind, much more to get rid of others. It is because I want a little breathing space to ponder on indifferent matters, where contemplation “May plume her feathers and let grow her wings, that in the various bustle of resort were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.” I absent myself from the town for a while, without feeling at a loss the moment I am left by myself. Instead of a friend in a post chaise or in a carriage, to exchange good things with, and vary the same stale topics over again, for once let me have a time free from manners.
Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and the three hours' march to dinner—and then to thinking! It is hard if I cannot start some game on these lone heaths. I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy! From the point of yonder rolling cloud I plunge into my past being, and revel there as the sun-burnt Indian plunges headlong into the wave that wafts him to his native shore. Then long-forgotten things like “sunken wrack and sumless treasuries,” burst upon my eager sight, and I begin to feel, think, and be myself again. Instead of an awkward silence, broken by attempts at wit or ll commonplaces, mine is that undisturbed silence of the heart which alone is perfect eloquence.
Half the people on our streets look as though life was a sorry business. It is hard to find a happy looking man or woman. Worry is the cause of their woebegone appearance. Worry makes the wrinkles; worry cuts the deep, down-glancing lines on the face; worry is the worst disease of our modern times. Care is contagious; it is hard work being cheerful at a funeral, and it is a good deal harder to keep the frown from your face when you are in the throng of the worry worn ones. Yet, we have no right to be dispensers of gloom; no matter how heavy our loads may seem to be we have no right to throw their burden on others nor even to cast the shadow of them on other hearts.
Anxiety is instability. Fret steals away force. He who dreads tomorrow trembles today. Worry is weakness. The successful men may be always wide-awake, but they never worry. Fret and fear are like fine sand, thrown into life's delicate mechanism; they cause more than half the friction; they steal half the power. Cheer is strength. Nothing is so well done as that which is done heartily, and nothing is so heartily done as that which is done happily. Be happy, is an injunction not impossible of fulfillment. Pleasure may be an accident; but happiness comes in definite ways. It is the casting out of our foolish fears that we may have room for a few of our common joys. It is the telling our worries to wait until we get through appreciating our blessings.
Take a deep breath, raise your chest, lift your eyes from the ground, look up and think how many things you have for which to be grateful, and you will find a smile growing where one may long have been unknown. Take the right kind of thought—for to take no thought would be sin—but take the calm, unanxious thought of your business, your ties, your difficulties, your disappointments and all the things that once have caused you fear, and you will find yourself laughing at most of them.