April 18, 2020

Finest Hour 187, First Quarter 2020

Page 05

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Coming in Finest Hour 188: Churchill’s Prime Ministers

18 August 1908

BLENHEIM—My dear Winston, Your letter has given me much pleasure and a great deal of satisfaction. It is indeed a joy to feel that you are happy, and that you realise that in ensuring the content of another being, lies in no small degree the solace and also the enjoyment of life. I earnestly hope that your life and Clementine’s may be unclouded, and that the only source of contention between you during the years in front, may be which of you two loves each other the better.

You are rich in many things, in friends, in health, ability, and true worth is to be found not in the quantity of one’s possessions, but in the capacity for limitation of one’s personal requirements. She herself Clementine is surrounded by those who admire her, and enriched by those who love her—and whom she loves—and in addition possesses all those graceful and affectionate qualities of the heart which form the basis of the essential characteristics of a life’s companion.

You will find that during your engagement that Love is forgetful of Time. I sincerely hope, indeed believe, that Time will not be forgetful of your Love, and that it will remain with you both until that day when by the inexorable laws of the flesh you are to be parted, yet again nevertheless to be united in that world beyond of which all of us know so little and some of us hope for much.

I have made arrangements that this house will be at your disposal from the date of your wedding until you wish to journey elsewhere, and I am very glad that you both feel disposed to come here. Your affectionate—Sunny [ninth Duke of Marlborough]