WINSTON CHURCHILL: THE TRIBUTE OF HIS PEERS
The Earl of Chatham
There are gentlemen who bring forward their accusations of inconsistency against this man. Let us talk not of consistency as if it were a virtue. I boast a sovereign contempt for it. It is the refuge of confined minds; the harbour of failing spirits. I have not come here armed at all points with speeches and memoirs, with the Official Report doubled down in dog's ears, to defend the Prime Minister. 1 take my stand on the one plain maxim, that a statesman who has used his vital powers through sixty years in the defence of liberty deserves the homage of his peers. We have been summoned here by history, not to search in all the flaws of his ambiguity with curious mischief; not to run into every twisting creek of his career; not to wind and spin some silky line of interpretation, entangling the plain evidence of his greatness. If any should attempt these things, I will not suffer them. We are here, Who were alive in the morning of liberty, to acknowledge into our company one who is still its noblest defender in the evening of his life. Let him whose intelligence is so small that it may not encompass the greatness of this man be silent. I rejoice that he was born, yet more that he is still alive; for it is a ground on which I stand firm, on which 1 dare meet any man, that England has not breathed more nobly than in the life of this her most honoured son. We speak today for history, and from the high pinnacle of fame we dare write history's verdict England lives because this man lived.
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