Churchill’s restless energy is such that his associates are both inspired and compelled to work harder than they ever did with anyone else. Shortly after he went to the Admiralty I visited his office and chatted with his secretaries. They were obviously sincere in their hero worship of him, but equally sincere in their sighs of weariness over the strenuous schedule they have to follow. Rauschning describes Hitler as an essentially lazy man who “does not know how to work steadily. Indeed is incapable of working. He hates to have to read with concentration. He rarely reads a book through; usually he only begins it.” Could there be found a greater contrast than this with the habits of Churchill whose perpetual industry and powers of concentration are as important elements in his genius as intellect? As an illustration of his ability to concentrate I know no better anecdote than the one told me by Randolph. It was during the months before the war when Mr. Churchill was writing the _History of the English Speaking Peoples_, and every day world without end, he turned out, generally in the evening, his stint of words from 2,000 upward. It made no difference what was happening in international affairs, or what other demands were made upon his time. No excitements or exigencies were allowed to disturb his writing. But events grew bigger and bigger and to the prescient eye of Mr. Churchill it became every day more clear that war was certain to come, and that a violent gesture by Hitler might precipitate it any moment. Suddenly Hitler marched into Prague, breaking the fresh vows he had made at Munich, deliberately insulting Britain and France, cynically strangling the rump state he had sworn to respect. Throughout Europe ran a shudder and the mind of every man was absorbed with anxious exploration of the possibilities. On that evening Mr. Churchill rose from dinner, and as he started upstairs to his workroom to write his stint, he exclaimed to his family, “It will be difficult for me tonight to concentrate my undivided attention upon the reign of King James II, but I shall do so.”