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A Desperate Winston Churchill Responds After His Marriage Proposal is Rejected

A distraught Winston Churchill asks society beauty Muriel Wilson to Marry him, within hours after she has rejected his proposal, he makes a desperate appeal to her. “I can wait-perhaps I shall improve with waiting. Why shouldn’t you care about me someday?”

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL. Autograph Letter Signed, to Muriel Wilson.

[London , England] [1904]. 3 pp., 5 x 8 in. On 105 Mount Street stationery.

Housed in a custom-made protective envelope style flap case.

Here’s the complete Transcript:
This is what I wanted to say on the way back. You are not certain in your own mind. Don’t slam the door. I can wait-perhaps I shall improve with waiting. Why shouldn’t you care about me someday? I have great faith in my instinct which was so very strong. Time & circumstances will work for me. Meanwhile I won’t pester you. Let me see you again before Monday. I will try to talk trivialities. At present I feel quite sick-and I will write and tell you when I have rearranged my mind and can see you without alluding to the only thing that is of the slightest consequence. Of course if you don’t care about me at all, you are quite right. But it is a sad pity and a scattering of treasure. I love you because you are good & beautiful, & you may be perfectly certain that I am not going to change or try to change. On the contrary, the more I am opposed the more strength I shall feel-for I am not going to be thrust back into my grey world of politics without a struggle. But for that 1st reason you may see me safely-when I have got hold of myself again-for I won’t be such a fool as to bore you. I shall tell Surrey-it would not be honourable in me not to-being as we are such good friends-what I feel and intend.
Yours always-
Winston S.C
Send me one line back

Historical Background:
Muriel Wilson, the object of Winston Churchill’s unrequited love, must have given an aversion to politics as one reason she could not marry him. She also did not believe he had a terribly bright future. Churchill, at the time a 29-year old Member of Parliament trying to begin a career, continued to write to her. As this letter makes clear, Wilson had little interest in politics, while she rightly judged as one of Churchill’s great passions.

Ironically, the same year he was pining for Wilson, Churchill met his future wife, Clementine Hozier; they married in 1908.

Where’s the salutation & the date?
Several explanations have been put forth:
One is that Churchill was in such distress that he neglected a salutation and date. Another explanation explains that his two letters to Wilson later in 1904 were both eight pages in length, so it is possible that this letter is the surviving portion of a similarly-long letter.

Item #301