Short, humorous stories about people
in politics, history, and the arts.
Paw Prints Anecdotes
Evelyn Waugh
(1903–66)
Anecdote...
Once, when he had behaved with particular rudeness to
a young French intellectual at a dinner party in Paris at the home of
Nancy Mitford, Miss Mitford, angry at his social brutality, asked him
how he could behave so meanly and yet consider himself a believing and
practicing Catholic.
"You have no idea," Waugh returned, "how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being."
Biographical Note...
Evelyn Waugh was a British novelist. His novels
"Decline and Fall" (1928) and "Vile Bodies" (1930)
established him as a social satirist. After his conversion to Roman Catholicism
in 1930, religious themes played an increasing part in such novels as
"Brideshead Revisited" (1945). Later books include his wartime
trilogy—"At Arms" (1952), "Officers and Gentlemen"
(1955), and "Unconditional Surrender" (1961).
More Information...
FIND OUT MORE about Evelyn Waugh—one of our favorite satirists. Take a guided tour of Doubting Hall, a Web site with information about Waugh's works and a guide to further reading.
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