Waugh Me

The American Conservative's forthcoming issue has an excellent piece about Evelyn Waugh (no link available). Written by R.J. Stove, the article is filled with samples of Waugh's ridiculously clever (albeit borderline cruel) literary criticism. It's also filled with great passages from Waugh's non-fiction writing, like this one, which we reproduce now for obvious reasons:

There is witchcraft in New Orleans, as there was at the court of Mme. De Montespan. Yet it was there that I saw one of the most moving sights of my tour. Ash Wednesday; warm rain falling in streets unsightly with the draggled survivals of carnival. The Roosevelt Hotel overflowing with crapulous tourists planning their return journeys. How many of them knew anything about Lent? But across the way the Jesuit Church was teeming with life all day long; a continuous, dense crowd of all colors and conditions moving up to the altar rails and returning with their foreheads signed with ash. And the old grim message was being repeated over each penitent: “Dust thou are and unto dust thou shalt return.” One grows parch for that straight style of speech in the desert of modern euphemisms.