Books, Arts & Manners: At Waugh with Himself

The Picturesque Prison: Evelyn Waugh and His WritingsBy Jeffrey HeathMe Gill-Queen’s University Press,

334 pp., $35 An American journalist once asked Evelyn Waugh what he thought of Will Rogers’s opinion that “the purpose of art is not to make a man think but to make him happy.” Before answering, Waugh inquired, “Mr. Rogers is dead, I understand?” Once assured that Rogers had “passed over some years back,” he cut his interviewer short by replying, “Then he knows better now, good morning.”

GM

About the Author

George McCartney

Featured Tags

The Picturesque Prison: Evelyn Waugh and His WritingsBy Jeffrey HeathMe Gill-Queen’s University Press,

334 pp., $35 An American journalist once asked Evelyn Waugh what he thought of Will Rogers’s opinion that “the purpose of art is not to make a man think but to make him happy.” Before answering, Waugh inquired, “Mr. Rogers is dead, I understand?” Once assured that Rogers had “passed over some years back,” he cut his interviewer short by replying, “Then he knows better now, good morning.”