Editing Evelyn Waugh (section)

== Character and opinions ==
In the course of his lifetime, Waugh made enemies and offended many people; writer [[James Lees-Milne]] said that Waugh "was the nastiest-tempered man in England".<ref>Lees-Milne, p. 169</ref> Waugh's son, [[Auberon Waugh|Auberon]], said that the force of his father's personality was such that, despite his lack of height, "generals and chancellors of the exchequer, six-foot-six and exuding self-importance from every pore, quail[ed] in front of him".<ref>Auberon Waugh, p. 43</ref>

In the biographic ''Mad World'' (2009), [[Paula Byrne]] said that the common view of Evelyn Waugh as a "snobbish misanthrope" is a caricature; she asks: "Why would a man, who was so unpleasant, be so beloved by such a wide circle of friends?"<ref>Byrne (postscript), pp. 4–5</ref> His generosity to individual persons and causes, especially Catholic causes, extended to small gestures;<ref>Hastings, pp. 504–505</ref> after his libel-court victory over [[Nancy Spain]], he sent her a bottle of champagne.<ref>Patey, p. 336</ref> Hastings said that Waugh's outward personal belligerence to strangers was not entirely serious but an attempt at "finding a sparring partner worthy of his own wit and ingenuity".<ref>Hastings, pp. 517–518</ref> Besides mocking others, Waugh mocked himself—the elderly buffer, "crusty colonel" image, which he presented in later life, was a comic impersonation, and not his true self.<ref>Hastings, pp. 567–568</ref><ref>Byrne, pp. 117–118</ref>

{{Conservatism UK|Intellectuals}}
As an instinctive conservative, Waugh believed that class divisions, with inequalities of wealth and position, were natural and that "no form of government [was] ordained by God as being better than any other".<ref>Sykes, p. 185</ref> In the post-war "Age of the Common Man", he attacked socialism (the "Cripps–Attlee terror")<ref>Hastings, p. 495. [[Clement Attlee]] led the [[Attlee ministry|post-war Labour government]], 1945–51; Sir [[Stafford Cripps]] was [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]], 1947–50.</ref> and complained, after Churchill's election in 1951, that "the Conservative Party have never put the clock back a single second".<ref>Donaldson, p. 15</ref> Waugh never voted in elections; in 1959, he expressed a hope that the Conservatives would win the election, which they did, but would not vote for them, saying "I should feel I was morally inculpated in their follies" and added: "I do not aspire to advise my sovereign in her choice of servants".<ref>"Aspirations of a Mugwump", first published in ''[[The Spectator]]'', 2 October 1959, reprinted in Gallagher (ed.), p. 537. A "mugwump" is defined in Collins English Dictionary (2nd ed. 2005), p. 1068 as a politically neutral or independent person.</ref>

Waugh's Catholicism was fundamental: "The Church&nbsp;... is the normal state of man from which men have disastrously exiled themselves."<ref>Unpublished letter to [[Edward Sackville-West, 5th Baron Sackville|Edward Sackville-West]], 2 July 1948, quoted in Hastings, p. 503</ref> He believed that the Catholic Church was the last, great defence against the encroachment of the Dark Age being ushered in by the [[welfare state]] and the spreading of [[working-class culture]].<ref name= H503>Hastings, pp. 503–509</ref> Strictly observant, Waugh admitted to Diana Cooper that his most difficult task was how to square the obligations of his faith with his indifference to his fellow men.<ref>Cooper (ed.), p. 88</ref> When Nancy Mitford asked him how he reconciled his often objectionable conduct with being a Christian, Waugh replied that "were he not a Christian he would be even more horrible".<ref>Unpublished letter from Nancy Mitford to Pamela Berry, 17 May 1950, quoted in Hastings, p. 505</ref>

Waugh's conservatism was [[aesthetics|aesthetic]] as well as political and religious. Although he praised younger writers, such as [[Angus Wilson]], [[Muriel Spark]] and [[V. S. Naipaul]], he was scornful of the 1950s writers' group known as "[[The Movement (literature)|The Movement]]". He said that the literary world was "sinking into black disaster" and that literature might die within thirty years.<ref>Patey, pp. 320–321</ref> As a schoolboy Waugh had praised [[Cubism]], but he soon abandoned his interest in artistic [[modernism]].<ref>Gallagher (ed.), p. 5</ref> In 1945, Waugh said that [[Pablo Picasso]]'s artistic standing was the result of a "mesmeric trick" and that his paintings "could not be intelligently discussed in the terms used of the civilised [[Old Masters|masters]]".<ref>Amory (ed.), p. 214</ref> In 1953, in a radio interview, he named [[Augustus Egg]] (1816–1863) as a painter for whom he had particular esteem.{{refn|Excerpts from the text of the broadcast, on 16 November 1953, are given in the 1998 Penguin Books edition of ''The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold'', pp. 135–143|group= n}} Despite their political differences, Waugh came to admire [[George Orwell]], because of their shared patriotism and sense of [[morality]].<ref>Lebedoff, pp. 161–162, 175–177</ref> Orwell in turn commented that Waugh was "about as good a novelist as one can be&nbsp;... while holding untenable opinions".<ref>{{cite journal |author-link=Christopher Hitchens |last=Hitchens |first=Christopher |title=The Permanent Adolescent |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2003/05/hitchens.htm |journal=The Atlantic Monthly |date=May 2003}} (Hitchens is quoting Orwell.)</ref>

Waugh has been criticised for expressing [[racialism|racial]] and [[anti-Semitism|anti-semitic]] prejudices. Wykes describes Waugh's anti-semitism as "his most persistently noticeable nastiness", and his assumptions of [[white superiority]] as "an illogical extension of his views on the naturalness and rightness of [[hierarchy]] as the principle of social organization".<ref>Wykes, p. 82</ref>