Excerpt from an E-mail--Evelyn Waugh on being a Catholic

In writing an e-mail this morning I had cause to find this anecdote, and because this blog serves as a back-up for my deplorably poor memory, I post it here to find it once again.

According to a literary anecdote, the author Nancy Mitford had asked Waugh how he could behave so abominably and yet still consider himself a practicing Catholic. "You have no idea," had Waugh replied, "how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being."

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