BOOKS
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"Happiest," as he says, "in the company of the European upper–
classes," his tone, emotional range, and the breadth of his sym–
pathies are all oppressively restricted by that preference. Over the
course of six hundred pages he becomes what would surely most
appall him if he knew: boring.
The astringent ironies he lavishes on the flawed humanity
around him do not extend to his passionately held Catholicism, to
which he converted in 1930 . The purity of his belief and the reveren–
tial way in which he speaks about it clash markedly with the arro–
gance and insensitivity that characterized much of his own secular
existence. The same man who laments that he didn't enjoy the
fifteen-year-old Arab
girl
he bought for ten francs because "she had
skin like sandpaper and a huge stomach which didn't show until she
took off her clothes," is also capable of explaining to Lady Diana
Cooper that "Prayer is not asking but giving," and that she must
believe "in the Incarnation
&
Redemption in the full historical sense
in which you believe in the battle of EI Alamein." His glowing faith
seems to emphasize , rather than obscure, his human limitations. It
is also part of an unattractive self-righteousness with which he bela–
bors those who don't share his beliefs . "I am by nature a bully and a
scold," he writes to Penelope Betjeman, to explain his excoriation of
John for his refusal to see his way to Roman Catholicism. And he
comforts Ann Fleming on the death of her husband Ian by urging
her not to marry again for the sake of her son. "Widowhood is a
dignified estate
&
one specially blessed by the Church," he assures
her.
The imperious ease with which he offers instruction is not lim–
ited to those who do not embrace his religious convictions. His own
beloved Laura is castigated for writing letters that are not quite up to
snuff:
Darling Laura, sweet whiskers, do try to write me better letters.
Your last , dated 19 December received today, so eagerly
expected, was a bitter disappointment. Do realize that a letter
need not be a bald chronicle of events; I know you lead a dull
life now, my heart bleeds for it. ... But that is no reason to
make your letters as dull as your life. I simply am not interested
in Bridget's children. Do grasp that.
Fortunately Laura was capable of improvement, and it is with a strong
sense of relief that we fmd her next effort is graded"a much better one."
