I have just finished reading two very interesting book reviews. The first is a review in the Wall Street Journal ofConstance by Franny Moyles, a recent biography of Oscar Wilde’s long suffering wife. I find Constance Wilde fascinating and the review disclosed a few facts bout her life of which I was unaware.
 
The second review was Evelyn Waugh’s review of Chesterton: Man and Masks by Gary Wills, originally published in the National Review on April 22, 1961. I must have read this review before because I believe that I quote from it in my book, Literary Converts. As I read it this time, the sense of déjà vu struck me as I read Waugh’s appraisal of Chesterton’s oeuvre in general and of The Everlasting Man in particular. As for Wills’ book, I agree with Waugh’s assessment of its confused muddledness. I read it before I moved to the States and before I had any idea of Wills’ descent into the secular abyss. Indeed, I see this early book (I believe it was Wills’ first) as providing prophetic evidence of Wills’ pride and confusion, a lethal combination which invarably leads a man into the dead marshes of despair. To pun on the title of a well known English folk song, despair is the proud man’s foggy, foggy due!