Modern Living: Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)

The Beauty of His Malice

IT was like a scene from an early novel by Evelyn Waugh. An intellectual dandy, hardly a year out of Oxford and already weary of the world, dashed off a suicide note in classical Greek and then, as a mauve moon rose, swam wistfully out to sea. Not far out, however, his reveries of picturesque quietus were interrupted by a slight sting on his shoulder. A jellyfish! Shuddering in revulsion, he floundered to shore, jumped into his clothes and hurried home to bed.

The jellyfish soon forgot the whole affair, but...